not, or whether it is void, under an opinion that it is
unconstitutional." "It appears to me the right now claimed has a
direct tendency to dissolve the Union." "No citizen of knowledge and
information ... will believe, without very strong and indubitable
proof, that Congress will, intentionally, make any law in violation of
the Federal Constitution." "If such a case should happen, the mode of
redress is pointed out in the Constitution." It was obvious that
Congress had made laws in violation of the Constitution, and he
insisted that the jury should enforce those laws against their own
conscience. After all his violent injustice he of course declared "the
decisions of courts of justice will not be influenced by political and
_local_ principles and prejudices." The packed jury found the prisoner
guilty. He was fined $200 and sent to jail for nine months.

But Virginia was too high-spirited to bear this. Nay, Gentlemen of the
Jury, the whole Nation then was too fond of justice and liberty to
allow such wickedness to proceed in the name of law. "Virginia was in
a flame;" the lawyers "throughout the country were stung to the
quick." They had not been so long under the slave-power then as now.
At this day, Gentlemen, such conduct, such insolence, yet more
oppressive, rouses no general indignation in the lawyers. But then the
Alien and Sedition Laws ruined the Administration, and sent Mr.
Adams--who yet never favored them--from his seat; his successor, Mr.
Jefferson, says, "_I discharged every person under punishment_, or
prosecution, _under the Sedition Law, because I considered and now
consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if
Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden
image_."[161] Judge Chase was impeached by the House of
Representatives, tried by the Senate, and only escaped condemnation by
the prejudice of the political partisans. As it was, a majority were
in favor of his condemnation. But the Constitution, properly, requires
two thirds. Judge Chase escaped by this provision. But his influence
was gone.

[Footnote 161: 4 Jefferson, Correspondence in Wharton, 721.]

The Alien and Sedition Laws, which sought to gag the People, and make
a Speech a "misdemeanor," soon went to their own place; and on the 4th
of July, 1840, Congress passed a law to pay Mr. Lyon and others the
full amount of the fine and costs levied upon them, with interest to
the date of payment: a Committee of