Page:James Bryce American Commonwealth vol 1.djvu/359

CHAP. XXVIII Finally, in 1832, South Carolina, first in a State convention and then by her legislature, amplified while professing to repeat the claim of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798, declared the tariff imposed by Congress to be null and void as regarded herself, and proceeded to prepare for secession and war. In none of these cases was the dispute fought out either in the courts or in the field ; and the questions as to the right of a State to resist Federal authority, and as to the means whereby she could be coerced, were left over for future settlement. Settled they finally were by the Civil War of 1861-65, since which time the following doctrines may be deemed established:—

No State has a right to declare an act of the Federal government invalid.

No State has a right to secede from the Union.

The only authority competent to decide finally on the constitutionality of an act of Congress or of the national executive is the Federal judiciary.

Any act of a State legislature or a State executive conflicting with the Constitution, or with an act of the National government done under the Constitution, is really an act not of the State government, which cannot legally act against the Constitution, but of persons falsely assuming to act as such