Nor did it appear that any one of the Senators or the Representatives of Kentucky ventured to lay before their respective Congressional Houses the nullifying resolutions of that State, notwithstanding the injunction contained in them to that effect.[75] [75] Hildreth’s _History_, vol. v., 296. Kentucky’s Legislature answered the resolutions of the other States regretting the unfounded and uncandid suggestions in them derogatory to her, and then declared an attachment to the Union. The Legislature none the less resolved, that the several States that formed the Constitution were sovereign and independent, having the unquestionable right to judge of infractions, and that in such a case nullification was the rightful remedy. The ending is not however that they nullify, but “this Commonwealth does now enter against them” (the Alien and Sedition Laws) “its solemn PROTEST.”[76] The protest in capital letters: and that is all the State did. [76] 4 Elliot, 545. We come again to the Virginia resolutions. When that State, in answer to her resolutions, received the indignant remonstrances of her sister States, she felt obliged to defend her position. That defence was made at great length in her General Assembly held the next year, 1799, by Madison, the author of the resolutions and the chairman of the committee to whom the communications of the other States had been referred. The report which was adopted by the assembly, coming from Madison, the principal constructor of the Constitution, should give no countenance to nullification and secession. Upon examination it will be found that there is none. It begins with the very conciliatory and dignified statement that, though there might be painful remarks on the spirit and manner of the proceedings of the States who disapprove of the resolutions of Virginia, it is more consistent with the dignity and duty of the General Assembly to hasten an oblivion of every circumstance diminishing the mutual respect, confidence, and affection of the members of the Union. The explanatory report takes up, first, the resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States and the warm attachment of Virginia to the Union, and justly says no one can object to this. The report next notices the assertion that the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties, are limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact. This is merely, the powers of the United States come from and are limited by the Constitution.