The Union was not “a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties,” said Buchanan. “We the People” had adopted the Constitution to form “a more perfect Union” than the one existing under the Articles of Confederation, which had stated that “the Union shall be perpetual.” The framers of the national government “never intended to implant in its bosom the seeds of its own destruction, nor were they guilty of the absurdity of providing for its own dissolution.”
