If the Government is the result of a union of States, then these States
must be separate, sovereign, and distinct, to be able to form a union,
which is entirely an act of their own volition. Such a government as
ours had no power to maintain its existence any longer than the
contracting parties pleased to cohere, because it was founded on the
great principle of voluntary federation, and organized "to establish
justice and insure domestic tranquillity."[173] Any departure from this
principle by the General Government not only perverts and destroys its
nature, but furnishes a just cause to the injured State to withdraw from
the union. A new union might subsequently be formed, but the original
one could never by coercion be restored. Any effort on the part of the
others to force the seceding State to consent to come back is an attempt
at subjugation. It is a wrong which no lapse of time or combination of
circumstances can ever make right. A forced union is a political
absurdity. No less absurd is President Lincoln's effort to dissever the
sovereignty of the people from that of the State; as if there could be a
State without a people, or a sovereign people without a State.
But the question which Mr. Lincoln presents "to the whole family of man"
deserves a further notice. The answer which he seems to infer would be
given "by the whole family of man" is that such a government as he
supposes "can maintain its territorial integrity against its own
domestic foes.
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