on."

[1798]

It was next the turn of the Republicans to blunder. In November, 1798,
the Kentucky Legislature passed a series of resolutions, drawn up by
John Breckenridge upon a sketch by Jefferson, in effect declaring the
alien and sedition acts not law, but altogether void and of no force. In
December the Virginia Legislature put forth a similar series by Madison,
milder in tone and more cautiously expressed, denouncing those acts as
"palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution." A year after
their first utterance, the Kentucky law-makers further "resolved that
the several States who formed (the Constitution), being sovereign and
independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction;
and that a nullification by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized
acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy."
Virginia again declared it a State's right "to interpose" in such cases.

These resolutions were intended to stir reflection and influence
opinion, and, if possible, elicit a concurrent request to Congress from
the various States to repeal the obnoxious acts. They do not hint at the
use of force. Their execration of the hated laws is none too strong, and
their argument as a whole is masterly and unanswerable. But at least
those of Kentucky suggest, if they do not contain, a doctrine respecting
the Constitution which is untenable and baneful, in kernel the same that
threatened secession in Jackson's time and brought it in Buchanan's. The
State, as such, is not a party to the Constitution. Still less is the
Legislature. Nor is either, but the Supreme Court, the judge whether in
any case the fundamental law has been infringed.

Procuring the resolutions, however, proved a crafty political move. The
enormity of the despicable acts was advertised as never before, while
the endorsement of them by federalist legislators went upon record.
Petitions for repeal came in so numerous and numerously signed that the
VIth Congress could not but raise a committee to consider such action.
It reported adversely, and the report was accepted, the majority in the
House, fifty-two to forty-eight, trying contemptuously to cough down
every speaker lifting his voice on the opposite side.

[1799]

This sullen obstinacy in favor of a miserable experiment sealed the doom
of Federalism. In vain did the party orators plead that liberty of
speech and the press is not license, but only the right to utter