He began, as innovators generally do, with the assertion that his interpretation of the Constitution was no new invention of his own, but was the ancient principle of the Constitution. That principle was, he contended, that the Constitution was made by the "States," as sovereign bodies, and that through it the "States" created only a governmental agent for their general affairs. The term or phrase United States was only the name of the general governmental agent of the "States." Sovereignty was in the "States" only. Consequently, when the United States assumed powers not conferred by the "States" in the Constitution, the "States," by virtue of the sovereign attribute, might and should interpose, interpose individually, not collectively as they, of course, might do constitutionally through the regular form of procedure for amending the Constitution. [Sidenote: Nullification in theory.] Calhoun, like every other real statesman of his day, held that there is a domain of liberty secured not only to the minority, but to the individual, by the Constitution, upon which the majority shall not encroach. The practical question was how to prevent the majority, in possession of the powers and machinery of the Government, from doing so. The answer to this question developed by precedent, and formulated clearly by Webster at that very moment, was that it could be done only by invoking the aid of the judicial power of the United States. But Calhoun said in reply to this, that the United States courts were a part of the Government, substantially under the control of Congress and the President, through the power of Congress to constitute judgeships at pleasure, and of the President and the {181} Senate to fill them, and that they were interested, therefore, in the usurpations of power by the Government. He further held that these courts could not decide political questions, although these questions might incidentally involve the most sacred rights of individuals, and that, anyhow, they were as much subject to the "States," acting in their sovereign capacities, as any other part of the Government. He could see no way for preserving the rights of the minority and of individuals, in last resort, against governmental usurpation, save through the power of "_each of the parties_ to the compact" to prevent the execution within the territory subject to its jurisdiction of such governmental measures as it might deem usurpations. [Sidenote: The nullification and anti-nullification parties in South Carolina.]