compact, has a right to judge of an infraction of the Constitution or any other grievance, and, upon its own volition, withdraw from the Confederacy. I will here read a letter of Mr. Madison to Nicholas P. Trist, in explanation of this very proposition:

"MONTPELIER, December 23, 1832.

"DEAR SIR: I have received yours of the 19th, inclosing some South Carolina papers. There are in one of them some interesting views of the doctrine of secession, among which is one that had occurred to me, and which for the first time I have seen in print, namely: that if one State can at will withdraw from the others, the others can withdraw from her, and turn her, nolentem volentem, out of the Union.

"Until of late there is not a State that would have abhorred such a doctrine more than South Carolina, or more dreaded an application of it to herself. The same may be said of the doctrine of nullification, which she now preaches as the only doctrine by which the Union can be saved.

"I partake of the wonder that the men you name should view secession in the light mentioned. The essential difference between a free government and a government not free is, that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them, therefore, can have a greater right to break off from the bargain than the other or others have to hold him to it; and certainly there is nothing in the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice.

"The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party with the parties to the constitutional compact of the United States. The latter, having made the compact, may do what they will with it. The former, as one of the parties, owes fidelity to it till released by consent or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power

created. In the Virginia Resolutions and report the plural number (States) is in every instance used whenever reference is made to the authority which presided over the Government."

He says the plural is used; that "States" is the word that is used; and when we turn to the resolution we find it just as Mr. Madison represents it, thereby excluding the idea that a State can separately and alone determine the question, and have the right to secede from the Union.

"As I am now known to have drawn those documents, I may say, as I do with a distinct recollection, that it was intentional. It was in fact required by the course of reasoning employed on the occasion. The Kentucky Resolutions, being less guarded, have been more easily perverted. The pretext for the liberty taken with those of Virginia is toe word ' respective' prefixed to the 'rights,' &c., to be secured within the States. Could the abuse of the expression have been foreseen or suspected, the form of it would doubtless have been varied. But what can be more consistent with common sense than that all having the rights, &c., should unite in contending for the security of them to each ?

"It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers, who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips whenever his authority is ever so clearly and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe and Carrington (pp. 43 and 203, vol. 2) with respect to the power of the old Congress to coerce delinquent States; and his reason for preferring for the purpose a naval to a military force; and, moreover, his remark that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact. It is high time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion, and I am glad

to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.

"I know nothing of what is passing at Richmond more than what is seen in the newspapers. You were right in your foresight of the effect of passages in the late proclamation. They have proven a leaven for much fermentation there, and created an alarm against the danger of consolidation balancing that of disunion.

"With cordial salutations, "NICHOLAS P. TRIST."

JAMES MADISON.

I have another letter of Mr. Madison, written in 1833, sustaining and carrying out the same interpretation of the resolutions of 1798 and 1799. I desire to read some extracts from that letter. Mr. Madison says:

"Much use has been made of the term 'respective' in the third resolution of Virginia, which asserts the right of the States, in cases of sufficient magnitude, to interpose 'for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities,' &c., appertaining to them; the term 'respective' being construed to mean a constitutional right in each State, separately, to decide on and resist by force encroachments within its limits. A foresight or apprehension of the misconstruction might easily have guarded against it. But, to say nothing of the distinction between ordinary and extreme cases, it is observable that in this, as in other instances throughout the resolutions, the plural number (States) is used in referring to them; that a concurrence and coöperation of all might well be contemplated in interpositions for effecting the objects within reach; and that the language of the closing resolution corresponds with this view of the third. The course of reasoning in the report on the resolutions required the distinction between a State and the States.

"It surely does not follow, from the fact of the States, or rather the people embodied in them, having, as parties to the constitutional compact, no tribunal above them, that, in controverted meanings of the compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide against the majority, still less that a single party can decide against the rest, and as little that it can at will withdraw itself altogether from its compact with the rest. "The characteristic distinction between free governments and governments not free, is that the former are founded on compact, not between the government and those for whom it acts, but among the parties creating the government. Each of these being equal, neither can have more right to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargain. An inference from the doctrine that a single State has a right to secede at will from the rest, is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable anywhere, and nowhere less so than where it is now most contended for."

When these letters are put together they are clear and conclusive. Take the resolutions; take the report; take Mr. Madison's expositions of them in 1832 and 1833; his letter to Mr. Trist; his letter to Mr. Webster; his letter to Mr. Rives; and when all are summed up, this doctrine of a State, either assuming her highest political attitude or otherwise, having the right, of her own will, to dissolve all connection with this Confederacy, is an absurdity, and contrary to the plain intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. I hold that the Constitution of the United States

makes no provision, as said by the President of the United States, for its own destruction. It makes no provision for breaking up the Government, and no State has the constitutional right to secede and withdraw from the Union.

In July, 1788, when the Constitution of the United States was before the convention of New York for ratification, Mr. Madison was in the city. of New York. Mr. Hamilton, who was in the convention, wrote a letter to Mr. Madison to know if New York could be admitted into the Union, with certain reservations or conditions. One of those reservations or conditions was, as Mr. Hamilton says in his letter, that they should have the privilege of receding within five or seven years if certain alterations and amendments were not made to the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Madison, in reply to that letter, makes use of the following emphatic language, which still further corroborates and carries out the idea that the Constitution makes no provision for breaking up the Government, and that no State has a right to secede. Mr. Madison says:

"NEW YORK, Sunday Evening. "MY DEAR SIR: Yours of yesterday is this instant come to hand, and I have but a few minutes to answer it. I am sorry that your situation obliges you to listen to propositions of the nature you describe. My opinion is, that a reservation of a right to withdraw if amendments be not decided on under the form of the Constitution within a certain time, is a conditional ratification; that it does not make New York a mem