In conclusion and in relation to these resolves the report says, nor can declarations either denying or affirming the constitutionality of measures of the government be deemed, in any point of view as assumption of the office of the judge. They “are _expressions of opinion unaccompanied with any other effect_ than that they may produce an opinion by exciting reflection.” They “may lead to a change in the legislative expressions of the general will--possibly to a change in the opinion of the judiciary.”[77] [77] 4 Elliot, 578. “And there can be no impropriety in communicating such a declaration to other States,” “and inviting their concurrence in a like declaration.” Then it speaks of the legitimate rights of States to originate amendments to the Constitution; that it was not improper or objectionable in Virginia to ask the States to take “the _necessary and proper measures_” to maintain the rights reserved to the States or people; and that if the other States had concurred, “it can be scarcely doubted these simple measures would have been as sufficient as they are unexceptionable.” This is a statement that the resolutions were a mere matter of opinion and that the laws complained of were unconstitutional, and if the other States had been of the same opinion, the States might have constitutionally remedied the evil. Again is a repetition of the warm affection of the people of the State to the Union, and the explanation calls to remembrance the part the State had borne in the establishment of the “National Constitution,” and subsequently of maintaining its authority without a single exception of internal resistance or commotion, and a declaration that the people of Virginia must be above the necessity of opposing any other shield to attacks on their national patriotism, “that the resolutions themselves are the strongest evidence of attachment both to the Constitution and the Union.” “And as the result of the whole,” they adhere to their resolutions and “renew their protest against Alien and Sedition acts as palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution.” Madison in a letter to Edward Everett informs us the words, “not law but utterly null, void, and of no force or effect,” which followed the word “unconstitutional” in the resolutions as to the Alien and Sedition laws, were struck out by consent, and also that, “the tenor of the debate discloses no reference whatever to a constitutional right in an individual State to arrest by force the operation of a law of the United States.”[78] [78] Madison’s letter to Everett, before referred to. Oct. No. _N. Amer. Review_, 1830.