ive devices, which would often be added on such
occasions, would oppose, in any state, difficulties not to be despised;
would form in a large state, very serious impediments; and where the
sentiments of several adjoining states happened to be in unison, would
present obstructions which the Federal government would hardly be
willing to encounter."[135]

Again he says, "The state government will have the advantage of the
Federal government, whether we compare them in respect to the immediate
dependence of the one on the other; to the weight of personal influence
which each side will possess; to the powers respectively vested in them;
to the predilection and probable support of the people; to the
disposition and faculty of resisting and frustrating the measures of
each other."[136]

It is doubtful whether Madison, in writing the passages above quoted,
had in mind any thing more than a general policy of opposition and
obstruction on the part of the states. He certainly intended, however,
to convey the idea that under the proposed Constitution the states would
have no difficulty in defending their constitutional rights against any
attempted usurpation at the hands of the Federal government. We can
trace the gradual development of this idea of state resistance to
Federal authority until it finally assumes a definite form in the
doctrine of nullification.

"A resolution [in the Maryland legislature] declaring the independence
of the state governments to be jeopardized by the assumption of the
state debts by the Union was rejected only by the casting vote of the
speaker. In Virginia the two houses of the legislature sent a joint
memorial to Congress. They expressed the hope that the funding act would
be reconsidered and that the law providing for the assumption of the
state debts would be repealed. A change in the present form of the
government of the union, pregnant with disaster, would, it was said, be
the presumptive consequence of the last act named, which the house of
delegates had formally declared to be in violation of the Constitution
of the United States."[137]

The general assembly of Virginia in 1798 adopted resolutions declaring
that it viewed "the powers of the Federal government ... as limited by
the plain sense and intention of [the Constitution] ... and that, in
case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers,
not granted, ... the states ... have the right, and are in duty bound,
to i