Speaker 1: If you want to get the show early and ad free,
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Pekinyonashow dot com and you will get the episodes early
and ad free. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone
back to the Pekinyonas Show. George Bagbee is back and
we are going to continue the series looking at the
lead up to America's Civil War. How are you doing
this evening, mister Bagbee.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I'm as busy as a bee. I've
been under the weather lately. It's really weird when when
you get a fever and you have delirium. Have you
ever had that happen before?
Speaker 1: Only once?
Speaker 2: Really once? Yes. Well it's really strange because you feel
very detached, but you become or at least I become
obsessed about very obscure matters, and I'll stay up all
night thinking of things that have no significance. Yeah, which
is what I went through a couple of nights ago.
But I'm on the mend now.
Speaker 1: Well that's good, that's good. Yeah, I remember. I think
the reason is because you can't think straight, you can't
keep a thought, so you're constantly bouncing from one subject
to the next in your mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very confused situation. It's a strange mental state.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I've got here for us tonight material about the
Alien and Sedition Acts and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
So we continue on this theme of conflict between the
Federalists and the Republicans, the Republicans being Jefferson's faction in
the early Republic, better identified with the Democrats what becomes
the Democratic Party later on, but at this stage they're
more commonly called the Republicans. So back during the Washington administration,
in this period that we've been discussing recently with the
debate over the bank and the debt and the constitutional
powers and interpretations of the Republic of France, was just
getting started. The French Revolution was underway. You remember, at
the start of Washington's administration, he recalls Thomas Jefferson, who
was the very Francophile American ambassador in Paris. He replaces
Thomas Jefferson. Well, Thomas Jefferson becomes a Secretary of State,
so is foreign minister. He replaces Thomas Jefferson with Governor Morris,
the famous New York Federalist man who physically wrote the
Philadelphia Constitution. He was known to have a very good hand,
and so they asked him to be the penman. But
Governor Morris goes to Paris and he's quite appalled by
the progress of the French Revolution. Even Thomas Jefferson was
eventually startled by the excesses of the French Revolution, their
war on the clergy. They're martyring the priesthood in Paris,
and really grotesque things going on there. This is all
before the terror of course, but Governor Morris becomes very
antagonistic to the Jacobin in court the Republicans in Paris.
The French Republic has a very complex relationship with the
United States. They assume the king's debts and assets, and
so they assume the money that the United States government
owes to the former king, King Louis, and they eventually
agree to some treaties and such, but the relationship during
the Washington administration is antagonistic with the French Republic. Washington
makes it known that he doesn't want to have anything
to do with the French Republic's numerous wars. Of these egalitarians,
these dreamers revolutionaries, they declare liberty, equality, fraternity, and then
they declare war on all of their neighbors and propose
to disestablish their churches, presumably martyr their clergy, and liberate
them all from their nobility and monarchs, which their neighbors
are not so interested in having done to them. So
there's war that springs out across Europe. On the French
republic sins Citizen Ghanay to America as their ambassador. Citizen
Ghanay has a brief tenure in America, but he is
the cause of much controversy. While he is here. It's
interesting to note that for all the differences that we've
delineated between Hamilton and Jefferson and their perspectives, that Hamilton
is from the start a great critic of the French
Revolution and a great sympathizer with the King. Jefferson not
surprisingly being a very radical Democrat and a personal friend
of Thomas Payne. Thomas pain is a figure here that
is always lurking around. The People who are willing to
be friends with Thomas Paine discredit themselves to some degree
in this generation, and it is important to note how
friendly Jefferson was, and also Jefferson's protege, the future President
James Monroe, was very good friends with Thomas Paine actually
has Thomas Paine live with him for long periods of time.
So their affections in this stage it reflects their political
beliefs in disposition here in America, but it plays out
very dramatically over in France. So Ganay is sent to
America to collect the debts that were owned owed to
the former king. He wants to re establish French holdings
in the Americas, so he wants to foment rebellion in
French Canada. He wants to get French Louisiana back from Spain,
which is a Catholic monarchy that the Republic is now
at war with, and he's also interested in interfering in
American internal affairs. In the early Republic, he wants to
make the United States a base of privateers against British
merchantmen in the Atlantic, so he brings a budget along
for this and he talks with lots of local officials
to get this established. Now, this obviously could make us
a kind of party to France's war in Europe, so
it's a naturally a security concern. Gannat's privateers, which he
sponsors in the Americas, they sail up the Delaware River
one day and just happen to find a British merchant
ship there. They capture it and tow it back to
Philadelphia as a prize. So this is going on inside
of our territorial waters. Gannay really wants to draw in
the American Republic on the side of the French Republic's
European adventures, and he is constantly writing correspondents to officials
and private persons across the United States trying to lobby
for these efforts, and he does have a budget involved here. Surprisingly,
he gets George Rogers Clark, General Clark from Kentucky to
correspond with him about the possibility of leading Kentucky riflemen
down to the lower Mississippi Valley to take New Orleans
from the inland from the Spaniards who are in charge
of it at that point, so Ganay goes quite a distance.
Ganay eventually corresponds with Secretary of State Jefferson. Jefferson unwisely
corresponds with Ganay, but his correspondence isn't ultimately discrediting to him.
Jefferson is a lifelong Francophile and initially a big fan
of the French Revolution. Ghanay is asking Secretary of State
Jefferson what the American attitude would be to General George
Rogers Clark leading a personal expedition down to take Louisiana
from the Spanish, and Jefferson responds very tactfully and tells
citizen Ghanay, being that the Spanish are not at war
with the United States, and being that these are American citizens,
you're talking about doing this, this could mean trees in
charges for all involved if they are undertaking on their
own initiative war with a foreign power to try to
get us involved in entanglements in Europe. We are totally
against that. We don't want that, and anyone that enlisted
with you to do that would probably get a treason charge.
But Jefferson was also careful to sign his correspondence on
this occasion. He says, I write you as citizen, mister Jefferson,
not in the capacity of Secretary of State. So he's
kind of trying to divide his office from his person here.
But we see some of the dangerous things that Gannay
is up to. In the eventful year seventeen ninety three,
the French Republic declares normal war on Great Britain and
Washington responds with a declaration of neutrality. Once again, we
see a division between Jefferson and Hamilton, as we usually
do in the cabinet. Hamilton says that the executive should
have the prerogative to make these major foreign policy declarations.
Jefferson says, no, this should be a representative process. It
should come out of Congress. Congress should debate pros or
cons of neutrality, and then Congress should declare the policy,
and then the president does it with the authority of Congress.
The president just proclaims whatever Congress has to say. So
we see that very procedural sort of process. And this
is part of Jefferson's ultimate idealism about the democratic process
as of form. He believes that this is going to
solve all manner of problems. And of course this is
not how these things efficiently work. The president does make
any number of policies and declarations, so Hamilton has the
description there that is ultimately how it ends up working.
But Ganay, with the declaration of neutrality. The French Republic
takes this as a hostile statement from the Americans that
they are not willing to signal solidarity with fellow republics
like themselves. Ghanay is given instructions from his handlers back
in Paris to foment popular demonstrations in the new capital
of Philadelphia against Washington. So these are pro war demonstrations
going on in Philadelphia. This so alarms Vice President Adams
that he orders chests of arms to be brought in
to defend the government because he's worried about a violent riot.
Adams calls this the terrorism excited by Ghanay in his memoirs.
In a Cabinet meeting in the summer of ninety three,
when Ghanay is up to his Shenanigans there in Philadelphia,
trying to pressure the Washington administration to declare in France's
favor and to give them concessions or even an alliance.
Secretary of War Knox presents the President with a lithograph
made in Philadelphia presenting George Washington in line at a guillotine.
So this is this is what Ganay is promoting in Philadelphia,
a violent riot or threats of violence against the President
and his ministers. This ultimately overwhelms even the friendly Thomas Jefferson,
who won't tolerate too much criticism of France. Even Thomas
Jefferson eventually agrees this this man is persona non grata.
We cannot tolerate this kind of activity by an official
agent of an erstwhile ally, what results in the following
years is very interesting. The proclamation of neutrality uh the
famous Farewell Address, where Washington is advising a continued policy
of neutrality in the Adams administration which follows, we have
the interesting quasi war with France. So France starts attacking
American shipping in the Atlantic. This is mostly operation taking
place at sea, and this lasts from seventeen ninety seven
to eighteen hundred. This is all but declared war with France.
There are casualties French and American warships or meeting each
other in exchanging fire in the Atlantic. And you also
have a coincident with this, the curious XYZ affair in Paris.
So this is emission of Elbridge, Jerry, Charles Pinckney, and
I forget who else. Several American diplomats in Paris were
told more or less by French agents code named X,
Y and Z, that they must pay a substantial bribe
to the French in order to be recognized in the court.
And this was just a shocking attempt of corruption, and
it really exasperated American officials and it was a major
source of frigid relations between the United States and France
with following years. It's really quite remarkable that at this
stage we avoided war with France. With everything that was
going on, these insults to our ambassador's demands for bribes
in order to have normal diplomatic corresponds the quasi war,
which goes on for several years, all in response to
this to lead up to my point and the main
subject of our episode today. John Adams in seventeen ninety
eight requests and receives from the Federalist Congress. So these
are mostly New England congressmen who write these bills and
sign off on them. As Speaker of the House and such,
he gets the Alien and Sedition Acts. So it's necessary
for us to understand the circumstances. This doesn't come out
of nowhere. These are circumstances very close to a major
war with the European great power. So the Alien Incident Acts,
there's a whole series of them. I'm going to read
to you excerpts from two main elements so that we
can get a reading understanding of what these legislative acts constitute.
So an Act concerning Aliens June seventeen ninety eight, being
enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives the United
States of America and Congress assembled, that is lawful for
the President of the United States, at any time during
the continuance of this Act, to order all such aliens
as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety
of the United States, or have reasonable grounds to suspect
are concerned in any treasonable or secret mechinations against the
government thereof, to depart out of the territory of the
United States within such as time, or such time as
shall be expressed in such order, which order shall be
served on such alien, by delivering him a copy thereof,
or leaving the same at his usual abode, and returned
to the office of the Secretary of State by the
Marshal or other person to whom the same shall be
directed in. And in case an alien so ordered to
depart shall be found at large within the United States
after the time limited such order for his departure, and
not having obtained a license from the President to reside therein,
or having obtained such license, shall not have confirmed there too.
Every such alien shall, on conviction, be imprisoned for a
term not exceeding three years, and shall never after be
admitted to become a citizen of the United States. Now,
this is very interesting act. Now, this is not the
one that caused so much controversy. This does not get
a such a angry response from the States and from
the Republicans. Ghanay had certainly overstayed his welcome and had
fomented rebellion against the legitimate authorities of the country to
make all this very ironic. The same year he is
rabble rousing in Philadelphia and apparently promoting images of George
Washington waiting to lose his head at the guillotine. Ghanay
is identified as an enemy of the revolution back in
Paris of the French authorities the Republicans. They request that
Ghanay be returned to Paris to face his trial, and
Ghanay is forced to go had in hand to the
American authorities to beg their leave to stay so he
might keep his head. This the Americans obliged to do.
He actually settles in the state of New York lives
the rest of his days there. But we can see
the origin of the Alien Act. John Adams is quite adamant,
as are his fed Federalist allies in Congress at the time,
that they do not want any of these foreign agents.
There's a lot of worry about these foreign lobbyists that
are trying to work their way into influencing American policy.
That they're throwing money around, like citizen Kanay was doing,
trying to intimidate American elected office holders and trying to
manipulate them into intervention on their side in another continent.
And this is very subversive and legitimate interest. So hence
we have the Alien Act. Now we have the more
controversial of the two acts, the Sedition Act. Now sedition
is another word for treason. July seventeen, ninety eight, so
we see that there is a slight date difference between
the two. The Alien Act I just read was from
June of the same year. Be it enacted that if
any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together with intent
to oppose any measure or measures of the Government of
the United States, which are or shall be directed by
proper authority, or to impede the operation of any Law
of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any
person from holding a place or office in under the
Government of the United States, from undertaking, performing, or executing
his trust or duty. And if any person or persons,
with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to
procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening,
council advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not,
he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor.
