No he was suggesting that the states were sovereign nations who delegated authority to the federal government with the express reservation that the states had the right to resume such delegated powers any time the federal government sought to overstep it's authority.
Do you mean that the Constitution is a legal contract that is binding on both parties and void if one party fails to keep it's commitments?
"Do you mean that the Constitution is a legal contract that is binding on both parties and void if one party fails to keep it's commitments?"
That certainly seems to be the way the founders viewed it. Every state retained the right to reassert it's sovereignity under certain conditions. Even Texas included this right in it's constitution when they joined the union in 1845