If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must,
or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for
continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the
other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and
ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them
whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For
instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or
two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the
present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish
disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of
doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to
compose a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed
secession?
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A
majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and
limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of
popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a
free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy
or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority,
as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that,
rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some
form is all that is left.
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