Compact theory is a theory relating to the development of some federal

Federation

A federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...

 constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...

s.

Compact theory in the United States

Regarding the Constitution of the United States, the compact theory holds that the nation was formed through a compact agreed upon by all the states, and that the federal government is consequently a creation of the states. Consequently, states should be the final arbiters over whether the federal government had overstepped the limits of its authority as set forth in the compact. Leading proponents of this view of the U.S. Constitution primarily originated from Virginia and other southern states. Notable proponents of the theory include Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

, St. George Tucker

St. George Tucker

St. George Tucker was a lawyer, professor of law at the College of William and Mary, and judge of Virginia's highest court. In 1813, upon the nomination of President James Madison, he became the United States district judge for Virginia.-Early life:Born in St. George, Bermuda, near Port Royal...

, John Taylor of Caroline

John Taylor of Caroline

John Taylor usually called John Taylor of Caroline was a politician and writer. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates and in the United States Senate . He wrote several books on politics and agriculture...

, and Abel P. Upshur

Abel P. Upshur

Abel Parker Upshur was an American lawyer, judge and politician from Virginia. Upshur was active in Virginia state politics and later served as Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of State during the Whig administration of President John Tyler...

.

Under this theory and in reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

Alien and Sedition Acts

The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...

, Jefferson claimed the federal government overstepped its authority, and advocated nullification of the laws by the states. The first resolution of the Kentucky Resolutions began by stating

Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

 and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self Government; and that whensoever 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 the 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 powers 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.

Others have taken the position that the federal government is not a compact among the states, but instead was formed directly by the people, in their exercise of their sovereign power. The people determined that the federal government should be superior to the states. Under this view, the states, which are not parties to the Constitution, do not have the right to determine for themselves the proper scope of federal authority, but instead are bound by the determinations of the federal government. The state of Vermont took this position in response to the Kentucky Resolutions. Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...

 advocated this view in his debate with Robert Hayne

Webster-Hayne debate

The Webster–Hayne debate was a famous debate in the U.S. between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina that took place on January 19-27, 1830 regarding protectionist tariffs...

 in the Senate in 1830:

[I]t cannot be shown, that the Constitution is a compact between State governments. The Constitution itself, in its very front, refutes that idea; it, declares that it is ordained and established by the people of the United States. So far from saying that it is established by the governments of the several States, it does not even say that it is established by the people of the several States; but it pronounces that it is established by the people of the United States, in the aggregate. . . . When the gentleman says the Constitution is a compact between the States, he uses language exactly applicable to the old Confederation. He speaks as if he were in Congress before 1789. He describes fully that old state of things then existing. The Confederation was, in strictness, a compact; the States, as States, were parties to it. We had no other general government. But that was found insufficient, and inadequate to the public exigencies. The people were not satisfied with it, and undertook to establish a better. They undertook to form a general government, which should stand on a new basis; not a confederacy, not a league, not a compact between States, but a Constitution; a popular government, founded in popular election, directly responsible to the people themselves, and divided into branches with prescribed limits of power, and prescribed duties. They ordained such a government, they gave it the name of a Constitution, therein they established a distribution of powers between this, their general government, and their several State governments.

The leading nineteenth century commentary on the Constitution, Justice Joseph Story

Joseph Story

Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...

's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833), likewise rejected the compact theory, concluding that the Constitution was established directly by the people, not by the states, and that it constitutes supreme law, not a mere compact.

In the years before the Civil War, the compact theory was used by southern states to argue that they had a right to nullify federal law and to secede from the union. For example, during the Nullification Crisis

Nullification Crisis

The Nullification Crisis was a sectional crisis during the presidency of Andrew Jackson created by South Carolina's 1832 Ordinance of Nullification. This ordinance declared by the power of the State that the federal Tariff of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within...

 of 1828-1832, John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun

John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...

 argued in his South Carolina Exposition and Protest

South Carolina Exposition and Protest

The South Carolina Exposition and Protest, also known as Calhoun's Exposition, was written in December 1828 by John C. Calhoun, then vice president under John Quincy Adams and later under Andrew Jackson. Calhoun did not formally state his authorship at the time, though it was known.The document was...

 that the states, as the parties to a compact, had the right to judge for themselves whether the terms of the compact were being honored. Calhoun described this "right of judging" as "an essential attribute of sovereignty," which the states retained when the Constitution was formed. Calhoun said the states had the right to nullify, or veto, any laws that were inconsistent with the compact.

When the southern states seceded in 1860-61, they relied on the compact theory to justify secession. The southern states argued that the northern states had violated the compact by undermining and attacking the institution of slavery and the slaveholders' property rights in their slaves. The southern states stated that they therefore were justified in withdrawing from the compact among the states.

The United States Supreme Court has rejected the idea that the Constitution is a compact among the states. Rather, the Court has stated that the Constitution was established directly by the people of the United States, not by the states.

In one of the Supreme Court's first significant decisions, Chisholm v. Georgia

Chisholm v. Georgia

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 , is considered the first United States Supreme Court case of significance and impact. Given its date, there is little available legal precedent...

, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793), Chief Justice John Jay stated that the Constitution was established directly by the people. Jay noted the language of the Preamble of the Constitution, which says that the Constitution was ordained and established by "We the people," and stated: "Here we see the people acting as sovereigns of the whole country, and, in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will that the State governments should be bound."

In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee

Martin v. Hunter's Lessee

Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case decided on March 20, 1816. It was the first case to assert ultimate Supreme Court authority over state courts in matters of federal law.-Background:...

, 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 304 (1816), the Supreme Court explicitly rejected the idea that the Constitution is a compact among the states, stating: "The Constitution of the United States was ordained and established not by the States in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the Constitution declares, by 'the people of the United States.'" The Court contrasted the earlier Articles of Confederation with the Constitution, characterizing the Articles of Confederation as a compact among states, while stating that the Constitution was established not by the states, but by the people.

Likewise, in McCulloch v. Maryland

McCulloch v. Maryland

McCulloch v. Maryland, , was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland...

, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819), the Supreme Court stated that the federal Constitution proceeded directly from the people, and was not created by the states. The Court stated that the Constitution was binding on the states and could not be negated by the states. The Court again contrasted the Articles of Confederation, which was established by the states, to the Constitution, which was established by the people.

After the Civil War, in Texas v. White

Texas v. White

Texas v. White, was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American...

, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700 (1869), a case discussing the legal status of the southern states that had attempted to secede, the Supreme Court stated that the union was not merely a compact among states; rather, the union was "something more than a compact."

Compact theory in Canada

In the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 context, compact theory posits that Confederation was an agreement between the two founding peoples — French

French Canadian

French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...

 and English — and that therefore Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 should have special veto

Veto

A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...

 powers relating to its position in the federal structure. However, compact theory was rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada

Supreme Court of Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...

 in the 1981 Patriation Reference

Patriation Reference

Reference re a Resolution to amend the Constitution, [1981] 1 S.C.R. 753 – also known as the Patriation Reference – is a historic Supreme Court of Canada reference case that occurred during negotiations for the patriation of the Constitution of Canada.The Court affirmed the existence of...

. Compact theory is often advanced by Quebec nationalists

Quebec nationalism

Quebec nationalism is a nationalist movement in the Canadian province of Quebec .-1534–1774:Canada was first a french colony. Jacques Cartier claimed it for France in 1534, and permanent French settlement began in 1608. It was part of New France, which constituted all French colonies in North America...

.