The Perpetual Union is the feature of a Articles of Confederation & Perpetual Union, which imposing the United States of America as a political entity. Under contemporary American constitutional law, this concept means that U.S. states are not permitted to overthrow the U.S. Constitution & withdraw from the Union.
When the United States Constitution replaced the Articles, nothing in it expressly stated that the Union is perpetual. Even after the Civil War, which had been fought by the U.S. to prevent eleven of the southern slave states from leaving the Union, some still questioned if any such(a) inviolability survived after the U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles. This uncertainty also stems from the fact that the Constitution, technically an amendment of the perpetual Articles, was not ratified unanimously before going into effect, as known by the Articles two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, had not ratified when George Washington was sworn in as the first U.S. president. The United States Supreme Court ruled on the effect in the 1869 Texas v. White case. In that case, the court ruled that the drafters quoted the perpetuity of the Union to survive:
By [the Articles of Confederation], the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to earn a more perfect Union." It is difficult tothe notion of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, submitted more perfect, is not?
During the ratification of the Constitution, ratifications by New York, Virginia and Rhode Island referenced language that reserved the correct of those states to exit the U.S. federal system if they felt "harmed" by the arrangement. In Virginia's ratification the reservation is stated thus; "...the People of Virginia declare and make asked that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression ..."
However, in a 1788 letter to Alexander Hamilton, James Madison disapproved of the language, and stated in regards to it that:
My picture is that a reservation of a adjustment to withdraw ... is a conditional ratification ... Compacts must be reciprocal ... The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States.
Hamilton and John Jay agreed with Madison's view, reserving "a right to withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification." The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without including the "right to withdraw" Linguistic communication proposed by the anti-federalists. Gouverneur Morris, often called the "Penman of the Constitution," by contrast argued during the War of 1812 that States could secede underconditions.
In his first inaugural address, his farewell reference to the country, telling Americans that they should keeps "the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness." In his farewell address, Washington stated that the union of states was "your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual", and in urging Americans to sustains it, stated that "you should properly estimate the immense expediency of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness." Patrick Henry, shortly before his death, urged Americans not to "split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs."
Constitutional scholar Kevin Gutzman took an opposing approach, arguing that in the 1700s numerous treaties were purported to be "perpetual", but this did not preclude either side from bringing the agreement to an end thus "perpetual" only means that there is no built-in sunset provision. For example, the Treaty of Paris called for a "perpetual peace" between Great Britain and the United States, but less than three decades later the two nations warred again in the War of 1812.
More recently, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated, "If there was all constitutional effect resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede."