State Rights men appealed afresh to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. They had used Madison as an authority until he denied that nullification was extended in any of the resolutions of which he was the author. They still clung to Jefferson, however, and told how Congressman Warren R. Davis had procured from among that statesman's manuscripts a document which proved that he favored nullification. But even if the theory were new, they said, it must be admitted that the practice had often been successful.[1]
The Union men said that it was inconceivable to them how the language of Jefferson, that "nullification is the rightful remedy," could be construed to mean anything else than combined or united nullification by at least a majority if not the whole number of the states; that if a state could at pleasure arrest the laws of the federal government, the union was subverted. The State Rights men declared that it was only acts of undelegated power that the states might resist. Nullification, so far from subverting, would strengthen and preserve the Union and
- ↑ Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, and other states were said to have used nullification successfully (Courier, July 18, 1832; Mercury, August 18; Messenger, March 28; Post, May 16, September 22).
