"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There
was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again
when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and
the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent
any one from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus
may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent
whomsoever.
"I, therefore, say I concur in the action of the people of
Mississippi, believing it to be necessary and proper, and should
have been bound by their action if my belief had been otherwise;
and this brings me to the important point which I wish, on this
last occasion, to present to the Senate. It is by this
confounding of nullification and secession that the name of a
great man whose ashes now mingle with his mother earth has been
evoked to justify coercion against a seceded State. The phrase,
'to execute the laws,' was an expression which General Jackson
applied to the case of a State refusing to obey the laws while
yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now
presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States,
and upon the people of the United States. They have no relation
to any foreign country. It is a perversion of terms--at least,
it is a great misapprehension of the case--which cites that
expression for application to a State which has withdrawn from
the Union.
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