The Long Roll | Page 3

and manner of redress.
The States, each for itself, exercised this sovereign power when they
dissolved their connection with the British Empire.
They exercised the same power when nine of the States seceded from
the Confederation and adopted the present Constitution, though two
States at first rejected it.
The Articles of Confederation stipulated that those articles should be
inviolably observed by every State, and that the Union should be
perpetual, and that no alteration should be made unless agreed to by
Congress and confirmed by every State.
Notwithstanding this solemn compact, a portion of the States did,
without the consent of the others, form a new compact; and there is
nothing to show, or by which it can be shown, that this right has been,
or can be, diminished so long as the States continue sovereign.
"The right's the right of self-government--and it's inherent and
inalienable!--We fought for it--when didn't we fight for it? When we
cease to fight for it, then chaos and night!--Go on, go on!"
The Confederation was assented to by the Legislature for each State;
the Constitution by the people of each State, for such State alone. One
is as binding as the other, and no more so.
The Constitution, it is true, established a government, and it operates
directly on the individual; the Confederation was a league operating
primarily on the States. But each was adopted by the State for itself; in
the one case by the Legislature acting for the State; in the other by the
people, not as individuals composing one nation, but as composing the
distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.
The foundation, therefore, on which it was established, was FEDERAL,
and the State, in the exercise of the same sovereign authority by which

she ratified for herself, may for herself abrogate and annul.
The operation of its powers, whilst the State remains in the
Confederacy, is NATIONAL; and consequently a State remaining in the
Confederacy and enjoying its benefits cannot, by any mode of
procedure, withdraw its citizens from the obligation to obey the
Constitution and the laws passed in pursuance thereof.
But when a State does secede, the Constitution and laws of the United
States cease to operate therein. No power is conferred on Congress to
enforce them. Such authority was denied to the Congress in the
convention which framed the Constitution, because it would be an act
of war of nation against nation--not the exercise of the legitimate
power of a government to enforce its laws on those subject to its
jurisdiction.
The assumption of such a power would be the assertion of a
prerogative claimed by the British Government to legislate for the
Colonies in all cases whatever; it would constitute of itself a dangerous
attack on the rights of the States, and should be promptly repelled.
There was a great thunder of assent. "That is our doctrine--bred in the
bone--dyed in the weaving! Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Washington,
Henry--further back yet, further back--back to Magna Charta!"
These principles, resulting from the nature of our system of confederate
States, cannot admit of question in Virginia.
In 1788 our people in convention, by their act of ratification, declared
and made known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being
derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them
whenever they shall be perverted to their injury and oppression.
From what people were these powers derived? Confessedly from the
people of each State, acting for themselves. By whom were they to be
resumed or taken back? By the people of the State who were then
granting them away. Who were to determine whether the powers
granted had been perverted to their injury or oppression? Not the

whole people of the United States, for there could be no oppression of
the whole with their own consent; and it could not have entered into the
conception of the Convention that the powers granted could not be
resumed until the oppressor himself united in such resumption.
They asserted the right to resume in order to guard the people of
Virginia, for whom alone the Convention could act, against the
oppression of an irresponsible and sectional majority, the worst form
of oppression with which an angry Providence has ever afflicted
humanity.
Whilst therefore we regret that any State should, in a matter of common
grievance, have determined to act for herself without consulting with
her sister States equally aggrieved, we are nevertheless constrained to
say that the occasion justifies and loudly calls for action of some
kind....
In view therefore of the present condition of our country, and the
causes of it, we declare almost in the words of our fathers, contained in
an address of the freeholders of Botetourt, in February, 1775, to the
delegates from Virginia to the