But both are wrong.
If the several States of the Union were severally sovereign
states when they met in the convention, they are so now; and the
constitution is only an agreement or compact between sovereigns,
and the United States are, as Mr. Calhoun maintained, only a
confederation of sovereign states, and not a single state or one
political community.
But if the sovereignty persists in the States severally, any
State, saving its faith, may whenever it chooses to do so,
withdraw from the Union, absolve its subjects from all obligation
to the Federal authorities, and make it treason in them to adhere
to the Federal government. Secession is, then, an incontestable
right; not a right held under the constitution or derived from
the convention but a right held prior to it, independently of it,
inherent in the State sovereignty, and inseparable from it. The
State is bound by the constitution of the Union only while she is
in it, and is one of the States united. In ratifying the
constitution she did not part with her sovereignty, or with any
portion of it, any more than France has parted with her
sovereignty, and ceased to be an independent sovereign nation, by
vesting the imperial power in Napoleon III. and his legitimate
heirs male. The principal parts not with his power to his agent,
for the agent is an agent only by virtue of the continued power
of the principal.
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