Chapter 2:
The nature of the American compact.The two principal expounders of the Constitution of the United States, in the North, have been Daniel Webster and Joseph Story, both from Massachusetts. Webster was, for a long time, a Senator in Congress, and Story a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The latter has written an elaborate work on the Constitution, full of sophistry, and not always very reliable as to its facts. The great effort of both these men has been to prove, that the Constitution is not a compact between the States, but an instrument of government, formed by the people of the United States, as contradistinguished from the States. They both admit, that if the Constitution were a compact between the States, the States would have a right to withdraw from the compact—all agreements between States, in their sovereign capacity, being, necessarily, of no more binding force than treaties. These gentlemen are not always very consistent, for they frequently fall into the error of calling the Constitution a compact, when they are not arguing this particular question; in short, it is, and it is not a compact, by turns, according to the use they intend to make of the argument. Mr. Webster's doctrine of the Constitution, chiefly relied on by Northern men, is to be found in his speech of 1833, in reply to Mr. Calhoun. It is in that speech that he makes the admission, that if the Constitution of the United States is a compact between the States, the States have the right to withdraw from it at pleasure. He says, ‘If a league between sovereign powers have no limitation as to the time of duration, and contains nothing making it perpetual, it subsists only during the good pleasure of the parties, although no violation be complained of. If in the opinion of either party it be violated, such party may say he will no longer ’
