tion of all society, to secure it all governments of all kinds were instituted, and upon its preservation depends sovereignty itself. Upon it rests the efficacy even of this holy right of Revolution; for unless man can confide in his fellow, resistance of power would be vain; nor can any one confide in another, if their mutual pledges may be broken by one and remain obligatory upon the other, against his will.
The assertion by a State, of this right of declaring a broken covenant no longer obligatory upon itself or its people, does not necessarily produce any other effect, than their absolution from all the obligations formerly imposed upon them by the covenant while it subsisted as such. It leaves them, in the same plight as to the matter of the covenant, in which they were before it was entered into; int he same predicament in which they would have been if it had never existed.
The covenant, as to the party making such a declaration, becomes a mere nullity, without even any moral obligation upon that party, who, in declaring its exemption from all the former obligations of the covenant, so abandons thereafter, all shadow of claim to any privilege, right or benefit, to which, it might have been entitled under it.
The assertion, involves no breach of faith on the part of the State declaring the covenant broken by the other parties—so far from it, it affirms a breach of faith by them; and, as in the case of France, it so justifies the act of declaring its absolution from obligations already violated by others. It disturbs no relations subsisting between any other independent of itself, but leaves to them, the full and free exercise of all the rights and privileges which the party vacating the covenant has claimed and exerted for itself alone.
If they are so content to abide by the broken covenant still, they are free to do so, whether they think it has been violated or not.
If they choose to follow the example set, they have the same right to do so, as was exercised by those who set the example.
To the Moralist, or the Jurist, or the Publicist, these well-settled propositions need no illustration by any example. To others, I will give only one, found in our own history. The thirteenth of the old Articles of Confederation, declared, that "the
