But we know what the _Constitution_
is; we know what the plainly written fundamental law is; we know what
the bond of our Union and the security of our liberties is; and we mean
to maintain and to defend it, in its plain sense and unsophisticated
meaning.
The sense of the gentleman's proposition, therefore, is not at all
affected, one way or the other, by the use of this word. That
proposition still is, that our system of government is but a _compact_
between the people of separate and sovereign States.
Was it Mirabeau, Mr. President, or some other master of the human
passions, who has told us that words are things? They are indeed things,
and things of mighty influence, not only in addresses to the passions
and high-wrought feelings of mankind, but in the discussion of legal and
political questions also; because a just conclusion is often avoided, or
a false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one phrase, or one
word, for another. Of this we have, I think, another example in the
resolutions before us.
The first resolution declares that the people of the several States
"_acceded_" to the Constitution, or to the constitutional compact, as it
is called. This word "accede," not found either in the Constitution
itself, or in the ratification of it by any one of the States, has been
chosen for use here, doubtless, not without a well-considered purpose.
The natural converse of _accession_ is _secession_; and, therefore, when
it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the Union, it may
be more plausibly argued that they may secede from it.
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