The right to secede
may be a revolutionary right, _but it exists nevertheless_; and we do
not see how one party can have _a right to do what another party has a
right to prevent_. We must ever resist the asserted right of any State
to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof: _to
withdraw from the Union is quite another matter_. And, whenever a
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out,
_we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep her in. We hope
never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue
by bayonets_."[132]
The only liberty taken with this extract has been that of presenting
certain parts of it in italics. Nothing that has ever been said by the
author of this work, in the foregoing chapters, on the floor of the
Senate, or elsewhere, more distinctly asserted the right of secession.
Nothing that has been quoted from Hamilton, or Madison, or Marshall, or
John Quincy Adams, more emphatically repudiates the claim of right to
restrain or coerce a State in the exercise of its free choice. Nothing
that has been said since the war which followed could furnish a more
striking condemnation of its origin, prosecution, purposes, and results.
A comparison of the sentiments above quoted, with the subsequent career
of the party, of which that journal was and long had been the recognized
organ, would exhibit a striking incongruity and inconsistency.
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