In the debate in the Assembly on the indorsement of the Kentucky resolutions Root maintained with great force the right of the people's representatives in the Legislature to express an opinion upon an act of Congress, however solemn, and he ridiculed the argument that questions limited to the judiciary were beyond the jurisdiction of any other body of men to criticise and condemn. This touched a popular chord, and if the mere expression of an opinion by the Assembly had been the real question at issue, young Root might have carried his point as he did the fight against the amendments proposed by Massachusetts. But there was one question Root did not successfully meet. Although Jefferson's eighth and ninth resolutions--declaring that whenever the general government assumed powers not delegated, "a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy" of every State--had been stricken out, the dangerous doctrine was still present in the preamble, making it apparent to the friends of the Constitution that the promulgation of such a monstrous heresy would be worse than the acts sought to be annulled. It is not clear that Root's understanding of these resolutions went so far; for the question discussed by him concerned only the right of the Legislature to express an opinion respecting the wisdom or unwisdom of an act of Congress. Nor does it appear that he favoured what afterward became known as "nullification;" for it is certain that when, thirty-four years later, the doctrine came up again under John C. Calhoun's leadership, Erastus Root, then in Congress, struck at it as he would at the head of a viper, becoming the fearless expounder of principles which civil war permanently established.