He argued that a state had no legal right to secede, but denied that the federal government had any power forcibly to prevent it.
From the same usage is derived the shorter political term "cave" for any body of men who secede from their party on some special subject.
Two early commentators on the Constitution, St George Tucker in 1803 and William Rawle in 1825, declared that the sovereign states might secede at will.
The first to secede were the land powers of Greece proper, whose subordination Athens had endeavoured to guarantee by supporting the democratic parties in the various states.
Certain commercial interests of New York City favoured the Confederate cause, but MayorWood's suggestion that the city (with Long Island and Staten Island) secede and form a free-city received scant support, and after the san ' James Fenimore Cooper's novels Satanstoe (1845), The Chainbearer (1845) and The Redskins (1846) preach the anti-rent doctrine.
