University of Virginia Library

7745. SECESSION, Local discontentedness and.—

Dangers of another kind [than
usurpation] might more reasonably be apprehended
from this perfect and distinct or

ganization, civil and military, of the States;
to wit, that certain States from local and
occasional discontents, might attempt to
secede from the Union. This is certainly
possible and would be befriended by this
regular [civil and military] organization.
But it is not probable that local discontents
can spread to such an extent as to be able to
faze the sound parts of so extensive a Union;
and if ever they should reach the majority,
they would then become the regular government,
acquire the ascendency in Congress, and
be able to redress their own grievances by
laws peaceably and constitutionally passed.
And even the States in which local discontents
might engender a commencement of
fermentation, would be paralyzed and selfchecked
by that very division into parties into
which we have fallen, into which all States
must fall wherein men are at liberty to think,
speak, and act freely, according to the
diversities of their individual conformations,
and which are, perhaps, essential to preserve
the purity of the government, by the censorship
which these parties habitually exercise over
each other.—
To Destutt Tracy. Washington ed. v, 571. Ford ed., ix, 309.
(M. 1811)