That they did so
is to be found in the debates both of the General and the State
Conventions, where State interposition was often declared to be the
bulwark against usurpation.
At an early period in the history of the Federal Government, the States
of Kentucky and Virginia found reason to reassert this right of State
interposition. In the first of the famous resolutions drawn by Mr.
Jefferson in 1798, and with some modification adopted by the Legislature
of Kentucky in November of that year, it is declared that, "whensoever
the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
_unauthoritative, void, and of no force_; that to this compact each
State acceded as a State, and is an integral party; that this
Government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final
judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would
have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its
powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having
no common judge, _each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as
well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress_."
In the Virginia resolutions, drawn by Mr. Madison, adopted on the 24th
of December, 1798, and reaffirmed in 1799, the General Assembly of that
State declares that "it views the powers of the Federal Government as
resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited
by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that
compact, as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants
enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable,
and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact,
the States, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty
bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits the authorities, rights, and
liberties, appertaining to them.
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