The natural converse of _accession_ is _secession_; and, therefore, when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the Union, it may be more plausibly argued that they may secede from it. If, in adopting the Constitution, nothing was done but acceding to a compact, nothing would seem necessary, in order to break it up, but to secede from the same compact. But the term is wholly out of place. _Accession_, as a word applied to political associations, implies coming into a league, treaty, or confederacy, by one hitherto a stranger to it; and _secession_ implies departing from such league or confederacy. The people of the United States have used no such form of expression in establishing the present government. They do not say that they _accede_ to a league, but they declare that they _ordain_ and _establish_ a Constitution. Such are the very words of the instrument itself; and in all the States, without an exception, the language used by their conventions was, that they "_ratified the Constitution_"; some of them employing the additional words "assented to" and "adopted," but all of them "ratifying." There is more importance than may, at first sight, appear, in the introduction of this new word, by the honorable mover of these resolutions. Its adoption and use are indispensable to maintain those premises from which his main conclusion is to be afterwards drawn. But before showing that, allow me to remark, that this phraseology tends to keep out of sight the just view of a previous political history, as well as to suggest wrong ideas as to what was actually done when the present Constitution was agreed to. In 1789, and before this Constitution was adopted, the United States had already been in a union, more or less close, for fifteen years. At least as far back as the meeting of the first Congress, in 1774, they had been in some measure, and for some national purposes, united together. Before the Confederation of 1781, they had declared independence jointly, and had carried on the war jointly, both by sea and land; and this not as separate States, but as one people. When, therefore, they formed that Confederation, and adopted its articles as articles of perpetual union, they did not come together for the first time; and therefore they did not speak of the States as _acceding_ to the Confederation, although it was a league, and nothing but a league, and rested on nothing but plighted faith for its performance. Yet, even then, the States were not strangers to each other; there was a bond of union already subsisting between them; they were associated, united States; and the object of the Confederation was to make a stronger and better bond of union. Their representatives deliberated together on these proposed Articles of Confederation, and being authorized by their respective States, finally "_ratified and confirmed_" them. Inasmuch as they were already in union, they did not speak of _acceding_ to the new Articles of