View of the Constitution of the United States. St. George Tucker
Island had never acceded to the new form of government, that circumstance, I conceive, could never have lessened the obligation upon the other states to perform those stipulations on their parts which the states, who were unwilling to change the form of the federal government, had by virtue of those articles a right to demand and insist upon. For the inadequacy of the form of government established by those articles could not be charged upon one state more than another, nor had North Carolina or Rhode Island committed any breach of them; the seceding states therefore had no cause of complaint against them. On the contrary, these states being still willing to adhere to the terms of the confederacy, had the right of complaining, if there could be any right to complain of the conduct of states endeavoring to meliorate their own condition, by establishing a different form of government. But the seceding states were certainly justified upon that principle; and from the duty which every state is acknowledged to owe to itself, and its own citizens by doing whatsoever may best contribute to advance its own happiness and prosperity; and much more, what may be necessary to the preservation of its existence as a state.30 Nor must we forget that solemn declaration to which every one of the confederate states assented . … that whenever any form of government is destructive of the ends of its institution, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. Consequently whenever the people of any state, or number of states, discovered the inadequacy of the first form of federal government to promote or preserve their independence, happiness, and union, they only exerted that natural right in rejecting it, and adopting another, which all had unanimously assented to, and of which no force or compact can deprive the people of any state, whenever they see the necessity, and possess the power to do it. And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments established by compact should not be changed for light or transient causes; but should a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evince a design in any one of the confederates to usurp a dominion over the rest; or, if those who are entrusted to administer the government, which the confederates have for their mutual convenience established, should manifest a design to invade their sovereignty, and extend their own power beyond the terms of compact, to the detriment of the states respectively, and to reduce them to a state of obedience, and finally to establish themselves in a state of permanent superiority, it then becomes not only the right, but the duty of the states respectively, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. To deny this, would be to deny to sovereign and independent states, the power which, as colonies, and dependent territories, they have mutually agreed they had a right to exercise, and did actually exercise, when they shook off the government of England, first, and adopted the present constitution of the United States, in the second instance.
Another case from which a dissolution of these confederacies may follow, may be, where from any accident, or want of concert among the confederate states, the legislative or executive authority of the federal government may happen to be suspended, so as that no legislature or executive magistrate can, for a long space of time, succeed to an exercise of the functions of the former. As if a majority of the states should refuse any longer to choose representatives, or to supply the vacancies in the senate, in either of these cases it would seem that the legislature would be destroyed; on the other hand, if it should happen that no president should be chosen at the period when a president ought to be elected, here there would be a suspension both of the legislature and the executive, inasmuch as the president is an essential constituent part of the legislative body, since all bills, before they become law, must be submitted to him for his approbation. Now whenever the administration of any government is wholly suspended, a dissolution of the government follows of course; for, as Mr. Locke observes, whenever there is no remaining power31 within the community to direct the public force, or provide for the necessities of the public, there certainly is no government left; where laws cannot be executed at all it is all one as if there were no laws. And if this be a sufficient reason for the dissolution of civil government, the reason is much stronger why it should amount to a dissolution of a federal government, whose existence is infinitely of less consequence than the former. Civil society, and civil government its cement and support, may well subsist without the aid of federal government; but they are so intimately blended, with each other, that civil society is in danger, the moment that civil government is exposed to hazard: it may, indeed, survive for a little time; as the pulsations of the heart are known to continue after every other vital function is suspended; but if they be not speedily restored, the whole animal frame perishes together.
Intestine wars are another cause which must necessarily break these unions, unless upon the establishment of peace, the league be also revived. A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations, says the author of the Federalist,32 who can seriously doubt, that if the American States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown, would have frequent and violent contests with each other. And as the prevention of such contests, was among the most cogent reasons to induce the adoption of the union, so ought it to be among the most powerful, to prevent a dissolution of it.
Conquest, where the conqueror happens to possess himself of one or two, or more of the confederate states, is another mode by which these confederacies may be dissolved; for the conqueror in this case, acquires no manner of right, over those states that remain, nor can he demand to be admitted into the confederacy, by virtue of the league which engaged the conquered states to the others, for, says Puffendorf, the alliance must always be presumed to expire, when any one people are brought under a foreign yoke, or are made an accession of another kingdom, because the league being made between free states, considered in that capacity, whenever this condition fails, the league must fail with it. But the American confederacy did not act upon these principles, when the states of Georgia and South Carolina were actually conquered by the British arms, and the British government was reestablished in them. The rest of the confederates did not abandon them in this situation, but continued the contest until Great Britain agreed to acknowledge those states, as well as the rest of their confederates, free and independent states. An example which I trust the members of that confederacy will hold in reverence for ever, even, though the guarantee of a republican form of government contained in the present federal constitution should be wholly forgotten. On the other hand, these systems do more closely unite, and are incorporated into the same civil state, either, if all the confederates, by a voluntary submission, incorporate themselves together, under the entire rule and government of some one person, or council, in all things; as in the union between England and Scotland before mentioned; or if some one state, which hath the advantage of strength and power, reduces the rest to the condition of dependent provinces. And lastly, if some particular man invade the sovereign command, through the favor of the soldiers, the esteem of the commonalty, or the strength of a prevailing faction. From which last source more danger may be apprehended to the American Confederacy, than from all the rest.
SECTION XIV.
Having in the preceding section considered the several modes by which a system, or confederacy of states may be dissolved, I shall add a few words only concerning the dissolution of civil government, which, according to Mr. Locke,33 and other writers, may happen either by conquest, and tearing up the roots of society at once, or by the public functionaries who are entrusted with the administration of the government, abusing, or betraying their trusts, and instead of consulting the happiness of the people, endeavoring to establish a model and form of government different from that which they have been entrusted to administer. All which may be summed up in the words of the American declaration of independence, “that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends for which it is instituted, it is the right of the people to alter, or to