<P> A power to regulate commerce is abused, when employed to destroy it; and a manifest and voluntary abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance, as much as a direct and palpable usurpation . The sovereignty reserved to the states, was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation . We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people, and to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes . Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and wrest from the oppressor its victim . </P> <P> Massachusetts and Connecticut, along with representatives of some other New England states, held a convention in 1814 that issued a statement asserting the right of interposition . But the statement did not attempt to nullify federal law . Rather, it made an appeal to Congress to provide for the defense of New England and proposed several constitutional amendments . </P> <P> During the "nullification crisis" of 1828--1833, South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification purporting to nullify two federal tariff laws . South Carolina asserted that the Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832 were beyond the authority of the Constitution, and therefore were "null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens". Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation against the doctrine of nullification, stating: "I consider...the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed ." He also denied the right to secede: "The Constitution...forms a government not a league....To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation ." </P> <P> James Madison also opposed South Carolina's position on nullification . Madison argued that he had never intended his Virginia Resolution to suggest that each individual state had the power to nullify an act of Congress . Madison wrote: "But it follows, from no view of the subject, that a nullification of a law of the U.S. can as is now contended, belong rightfully to a single State, as one of the parties to the Constitution; the State not ceasing to avow its adherence to the Constitution . A plainer contradiction in terms, or a more fatal inlet to anarchy, cannot be imagined ." Madison explained that when the Virginia Legislature passed the Virginia Resolution, the "interposition" it contemplated was "a concurring and cooperating interposition of the States, not that of a single State....(T) he Legislature expressly disclaimed the idea that a declaration of a State, that a law of the U.S. was unconstitutional, had the effect of annulling the law ." Madison went on to argue that the purpose of the Virginia Resolution had been to elicit cooperation by the other states in seeking change through means provided in the Constitution, such as amendment . </P>

What did the kentucky and virginia resolutions state