Conflict in the 1790s The Kentucky Resolutions (1798)
“This commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: … where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact …to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.” – Resolution of Kentucky Legislature (1798) “[T]he people of the United States
…have committed to the supreme judiciary of the nation the high authority of
ultimately and conclusively deciding upon the constitutionality of all
legislative acts. The constitution does
not contemplate, as vested … [in] the several states, any right or power of
declaring that any act of the general government ‘is not law, but is altogether
void, and of no effect’; and this House considers such declaration as a
revolutionary measure, destructive of the purest principles of our State and
national compacts.” -
Resolution of Pennsylvania Legislature to Kentucky (1799) Conflict in the 1820s Bodley v. Gaither – Kentucky, 1825 (19 Ky. 57); Townsend v Townsend – Tennessee, 1821 (7 Tenn. 1)
“That we should consider ourselves bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States settling a construction of the constitution, or laws of the United States, … we shall not pretend to controvert.” – Justice William Owsley, in Bodley | Thomas Jefferson, author of the Kentucky Resolutions (1791) (Charles Wilson Peale, artist) - courtesy Wikimedia Commons ![]() “What chance for justice have the States when the usurpers of their rights are made their judges? Just as much as individuals when judged by their oppressors. It is therefore believed to be the right, as it may hereafter become the duty of the State governments, to protect themselves from encroachments, and their citizens from oppression, by refusing obedience to the unconstitutional mandates of the federal judges.” – Governor Joseph Desha, Message to Kentucky Legislature (1825)
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