Compact theory

Compact theory refers to two theories related to the development of federal constitutions. In the United States, it differs from the contract theory in that it favored the rights of states over those of the Federal Government.

Regarding the Constitution of the United States, the compact theory holds that the country was formed through a compact agreed upon by all the states, and that the federal government is thus 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, Under this theory and in reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, 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 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.

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