Some parts of the resolutions adopted by this convention of twenty-seven
delegates from the five New England States which met at Hartford,
Connecticut, in December, 1814, might easily be supposed to have been
voiced by Virginia and Kentucky fifteen years before, so completely
had parties and sections exchanged.
"It is as much a duty of the state authorities to watch over the rights
_reserved_, as of the United States to exercise the powers which
are _delegated_" was the voice of southern individualism speaking
through a New England convention. "In cases of deliberate, dangerous,
and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty
of a state and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right,
but the duty of such a state to interpose its authority for their
protection."
Thus was the doctrine of "interposition" transferred from South to
North, equalising sections, and conducing to the ultimate making of
the nation.
But the means to be employed were not the same in each case. Resistance
in the Union to unconstitutional acts had been the Republican plan of
1798; withdrawal from a Union, whose government had been grossly and
corruptly administered ever since the first twelve years of prosperity
and happiness, was the Federalist thought of 1814.
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