In his 1881 “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”, Jefferson Davis revisits the words of New England orator and statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852) regarding the sovereignty of the American States.
Daniel Webster’s View of the Constitution
“Mr. Webster held the views which were presented in a memorial to Congress of citizens of Boston, December 15, 1819, relative to the admission of Missouri as a State, drawn up and signed by a committee of which he was chairman, and which also included among its members Mr. Josiah Quincy.
Mr. Webster speaks of the States as enjoying “the exclusive possession of sovereignty” over their own territory, calls the United States “the American Confederacy” refers to them “the only parties to the Constitution, contemplated by it originally, [and who] were the “thirteen confederated States.”
In letters written and addresses delivered during the Administration of Mr. [Millard] Fillmore, he repeatedly applies to the Constitution the term “compact” which, in 1833, he had so vehemently repudiated. In his speech at Capon Springs, Virginia, in 1851, he says:
“If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in doing year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound to the rest of it? And if the North were, deliberately habitually, and of fixed purpose, to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?
How absurd it is to suppose that, when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any one provision and expect, nevertheless, the other to observe the rest!”
“I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat that, if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which its respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”
(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I. Jefferson Davis. D. Appleton & Co., 1881, pp. 166-167)