dependent capacity, through a convention of its people. And it was by this ratification that the Constitution was established, to use its own words, 'between the States so ratifying the same.' It is then a compact between the States as sovereigns, and the Union created by it is a federal partnership of States, the Federal Government being their common agent for the transaction of the Federal business within the limits of the delegated powers."
LAW OF CO-PARTNERSHIPS.
This able writer then illustrates the compact between the States by the principles of law governing ordinary co-partnerships. Just as Mr. Webster did. And he then says:
"Now, if a partnership between persons is purely voluntary, and subject to the will of its members severally, how much more so is one between sovereign States? and it follows that, just as each, separately, in the exercise of its sovereign will, entered the Union, so may it separately, in the exercise of that will, withdraw therefrom. And further, the Constitution being a compact, to which the States are parties, 'having no common judge,' 'each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode of measure and redress,' as declared by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison in the celebrated resolutions of '98, and the right of secession irresistibly follows."
"But aside from the doctrine either of partnership or compact, upon the ground of State sovereignty pure and simple, does the right of secession impregnably rest."
We have quoted thus fully from this writer not only because he is a Northern man, but because he has stated both the facts and the principles underlying the formation of the Union, and the rights of the States therein, with an accuracy, clearness and force, that cannot be surpassed.
But again: In his life of Webster, published in 1899, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, from whom we have before quoted, and who is at this time one of the distinguished senators from Massachusetts, uses this language in speaking of Mr. Webster's reply to Mr. Hayne. He says:
