[1] Consequently, under the theory, states are the final arbiters over whether the federal government has overstepped the limits of its authority as set forth in the compact.
Compact theory featured heavily in arguments by southern political leaders in the run up to the American Civil War that states had a right to nullify federal law and to secede from the union.
In one of the Supreme Court's first significant decisions, Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), Chief Justice John Jay stated that the Constitution was established directly by the people.
[7] 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.
[citation needed] Others have taken the position that the federal government is not a compact among the states but was instead formed directly by the people in their exercise of their sovereign power.
[9] Daniel Webster advocated that view in his debate with Robert Hayne in the Senate in 1830: [I]t cannot be shown, that the Constitution is a compact between State governments.
[11] 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.
[citation needed] Still concerned that people would not understand what the Compact Theory was, he wrote a second book, "A Short History of the Confederate States of America", to explain it once more.
During the Mexico–United States border crisis of 2023-24, Republican Texas governor Greg Abbott asserted the federal government had "broken the compact" by not acting adequately to end what he characterized as an "invasion" of migrants.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December 2023 that Texas must remove 1,000 feet of floating barrier the state had placed in the Rio Grande river earlier in the year.
The United States Supreme Court in January ruled 5-4 that the federal Border Control could remove razor wire that the Texas National Guard had installed.
Abbott responded that the ruling infringed on state sovereignty and that Texas had a right to secure the border that superseded federal authority.