In these famed resolutions the Virginia State Assembly, professing a determination to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the State, and a warm attachment to the Union, declared that the powers of the Federal Government were limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact the States are parties to, and that in a case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise by the Federal Government of other powers not granted by the instrument of the compact between the States, it is the right and duty of the States, the parties thereto, to interpose and arrest the evil and maintain their rights. It asserted, with deep regret, that the Federal Government had enlarged its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them, and that there were indications of a design to consolidate the States into one sovereignty and to transform the government into an absolute or at best a mixed monarchy; that particularly the Alien and Sedition Acts exceeded the powers delegated by the Constitution, and were subversive of the general principles of a free government, and were expressly and positively forbidden by the Constitution; that the good people of this commonwealth, with the truest anxiety for establishing and perpetuating the Union, and with the most scrupulous fidelity to the Constitution, appeal to the other States to concur in declaring the acts aforesaid unconstitutional, and in taking the necessary and proper measures, in co-operation with Virginia to maintain the rights reserved to the States or people.[72] [72] Virginia’s resolutions and explanations, 4 Elliot, 528, 529, 546 to 580. It is to be borne in mind that the declaration of Virginia is, “that in a case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise by the Federal Government of other powers not granted”--(that is, in the case of usurpations), it is the duty of the States, not the duty of a State, to interpose and arrest the evil and maintain their rights. Certainly in such cases some power should interpose, and if States can legally under the Constitution interpose to remedy such an evil, there can be no objection to such interposition. Indeed a usurpation of powers might be so plain and serious as to justify rebellion. There is apparently a belief amongst some writers since Von Holst published his, so-called, _Constitutional History of the United States_, that Virginia laid down the doctrine, that “States can interpose.” As if it had been declared there was a right of States to interpose their authority and prevent the United States from enforcing its laws. It is in case of _usurpations only_ Virginia claims that it is a duty and right _to interpose to redress this evil_. There is no statement how States should interpose; no suggestion that the method should be other than in the way the Constitution sanctions.