nterpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits, the authority, rights, and
liberties appertaining to them." These resolutions were drawn by Madison
who had now come to oppose the strong centralizing policy of the
Federalists.

A more explicit statement of this doctrine is to be found in the
Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 which declared "that the several states
composing the United States of America are not united on the principle
of unlimited submission to their general government; ... and that
whenever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each state
acceded as a state, and is an integral party; that this government,
created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of
the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made
its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but
that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common
judge, _each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of
infractions as of the mode and measure of redress_."

The Kentucky resolutions of 1799 go one step farther and give definite
expression to the doctrine of nullification. They declare "that the
several states who formed that instrument [the Constitution], being
sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the
infraction; and, _that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all
unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful
remedy_."

The first clear and unequivocal statement of the doctrine of
nullification may be traced to Jefferson. In the original draft of the
Kentucky resolutions of 1798, which he wrote, it is asserted that where
the Federal government assumes powers "which have not been delegated, a
nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; that every state has a
natural right in cases not within the compact (_casus non foederis_) to
nullify of their own authority, all assumptions of power by others
within their limits."[138] This was omitted, however, from the
resolutions as finally adopted, although included in substance, as we
have seen, in the Kentucky resolutions of 1799.

Jefferson's authorship of the original draft of the Kentucky resolutions
of 1798 is made the basis of Von Holst's contention that he was the
father of the doctrine of nullification. T