It can bee noe lesse then a contradiction to affeirme the Supreame power (which wee take to bee the Generall Courts of every Jurisdiction) can bee comaunded by others: an absurditie in pollicye, that an Intire Government and Jurisdiction should prostitute itselfe to the Comaund of Strangers; a Scandall in Religion, that a generall court of Christians should bee oblidged to acte and engage upon the faith of six Delligates against theire Consience;—all which must bee admited in case wee acknowlidg ourselves bound to undertake an offencive warr upon the bare determination of the Comissioners, whoe can not nor ever did challenge Authoritie over us, or expecte Subjection from us....
[Observe that the Massachusetts government did flatly nullify a decree of the federal congress of the United Colonies. However, it tried to justify itself, not by an avowal of its power, but by a constitutional argument. Massachusetts claimed first that the sixth article (which made the vote of six commissioners binding upon the whole confederation) could apply only to such matters as have been plainly referred to the Commissioners by other parts of the Constitution; and second, that the authority claimed by the federal Congress was inconsistent with the fundamental idea of a confederation, even as it had been understood by the other confederates.
John Fiske says that this argument begins "the development of constitutional law, in the American sense,"—as an attempt to interpret a written constitution. The whole debate makes an interesting prelude to the later arguments of the nullifiers and secessionists in the nineteenth century.]
FOOTNOTES:
[88] This paragraph begins the second half of the argument,—based not on the particular Articles of Confederation, but upon the nature of such federal government in general.
[C. COLONIAL AMERICA, 1660-1760]
The documents selected for this period are much more isolated than those given above for the earlier colonial period. It is usually impossible in a class to do more than use a few illustrative sources for this long and difficult period; and some documents which might be expected are omitted because of the extracts given from them in the American History and Government.