But when it is recollected that, in no distant day, every state will either be an outlet for other states to the ocean, or the medium of communication for those lying on each side of it, it would be according to all experience to presume that they will not regard a question thus directly affecting their _interests_, as one also affecting their _rights_, and will vindicate both, by an appeal to force, if necessary: and thus the question of _separation_ will always be a question of _war_. The _constitutional_ question, which may have been previously agitated, will be drowned in the din and tumult of arms, and finally decided by the issue of the war. _Victory_ is the great arbiter of right in national disputes, and that scale of justice on which she happens to light, is almost sure to preponderate. I have been supposing the case of a single state, or even a small section of states to desire a separation. But it may be asked whether all the states may not voluntarily consent to a dissolution; or at least so large a portion as to make resistance on the part of the rest hopeless. I answer that I am not able to conceive any such general and powerful cause, nor do I know of any example of a similar voluntary disseverance in history. In every case in which an integral community, whether consolidated or confederate, has been separated, it has been by violence, and commonly external violence--either by one nation, subjugating another, or by some successful leader succeeding by his arts and talents in arraying one part against the rest: or the parts of a great empire have been partitioned among the descendants or legatees of the last occupant--none of which causes of separation can be expected to operate here. It is indeed a conceivable thing for some prominent and popular individual to excite a particular state to discontent, and finally to civil war; and although we have happily had no example of such flagitiousness, we have seen enough to make us think it possible: yet whatever may be the supposed success of such men at home, there will always be many counteractions to their influence in the adjoining states, and in the same degree that the agitator is a popular idol in his own state, he will be an object of suspicion in the adjoining states, who will judge of him by his actions, unaffected by his arts or the imposing lustre of his personal qualities.