fine world we should have, if we could only come quietly together in convention, and declare by unanimous resolution, or even by a two-thirds’ vote, that edge-tools should hereafter cut everybody’s fingers but his that played with them,—­that, when two men ride on one horse, the hindmost shall always sit in front,—­and that, when a man tries to thrust his partner out of bed and gets kicked out himself, he shall be deemed to have established his title to an equitable division, and the bed shall be thenceforth his as of right, without detriment to the other’s privilege in the floor!

If secession be a right, then the moment of its exercise is wholly optional with those possessing it.  Suppose, on the eve of a war with England, Michigan should vote herself out of the Union and declare herself annexed to Canada, what kind of a reception would her Commissioners be likely to meet in Washington, and what scruples should we feel about coercion?  Or, to take a case precisely parallel to that of South Carolina,—­suppose that Utah, after getting herself admitted to the Union, should resume her sovereignty, as it is pleasantly called, and block our path to the Pacific, under the pretence that she did not consider her institutions safe while the other States entertained such unscriptural prejudices against her special weakness in the patriarchal line.  Is the only result of our admitting a Territory on Monday to be the giving it a right to steal itself and go out again on Tuesday?  Or do only the original thirteen States possess this precious privilege of suicide?  We shall need something like a Fugitive Slave Law for runaway republics, and must get a provision inserted in our treaties with foreign powers, that they shall help us catch any delinquent who may take refuge with them, as South Carolina has been trying to do with England and France.  It does not matter to the argument, except so far as the good taste of the proceeding is concerned, at what particular time a State may make her territory foreign, thus opening one gate of our national defences and offering a bridge to invasion.  The danger of the thing is in her making her territory foreign under any circumstances; and it is a danger which the Government must prevent, if only for self-preservation.  Within the limits of the Constitution two sovereignties cannot coexist; and yet what practical odds does it make, if a State becomes sovereign by simply declaring herself so?  The legitimate consequence of secession is, not that a State becomes sovereign, but that, so far as the General Government is concerned, she has outlawed herself, nullified her own existence as a State, and become an aggregate of riotous men who resist the execution of the laws.