State government may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.” Mr. Hayne was evidently unprepared to admit, or fully deny, the propositions as so laid down, but contented himself with stating the words of the Virginia Resolution of 1798, as follows: “That this assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.” This resolution came to be understood by Mr. Hayne and others on that side of the debate, in the same sense that Mr. Webster stated, as above, he understood the gentleman from the South to interpret it. On the other side of the question, he argued that the doctrine had no foundation either in the Constitution, or on the Virginia resolutions—that the Constitution makes the federal government act upon citizens within the States, and not upon the States themselves, as in the old confederation: that within their Constitutional limits the laws of Congress were supreme—and that it was treasonable to resist them with force: and that the question of their constitutionality was to be decided by the Supreme Court: with respect to the Virginia resolutions, on which Mr. Hayne relied, Mr. Webster disputed the interpretation put upon them—claimed for them an innocent and justifiable meaning—and exempted Mr. Madison from the suspicion of having framed a resolution asserting the right of a State legislature to annul an Act of Congress, and thereby putting it in the power of one State to destroy a form of government which he had just labored so hard to establish.