Madison foresaw what is happening to us. And he gave us the remedy to use as “a last resort”:
“What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them...the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.”
— James Madison, Federalist No. 44
Hence "public education."
Only after Nullification is shown to be ineffective, does Madison even briefly consider further amending the Constitution, to which Madison only devotes one small paragraph, consisting of only one single sentence, without any supporting argument offered for the Amendment option at all:
"Should the provisions of the Constitution as here reviewed, be found not to secure the government and rights of the states, against usurpations and abuses on the part of the United States, the final resort within the purview of the Constitution, lies in an amendment of the Constitution, according to a process applicable by the states.Of note, Madison here is only suggesting amending the Constitution, when the Constitution itself is insufficient, i.e. "the provisions of the Constitution...[do) not secure the government." Madison is most certainly NOT suggesting amending the Constitution when government is deliberately in violation of the Constitution.
"And in the event of a failure of every constitutional resort, and an accumulation of usurpations and abuses, rendering passive obedience and non-resistance a greater evil than resistance and revolution, there can remain but one resort, the last of all; an appeal from the cancelled obligations. of the constitutional compact to original rights and the law of self-preservation. This is the ultima ratio under all governments, whether consolidated, confederated, or a compound of both; and it cannot be doubted that a single member of the Union, in the extremity supposed, but in that only, would have a right, as an extra and ultra-constitutional right, to make the appeal.Or to paraphrase Madison, following Nullification, there is Secession - "canceled obligations of the constitutional compact".
NULLIFICATION:
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and many others, are all specifically supporters of Nullification. Jefferson spoke for direct State Nullification in the Kentucky Resolution, whereas James Madison in the Virginia Resolution advocated a variant of nullification, that being "Interposition", in which the each State interposes itself between the federal government and the citizenry to protect them against the enactment of illegitimately usurped federal authority upon that citizenry.
Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolution, 1798:
"But when powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rught remedy; that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non foederis), to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limites; that without this right they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whatsoever might exercise this right of judgement for them; that, nevertheless this commonwealth, from motives of regard and respect for its co-States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject; that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, and subject, as to its assumption of power, to the final judgment of those by whom, and for whose use, itself and its powers were all created and modified ..."
James Madison, Notes on Nullification, December 1834, in response to Jefferson:
"Thus the right of nullification meant by Mr. Jefferson is the natural right, which all admit to be a remedy against insupportable oppression. ... let him be his own interpreter in his letter to Mr. Giles in December 1826 in which he makes the rightful remedy of a state in an extreme case to be a separation from the Union, not a resistance to its authority while remaining in it."
James Madison, Virginia Resolution, 1798:
"That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."
Alexander Hamilton Federalist #28:
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. ... It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large."
SECESSION (Revolution)
Jefferson's letter to William B Giles, December 26, 1825, previously referenced in Madison's Notes on Nullification:
"keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are the dissolution of our Union with them or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation."