Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/525

1830.], peaceably and quietly, whenever experience shall point out defects or imperfections. And, finally, the people of the United States have at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, authorized any state legislatures to construe or interpret their high instrument of government, much less to interfere, by their own power, to arrest its course and operation. 



, January 27, 1830.

Mr. HAYNE. The proposition which I laid down, and from which the gentleman dissents, is taken from the Virginia resolutions of '98, and is in these words—"that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise, by the federal government, of powers not granted by the compact, (the Constitution,) the states who are parties thereto have a right to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them." The gentleman insists that the states have no right to decide whether the Constitution has been violated by acts of Congress or not; but that the federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent of its own powers; and that, in case of a violation of the Constitution, however "deliberate, palpable, and dangerous," a state has no constitutional redress, except where the matter can be brought before the Supreme Court, whose decision must be final and conclusive on the subject. Having thus distinctly stated the points in dispute between the gentleman and myself, I proceed to examine them. And here it will be necessary to go back to the origin of the federal government. It cannot be doubted, and is not denied, that before the Constitution, each state was an independent sovereignty, possessing all the rights and powers appertaining to independent nations; nor can it be denied, that, after the Constitution was formed, they remained equally sovereign and independent, as to all powers not expressly delegated to the federal government. This would have been the case even if no positive provisions to that effect had been inserted in that instrument. But to remove all doubt, it is expressly declared, by the 10th article of the amendment of the Constitution, "that the powers not delegated to the states, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The true nature of the Federal Constitution, therefore, is (in the language of Mr. Madison) "a compact to which the states are parties,"—a compact by which each state, acting in its sovereign capacity, has entered into an agreement with the other states, by which they have consented that certain designated powers shall be exercised by the United States, in the manner prescribed in the instrument. Nothing can be clearer than that, under such a system, the federal government, exercising strictly delegated powers, can have no right to act beyond the pale of its authority, and that all such acts are void. A state, on the contrary, retaining all powers not expressly given away, may lawfully act in all cases where she has not voluntarily imposed restrictions on herself. Here, then, is a case of a compact between sovereigns; and the question arises, what is the remedy for a clear violation of its express terms by one of the parties? And here the plain, obvious dictate of common sense is in strict conformity with the understanding of mankind and the practice of nations in all analogous cases—"that, where resort can be had to no common superior the parties to the compact must themselves be the rightful judges whether