2934. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, State Governments and.—[continued].
The several States composing
the United States of America, are not
united on the principle of unlimited submission
to their General Government; but * * *
by a compact under the style and title of a
Constitution for the United States, and of
Amendments thereto, they constituted a General
Government for special purposes,—delegated
to that government certain definite
powers, reserving, each State to itself, the
residuary mass of right to their own self-government;
and * * * whensoever the General
Government assumes undelegated powers,
its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no
force. * * * To this compact each State
acceded as a State and is an integral party, its
co-States forming, as to itself, the other party.
* * * 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 * * * as in all cases of compact
among powers 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.—
Kentucky Resolutions. Washington ed. ix, 464.
Ford ed., vii, 289.
(1798)
