“Here we may see the manner in which the Union will be dissolved—viz., the secession of any State which, considering its interest, property, or jurisdiction menaced, may no longer choose to send deputies to Congress. This is a great defect in the Bond of Union, which has not, perhaps, been very generally noticed, cloaked as it is under article 1st, section 5th of the Constitution, which states ‘that where there are not present, of either House, members sufficient to form a quorum to do business, a smaller number may be authorised, for the purpose of forming one, to compel the attendance of absent members.’ But this appears only to be authorised for the purpose of forming a quorum, and only extends over members actually sworn in, who, being delegated to Congress by the States they represent, are subjected to whatever rules of proceeding and penalties each House may provide, with the concurrence of two-thirds of its members. But there is nothing obligatory upon the several ‘Sovereign States’ to send members to Congress, or to prevent those sent from being withdrawn. The ‘Sovereign States’ have never bound themselves to do either; so that the process of dissolution in this way is very simple, and the danger imminent of a separation being thus effected, whenever the interests of any particular State or States are touched by the Government, or brought into discussion in Congress, although those interests may be outvoted by the preponderating influence of other States having different interests. But the State or States which are to suffer will not, it is clear, send members to vote their own injury or ruin; and it may safely be pronounced, from what I have shown in this paper, that this is the manner in which the American Union will come to a natural death.”