The States without the Union
cease to exist as political communities: the Union without the
States ceases to be a Union, and becomes a vast centralized and
consolidated state, ready to lapse from a civilized into a
barbaric, from a republican to a despotic nation.
The State, under the American system, as distinguished from
Territory, is not in the domain and population fixed to it, nor
yet in its exterior organization, but solely in the political
powers, rights, and franchises which it holds from the United
States, or as one of the United States. As these are rights, not
obligations, the State may resign or abdicate them and cease to
be a State, on the same principle that any man may abdicate or
forego his rights. In doing so, the State breaks no oath of
allegiance, fails to fulfil no obligation she contracted as a
State: she simply forgoes her political rights and franchises.
So far, then, secession is possible, feasible, and not
unconstitutional or unlawful. But it is, as Mr. Sumner and
others have maintained, simply State suicide. Nothing hinders a
State from committing suicide, if she chooses, any more than
there was something which compelled the Territory to become a
State in the Union against its will.
It is objected to, this conclusion that the States were, prior to
the Union, independent sovereign States, and secession would not
destroy the State, but restore it to its original sovereignty and
independence, as the secessionists maintain.
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