Ceremonies at Unveiling of Stahie of General Lee. Yl
contract " or implied covenant, which created "that great Leviathan called the commonwealth of State."
The right of secession, even in the form of revolution, had no place, however, in the theory of Hobbes, because he held that this " original contract " was irrevocable, and thus laid for despotism a firmer foundation than that which he had destroyed.
Locke made a prodigious advance. Adopting Hobbes' theory that political authority was derived from the consent of the governed, he repudiated the doctrine of irrevocability, and held that the power of rulers was merely delegated, and that the people, or the governed, had the right to withdraw it when used for purposes inconsistent with the common weal, the end which society and government were formed to promote. By thus recognizing the responsibility of rulers to their subjects for the due execution of their trusts, and the right of resistance by the people in case of abuse thereof, he established the sacred right of revolution, in the assertion of which the people of England expelled the Stuarts from the throne, and the American colonies established their independence.
On emerging from a revolution in which their rights of self-gov- ernment had been so strenuously denied, in which they had endured such sufferings and perils, and had so narrowly escaped from com- plete subjugation, it might naturally be expected that in thereafter establishing a general government among themselves, the colonies would have been careful in guarding the nature and terms of their consent thereto and in leaving open a safe and peaceful mode of retiring therefrom, whenever, in their judgment, it should endanger their rights or cease to promote their welfare. Their experience had taught them the danger, difficulty, and possible inadequacy of the mere right of revolution.
Accordingly, we find that in the Federal Governments, which they instituted, both in the articles of confederation and in the constitution of 1789, they assiduously guarded and restricted the consent upon which alone the authority of these governments rested, and, "to make assurance doubly sure," distinctly provided that all powers, not ex- pressly delegated, were reserved to the States.
The question of the right of secession had its birth prior to the formation of the present Constitution of the United States. It arose under the prior articles of confederation. Those articles, let it never be forgotten, contained an express provision that the Union of the States created thereby should be "perpetual." In view of this clause, it was vehemently contended that, without the consent of all,
