in the People for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage.
But if the execution of the laws of the National Government should not require the intervention of the State Legislatures; if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the particular Governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power. No omissions, nor evasions, would answer the end. They would be obliged to act, and in such a manner, as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on the National rights. An experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of a Constitution in any degree competent to its own defence, and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority. The success of it would require not merely a factious majority in the Legislature, but the concurrence of the Courts of Justice and of the body of the People. If the Judges were not embarked in a conspiracy with the Legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of the land, unconstitutional, and void. If the People were not tainted with the spirit of their State representatives, they, as the natural guardians of the Constitution, would throw their weight into the National scale, and give it a decided preponderancy in the contest. Attempts of this kind would not often be made with levity or rashness; because they could seldom be made without danger to the authors; unless in cases of a tyrannical exercise of the Fœderal authority.
If opposition to the National Government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals, it could be overcome by the same means
