§ 76. The debate in the present case was somewhat different in its details. The Achæan League, a number of small cities situated upon a coast exposed to pirates, and able to foresee from lofty posts the coming raid, united voluntarily for attack and defence, and so formed a Confederacy, which lasted a long time before the wealth gained by its members as mercenaries and the decay of the greater Powers of Greece brought it into prominence[181:1]. These cities had a common executive and a sort of cabinet, preparing the business for the general Assembly, which met for three days twice a year, and then decisions were obtained from this Assembly and measures ratified by its votes. But as the more distant members could not attend in great numbers, the members of each city present, whether few or many, gave that city's vote, which counted as an unit in the Confederacy. The result was of course to put political power into the hands of the richer classes, who had leisure to leave their own affairs and go regularly to the Assembly at Ægion[181:2]. [Sidenote: Statement of the new difficulty] The difficulties which now arose were these: Had any of the original twelve towns, that had voluntarily formed this Union, the right to withdraw their adhesion? In a lesser degree, had the towns that afterwards joined in consequence of the pressure of circumstances, but by a deliberate and public vote, a right to rescind that vote? And in a still less degree, had any town which had subscribed to the Achæan constitution any right to violate its observance in one point, as by negotiating separately with another State, or was it bound to observe in all respects the terms imposed by the Union from which it was not allowed to secede? [Sidenote: in its clearest form never yet settled except by force.] The first of these cases is by far the most perplexing, and I am not aware that it has ever been settled by any argument better than an appeal to force. To the Greeks, at all events, it seemed that the right of autonomy--the power to manage one's own affairs--was the inalienable right of every _city_; just as the Irish Nationalists may be heard daily asserting it for every _nation_[182:1]. [Sidenote: Case of the American Union.] In our own youth we heard this right far more seriously urged by the seceding States of the American Union, some of which had been members of the first combination, and had voluntarily ceded certain portions of their political rights, at least their theoretical rights, in return for the protection and support of the Confederation as a whole. These States argued that if the Union began to interfere in the domestic concerns of each,--such, for example, as the practice of permitting household slaves,--it was a breach of contract, and justified the State in formally repudiating the remainder of the contract. But even had there been no encroachment by new legislation, the Greek city claimed the right of returning to its isolated independence.