When a section blusters about its particular rights, the rest feel each of theirs to be common to all.

If a foreign nation hint at hostility, the whole Union becomes in reality united.

And thus in every contingency from which there can be danger, there is also found the element of safety." Yet, he added, "All attempts to strengthen this federal government at the expense of the States' governments must be futile....

The federal government exists on sufferance only.

Any State may at any time constitutionally withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it[32]." Even more emphatically, though with less authority, wrote one Charles Mackay, styled by the American press as a "distinguished British poet," who made the usual rapid tour of the principal cities of America in 1857-58, and as rapidly penned his impressions: "Many persons in the United States talk of a dissolution of the Union, but few believe in it....