"
The doctrine of States Rights as formulated in these Resolutions,
including the assumed right of a State to nullify laws of the General
Government, naturally led up, as we shall see, not only to threats of
disunion, but ultimately to a dreadful sectional War waged in the effort
to secure it. That Jefferson, when he penned them, foresaw the terrible
results to flow from these specious and pernicious doctrines, is not to
be supposed for an instant; but that his conscience troubled him may be
fairly inferred from the fact that he withheld from the World for twenty
years afterward the knowledge that he was their author. It is probable
that in this case, as in others, he was a victim of that casuistry which
teaches that "the end justifies the means;" that he hoped and believed
that the assertion of these baleful doctrines would act solely as a
check upon any tendency to further centralization of power in the
General Government and insure that strict construction of the
Constitution.
Though afterward violated by himself at the same time that he for the
moment threw aside his scruples touching African slavery, when he added
to our domain the great French Slave Colony of Louisiana--was none the
less the great aim of his commanding intellect; and that he fortuitously
believed in the "saving common sense" of his race and country as capable
of correcting an existing evil when it shall have developed into ill
effects.
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