For more information on Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, visit Britannica.com.
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions |
| 5min Related Video: Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions |
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions |
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, in U.S. history, resolutions passed in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were enacted by the Federalists in 1798. The Jeffersonian Republicans first replied in the Kentucky Resolutions, adopted by the Kentucky legislature in Nov., 1798. Written by Thomas Jefferson himself, they were a severe attack on the Federalists' broad interpretation of the Constitution, which would have extended the powers of the national government over the states. The resolutions declared that the Constitution merely established a compact between the states and that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it under the terms of the compact; should the federal government assume such powers, its acts under them would be unauthoritative and therefore void. It was the right of the states and not the federal government to decide as to the constitutionality of such acts. A further resolution, adopted in Feb., 1799, provided a means by which the states could enforce their decisions by formal nullification of the objectionable laws. A similar set of resolutions was adopted in Virginia in Dec., 1798, but these Virginia Resolutions, written by James Madison, were a somewhat milder expression of the strict construction of the Constitution and the compact theory of the Union. The resolutions were submitted to the other states for approval with no real result; their chief importance lies in the fact that they were later considered to be the first notable statements of the states' rights theory of government, a theory that opened the way for the nullification controversy and ultimately for secession.
Bibliography
See E. D. Warfield, The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 (1887, repr. 1969); J. C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom (1951, repr. 1964).
| Law Encyclopedia: Kentucky Resolutions |
This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
A set of proposals formulated by Thomas Jefferson and approved by the state legislature of Kentucky during 1798 and 1799 in opposition to the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts (1 Stat. 566, 570, 577, 596) by Congress.
The Kentucky Resolutions attacked the validity of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the enactment of which were a reaction to the turbulent political climate of France during the late 1700s following the French Revolution. The acts imposed strict residency requirements in order to attain U.S. citizenship, empowered the president to deport or incarcerate aliens who were considered "dangerous," and permitted the criminal prosecution of persons who made critical or seditious speeches or writings against the government. The resolutions advocated a strict constructionist view of the federal government which treated the Constitution as an agreement reached among the states as to the particular powers to be exercised by the central government. The federal government could not act in any way unless specifically authorized to do so in the Constitution. The enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts was considered to be beyond the powers of Congress and, therefore, the acts were void. The resolutions represented the exercise of the right of the state of Kentucky to declare the acts void through nullification (the declaration that such laws were not legally enforceable).
A comparable series of proposals, the Virginia Resolutions, drawn by James Madison, and approved by the Virginia legislature in 1798, treated the Alien and Sedition Acts in a similar fashion.
Both the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions did not meet with any real success when presented to other states for adoption. They were, however, significant in American legal history because they embodied the clash between two competing principles of government — states' rights versus Federalism.
| Wikipedia: Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions |
In United States history, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (or Resolves) were political statements in favor of states' rights and Strict Constructionism. They were written secretly by Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Contents |
Philosophy
The resolutions opposed the federal Alien and Sedition Acts, that extended the powers of the federal government. They argued that the Constitution was a "compact" or agreement among the states. Therefore, the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it and that if the federal government assumed such powers, acts under them would be void. So, states could decide the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress.
A key provision of the Kentucky Resolutions was Resolution 2, that denied Congress more than a few penal powers:
That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes, whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled "An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States," as also the act passed by them on the -- day of June, 1798, intituled "An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States," (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.
Legislative History
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions. The Kentucky state legislature passed the first resolution on November 16, 1798 and the second on December 3, 1799.
James Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution. The Virginia state legislature passed it on December 24, 1798.
The Resolutions joined the foundational beliefs of Jefferson's party and were used as party documents in the 1800 election. As they had been shepherded to passage in the Virginia House of Delegates by John Taylor of Caroline, they became part of the heritage of the "Old Republicans." Taylor, unlike James Madison, rejoiced in what the House of Delegates had made of private citizen Madison's draft: it had read the claim that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional as meaning that they had "no force or effect" in Virginia – that is, that they were void. Numerous scholars (including Koch and Ammon) have noted that Madison had the words "void, and of no force or effect" excised from the Resolutions before adoption. Future Virginia Governor and U.S. Secretary of War James Barbour concluded that "unconstitutional" included "void, and of no force or effect." Barbour concluded that Madison's textual change did not affect the meaning. Their long-term importance lies not in their attack on the Sedition law, but rather in their strong statements of states' rights theory, which led to rather different concepts of nullification and interposition. Jefferson at one point drafted a threat for Virginia to secede, but dropped it from the text. In January 1800, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Report of 1800, a document by Madison affirming the principles of the Resolutions and responding to criticism they had received.
