Such is the language, Sir, addressed to the people, while they yet had the Constitution under consideration.  The powers conferred on the new government were perfectly well understood to be conferred, not by any State, or the people of any State, but by the people of the United States.  Virginia is more explicit, perhaps, in this particular, than any other State.  Her convention, assembled to ratify the Constitution, “in the name and behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.”

Is this language which describes the formation of a compact between States? or language describing the grant of powers to a new government, by the whole people of the United States?

Among all the other ratifications, there is not one which speaks of the Constitution as a compact between States.  Those of Massachusetts and New Hampshire express the transaction, in my opinion, with sufficient accuracy.  They recognize the Divine goodness “in affording THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES an opportunity of entering into an explicit and solemn compact with each other, by assenting to and ratifying a new Constitution.”  You will observe, Sir, that it is the PEOPLE, and not the States, who have entered into this compact; and it is the PEOPLE of all the United States.  These conventions, by this form of expression, meant merely to say, that the people of the United States had, by the blessing of Providence, enjoyed the opportunity of establishing a new Constitution, founded in the consent of the people.  This consent of the people has been called, by European writers, the social compact; and, in conformity to this common mode of expression, these conventions speak of that assent, on which the new Constitution was to rest, as an explicit and solemn compact, not which the States had entered into with each other, but which the people of the United States had entered into.

Finally, Sir, how can any man get over the words of the Constitution itself?—­“WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION.”  These words must cease to be a part of the Constitution, they must be obliterated from the parchment on which they are written, before any human ingenuity or human argument can remove the popular basis on which that Constitution rests, and turn the instrument into a mere compact between sovereign States.

The second proposition, Sir, which I propose to maintain, is, that no State authority can dissolve the relations subsisting between the government of the United States and individuals; that nothing can dissolve these relations but revolution; and that, therefore, there can be no such thing as secession without revolution.  All this follows, as it seems to me, as a just consequence, if it be first proved that the Constitution of the United States is a government proper, owing protection to individuals, and entitled to their obedience.