THE CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 211 



declare that, whenever the federal government should 

 exceed its constitutional authority, it was the business of 

 the state governments to interfere and pronounce such 

 action unconstitutional. Accordingly, Virginia de- 

 clared the alien and sedition laws unconstitutional, 

 and invited the other states to join in the declaration. 

 Not meeting with a favourable response, Virginia re- 

 newed these resolutions the next year. There was 

 nothing necessarily seditious, or tending toward seces- 

 sion, in the Virginia resolutions ; but the attitude 

 assumed in them was uncalled for on the part of any 

 state, inasmuch as there existed, in the federal Supreme 

 Court, a tribunal competent to decide upon the consti- 

 tutionality of acts of Congress. The Kentucky reso- 

 lutions went farther. They declared that our federal 

 Constitution was a compact, to which the several 

 states were the one party and the federal government 

 was the other, and each party must decide for itself as 

 to when the compact was infringed, and as to the 

 proper remedy to be adopted. When the resolutions 

 were repeated, in 1799, a clause was added, which 

 went still further and mentioned " nullification " as the 

 suitable remedy, and one that any state might employ. 

 In the Virginia resolutions there was neither mention 

 nor intention of nullification as a remedy. Mr. Madi- 

 son lived to witness South Carolina's attempt at nulli- 

 fication in 1832, and in a very able paper, written in 

 the last year of his life, he conclusively refuted the 

 idea that his resolutions of 1798 afforded any justifica- 

 tion for such an attempt, and showed that what they 

 really contemplated was a protest on the part of all the 

 state governments in common. Doubtless such a 

 remedy was clumsy and impracticable, and the sugges- 



