and offenses against the laws of nations. The Federalists, on the contrary, claimed that offenses which are crimes, not because they are violations of any law which has been enacted-statute law-but are crimes because they are violations of laws, based on custom-common lawalso come under the jurisdiction of the Federal courts. In 1798 libel was still a common law offense. From the point of view of the Republicans, therefore, the Sedition Law was a dangerous precedent, since it brought within the jurisdiction of the Federal court offenses, which, in their opinion, the constitution had left exclusively under the jurisdiction of the courts of the states.

In the closing weeks of the session, a number of important laws were passed in contemplation of hostilities, if not of war, with France. Our merchant vessels were authorized to arm and forcibly repel the assaults of the French (June 25); appropriations were made for distributing arms among the states (July 6); the treaties between France and the United States were declared no longer binding on the United States (July 7); and the President was authorized to issue letters of marque and reprisal against France (July 9). To meet the extraordinary expenses thus incurred, a direct tax of $2,000,000

was laid and the President was authorized to borrow $2,000,000 in anticipation of it, and $5,000,000 more.

QUESTIONS.

1. Account for Jefferson's opinion of the President's message.

2. Why do you suppose he thought its object was either to establish a monarchy, or effect a separation of the states?

3. What was Washington's opinion of the Republicans?
4. What were Spriggs' resolutions?

5. What position was taken by the Republican press when the dispatches were published?

6. What was the difference between paying a tribute to the Algerines and giving a bribe to France?

7. What was the Alien Law?

8. In what form did it pass the Senate?

9. What were the provisions of the Sedition Law?

10. What did the first and fourth sections of the bill, as originally introduced, provide?

11. What votes were cast for the bill in the form in which it was introduced?

12. Could the Republicans have made any opposition whatever to Federalist measures, which the Federalists might not honestly have characterized as due to motives hostile to the constitution, if the bill had passed in that form?

13. What evidence does the Sedition Law give that the Federalists feared a popular uprising in behalf of France?

14. In what way were the Alien and Sedition Laws characteristic of the Federalists?

15. What differences of opinion existed between Federalists and Republicans as to the jurisdiction of the Federal courts?

16. What is the difference between statute and common law?

CHAPTER XX.

THE KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS.

MA

ANY years after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Laws, Jefferson said that he believed them as palpably unconstitutional, as if Congress had passed a law requiring every one to bow down and worship a golden calf. He was equally clear as to their object; he considered them as merely "an experiment

Jefferson on the

on the American mind to see how far it Alien and Sedition laws. will bear an avowed violation of the Constitution. If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life."

We are told by one author (McMaster, vol. I, page 419), that the fact that Jefferson ever wrote such folly,is of itself enough to deprive him of every possible claim to statesmanship. Whether Jefferson was or was not a statesman is a question which we are not obliged to disBut if no one could be a statesman in 1798 without having a tolerably correct estimate of the aims of his political opponents, then there were no statesmen at that time. If Jefferson, and Madison, and Gallatin cannot be considered statesmen because they thought the Federal

cuss.

ists wished to destroy the constitution in the interests of monarchy, Washington, and Hamilton, and Fisher Ames cannot be considered statesmen because they thought the Republicans wished to destroy the constitution in the interests of anarchy. In truth, it was a time of such political madness that clear, temperate, sober, steady thinking was almost impossible. That this was quite as true of the Federalists as of the Republicans, this story has abundantly shown. If further proof is desired, it is found in the fact that, with the exception of John Marshall, every leading Federalist, Washington included, entirely approved of the Alien and Sedition laws. Indeed, Fisher Ames questioned the soundness of John Marshall's Federalism because he did not approve of them.

With such opinions of the Alien and Sedition Laws, it was natural for Jefferson and those who agreed with him to take steps to prevent the carrying out of what they regarded as the the Federalist programme. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1798, he and Wilson C. Nicholas and George Nicholas, of Kentucky, discussed the question as to what it was best to do. Jefferson expressed an earnest wish that Kentucky should unite with Virginia in protesting against the constitutionality of the two odious laws. George Nicholas at once offered to introduce resolutions protesting against them, if Jefferson would frame them. Jefferson agreed to do it, but exacted from his friends a pledge that they would never reveal the fact that he was the author of the resolutions. He wrote

them, and with some modification they were passed by the Kentucky legislature almost unanimously. Later in the year Madison wrote a series of resolutions of the same character which were passed by the legislature of Virginia.

The resolutions of Madison were not so extreme as those written by Jefferson, and for that reason it seems desirable to consider them first. The following is the important paragraph of the Virginia resolutions: "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 that compact, as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumer

tions.

ated in that compact; and that in case of a Virginia resoludeliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise

of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are the 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."

The significance of the entire paragraph depends upon the meaning given to the word "interpose." Did Madison mean that each individual state had a right to interpose in the sense that, as a sovereign

terpose.

power, it could declare null and void Meaning of in within its boundaries, every law that it re