by expressly requiring for such an interposition ‘the case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous breach of the constitution, by the exercise of powers not granted by it.’ It must be a case, not of a light and transient nature, but of a nature dangerous to the great purposes for which the constitution was established.
“But the resolution has done more than guard against misconstruction, by expressly referring to cases of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous nature. It specifies the object of the interposition, which it contemplates, to be solely that of arresting the progress of the evil of usurpation, and of maintaining the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to the states, as parties to the constitution.
“From this view of the resolution, it would seem inconceivable that it can incur any just disapprobation from those who, laying aside all momentary impressions, and recollecting the genuine source and object of the federal constitution, shall candidly and accurately interpret the meaning of the General Assembly. If the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the constitution, could not justify the parties to it in interposing even so far as to arrest the progress of the evil, and thereby to preserve the constitution itself, as well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would be an end to all relief from usurped power, and a direct subversion of the rights specified or recognized under all the state constitutions, as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principles on which our independence itself was declared.”
But, sir, our authorities do not stop here. The state of Kentucky responded to Virginia, and on the 10th of November, 1798, adopted those celebrated resolutions, well known to have been penned by the author of the Declaration of American Independence. In those resolutions, the legislature of Kentucky declare, “that the 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.”
At the ensuing session of the legislature, the subject was reëxamined, and on the 14th of November, 1799, the resolutions of the preceding year were deliberately reaffirmed, and it was, among other things, solemnly declared,—
“That, if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence. That the principles of construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers. That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction, and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.”
Time and experience confirmed Mr. Jefferson’s opinion on this all-