The resolutions were submitted to the other states for approval but with no success. In New Hampshire, newspapers treated them as military threats and replied with foreshadowings of civil war. "We think it highly probable that Virginia and Kentucky will be sadly disappointed in their infernal plan of exciting insurrections and tumults," proclaimed one. The state legislature's unanimous reply was blunt:
| “ | Resolved that the Legislature of New Hampshire unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this State against every aggression either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the Government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former. That the State Legislatures are not the proper tribunals to determine the Constitutionality of the laws of the General Government--that the duty of such decision is properly and exclusively confided to the Judicial department.[1] | ” |
Alexander Hamilton, then building up the army, suggested sending it into Virginia, on some "obvious pretext." Measures would be taken, Hamilton hinted to an ally in Congress, "to act upon the laws and put Virginia to the Test of resistance."[2]
All the New England states rejected the resolutions. However, the state governments of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island threatened to ignore the Embargo Act of 1807 based on the authority of states to stand up to laws deemed by those states to be unconstitutional. Rhode Island justified its position on the embargo act based on the explicit language of interposition. Within five years, Massachusetts and Connecticut asserted their right to test constitutionality when instructed to send their militias to defend the coast during the War of 1812. Connecticut and Massachusetts questioned another embargo passed in 1813. The supreme courts of both states objected, including this statement from the Massachusetts General Court:
| “ | A power to regulate commerce is abused, when employed to destroy it; and a manifest and voluntary abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance, as much as a direct and palpable usurpation. The sovereignty reserved to the states, was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation. We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people, and to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and wrest from the oppressor its victim.[3] | ” |
During the "nullification crisis" of 1828-1833, South Carolina threatened to nullify a federal law regarding tariffs. Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation against the doctrine of nullification, stating: "I consider...the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." He also denied the right to secede: "The Constitution...forms a government not a league...To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation."[4] Later, Abraham Lincoln also rejected the compact theory saying the Constitution was a binding contract among the states and no contract can be changed unilaterally by one party.
In 2009, Dan Itse, a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Fremont, New Hampshire, led a national movement to restore the powers of the states through the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
Importance of the Resolutions
Historians differ on the importance of the resolutions. Some are ambivalent because of their long-term impact. As Jefferson's biographer explains:
| “ | Called forth by oppressive legislation of the national government, notably the Alien and Sedition Laws, they represented a vigorous defense of the principles of freedom and self-government under the United States Constitution. But since the defense involved an appeal to principles of state rights, the resolutions struck a line of argument potentially as dangerous to the Union as were the odious laws to the freedom with which it was identified. One hysteria tended to produce another. A crisis of freedom threatened to become a crisis of Union. The latter was deferred in 1798-1800, but it would return, and when it did the principles Jefferson had invoked against the Alien and Sedition Laws would sustain delusions of state sovereignty fully as violent as the Federalist delusions he had combated.[5] | ” |
Bibliography
- Elkins, Stanley; Eric McKitrick (1994). The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0195093810.
- Gutzman, Kevin, "'O, What a Tangled Web We Weave ...': James Madison and the Compound Republic," _Continuity 22 (1998), 19-29.
- Gutzman, Kevin, "A Troublesome Legacy: James Madison and the 'Principles of '98,'" Journal of the Early Republic 15 (1995), 569-89.
- Gutzman, Kevin., "The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions Reconsidered: 'An Appeal to the _Real Laws_ of Our Country,'" Journal of Southern History 66 (2000), 473-96.
- Koch, Adrienne; Harry Ammon (1948). "The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: An Episode in Jefferson's and Madison's Defense of Civil Liberties". The William and Mary Quarterly 5 (2): 145-176. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1917453. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
- Koch, Adrienne (1950). Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-1568525013..
- Watkins, William (2004). Reclaiming the American Revolution: the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and their Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1403963031.
References
- ^ "Counter-resolutions of Other States in Response to those of Virginia, &c.". The Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr_04.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
- ^ February 2, 1799, Hamilton Papers vol 22 pp 452-53.
- ^ The General Court of Massachusetts on the Embargo, February 22, 1814
- ^ "President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832". Yale Law School. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
- ^ Peterson, Merrill (1975). Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195019094.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Learn More
 | aliens |
| Federalism |
| Quids (movement – in politics, history) |
Help us answer these
 | What was the Kentucky and Virginia Resolution? |
| In what year were the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions? |
| What was the goal of the virginia and kentucky resolutions? |
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
 |
 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions". Read more |
Related answers
- The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were a response to what?
- What year were the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions?
ADVERTISEMENT
Answer these
- What was Kentucky and Virginia resolutions?
- When were the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions written?
- Virginia kentucky resolutions?
Mentioned in
- Quids (movement – in politics, history)
- John Breckinridge (American statesman)
- Alien and Sedition Acts (History)
- nullification (History)
- John Taylor (American political philosopher)
- Thomas Jefferson
- Alien and Sedition Laws (American history)
- Virginia Resolves (American history)
- James Madison (American president)
- states' rights (government, United States)
- Secession (American history)
- McCulloch v. Maryland
- Platform, Party (American history)
- Southern Rights Movement (American history)
