A possible war with France in 1797-98 led a frightened and politically motivated Federalist Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts designed to suppress criticism of the government that was coming largely from their Republican adversaries. While some Virginia Federalists like Washington and Marshall were hesitant about this legislation, Republicans Jefferson and Madison vigorously opposed it. Acting anonymously, they each drafted resolutions that were introduced by colleagues into the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures, respectively, in 1798. Generally, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions advanced the view that the Constitution was a compact between the states providing specific powers to the central government and that federal laws exceeding those powers could be ruled unconstitutional by the states and declared null and void within their jurisdictions. The resolutions became the basis for the states’ rights arguments of the antebellum period and were cited by John C. Calhoun and others in the nullification crisis of 1832-33 and defenders of secession in 1861.
Further Reading
James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties.
This Vignette Provided By
William Shade and Ronald Heinemann, Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: The History of Virginia, 1607-2007
