The right claimed for the States of annulling the Constitution and laws of the United States, must, says the Vice-President, belong to them, unless they have expressly surrendered or transferred it. We have already seen, that no member of a body politic, whether composed of States or individuals, does or can possess a right to annul or repeal the law; and that the contrary proposition involves a contradiction in terms. Were the Constitution wholly silent on the subject, the mere fact that they had formed themselves, by a solemn social compact, into one great people, subject to a common Government, though retaining, as distinct communities, no inconsiderable share of the legislative power,--this fact alone, we say, would have carried with it a peremptory obligation upon the States to obey the law as construed by the courts of justice, excepting in the extreme cases that justify resistance. It would, however, be natural enough for independent States, in forming a compact of this description, to introduce an expression of this obligation; and it may be a matter of curiosity to consider for a moment what language could have been used, in order to express the idea in the most direct and unequivocal manner. To one who was seeking for such an expression, some such phrase as the following would probably occur. _No State shall have a right, either in the exercise of the sovereign (constitution-making) or the ordinary legislative (law-making) power, to annul or arrest the execution of this Constitution, or any law made in pursuance of it by the General Government._ This, we say, or something like it would probably be the language, which would occur to any one who was seeking for the most direct and unequivocal expression of the idea, that the States have no right to set up their authority against that of the General Government. Now the language of the Constitution on this subject is still more decisive, because it expresses the same ideas conveyed by that here supposed in two forms, the one positive and the other negative. _This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land._ This positive declaration carries with it, as we have said, by implication, the full import of the negative one which we have supposed above: but in order to make assurance _doubly_ sure, the framers of the Constitution added a negative declaration, which, though more concise than the one we have supposed, is of precisely the same meaning; _and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding_. This declaration, we repeat, though more concise, is equivalent in meaning to the more extended expression of the same idea, which we have imagined as the most direct and unequivocal that could