And on conviction before any Court of the United States
having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not
exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term
not less than six months nor exceeding five years. And further,
at the discretion of the Court, may be holden to
find sureties for his good behavior in such sum and
for such time as the said Court may direct. Now,
this is the section that is less controversial. It is
against the law to plot to overthrow the government. This
is kind of self evident. You know, the government can
arrest you for plotting to overthrow the president. To overthrow
the constitution is the legitimate risk of such a conspiracy.
But obviously the wording of this law certainly resonates with
me quite differently. After the Summer of Love, people counseling, advising,
or attempting to procure insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination.
This all resonates with me very much, maybe because we
don't see any effort to prosecute people who are obviously
guilty of sedition. The second part of the Sedition Act,
this is the controversial part. So Section two it be
further enacted that if any person shall write print, utter,
or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered,
or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid
in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing in a fall scandalous
and malicious writing or writings against the Government of the
United States, or either House of the Congress of the
United States, or the President of the United States, with
intent to defame the said government, or either House of
the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them,
or either of them into contempt or disrepute, or to
excite against them, or either or any of them, the
hatred of the good people of the United States, or
to surrubsidition within the United States, or to excite any
unlawful combinations therein for opposing or resisting any law of
the United States, or any act of the President of
the United States, done in pursuance of any such law,
or the powers in him vested by the Constitution of
the United States, and so on. The state. The person
being convicted thereof before any court of the United States
Ian jurisdiction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding
two thousand dollars and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.
So that is the troublesome law. This is the one
that gets the Adams administration excoriated on the state levels.
We must remember that with Jefferson's failure in his opinion
on the bank, the Jeffersonians are going down to the
state level for their main opposition. They are not in
the Adams administration. John Adams, unlike Thomas or unlike George Washington,
he does not ask people of the anti federalist persuasion
into his cabinet. Adams has a thoroughly federal most cabinet. Jefferson, however,
is John Adams's vice president, not because they are good friends,
but because Thomas Jefferson got the second highest number of
electoral votes. So the way that the presidency works in
this period is that the primary electoral vote getter becomes
President of the United States. The person who comes in
second becomes vice president of the United States. So they
do propose party tickets and recommend, you know, certain support.
The Federalists wanted Pinkney of South Carolina to be the
vice president, but he didn't make it. He came in third.
So Jefferson, who is member of the Republican opposition, he
is actually vice president at this time. But the various
states who are Republican heavy decide to oppose this federalist overreach.
This is obviously a abrogation of freedom of speech and
freedom of the press. The vagaries of misleading people, lying
about the intentions of the government, what does it say,
publishing false, scandalous and malicious writings to defame the government
or the president, to bring them into contempt or disrepute.
These these are all less than objective uh sorts of
descriptions of activity. We we have seen plenty of recent
examples in our own legislation and enforcement based on alleged
malice or falsehood in people's pleas or public speech. It
is very interesting that the January sixth rioters come to mind,
UH the they are pleading that they went to a
peaceable demonstration, that they did not break any laws while
they were there. They're charged with attempting to overthrow the
government and lying in their plate that they're part of
a conspiracy and so on. So we see how how
this criminalization of saying saying false things, saying scandalous things.
You know, there's so much about the January sixth people
that they believed and promulgated what the federal authorities said
was a false reckoning of the election. And this is
basically their charge against them. Oh, you aren't allowed to
believe that about the election. It's illegitimate to demonstrate concerning that.
And these are all interesting details, but we see some
of the civil aspects of the Sedition Act. The first
part of the Sedition Act is not so controversial. I
suppose it's just a restatement of law forbidding treason. And
you must remember this was done in a time of
practical war, all but declared war with France. The second
part doesn't work so well, especially considering the First Amendment. Now,
this was precisely what the Bill of Rights was supposed
to protect. The Republicans are unwilling to speak too loudly
about this in public places because that would now malign
the president or the intentions of Congress. These are specifically
excluded by the Sedition Act. Thomas Jefferson is quite upset
by the Sedition Act. He is Vice President of the
United States when this is passed by Congress and signed
into law. He is fearful that if he speaks publicly
and in his own name about this act, that he's
going to get rounded up. He is going to have
this law enforced against him. It is enforced against other
public characters. There's a very amusing fellow from Vermont. His
name is Matthew Lyon. He's a newspaper editor, a colorful figure.
At one point he gets into a real fight with
a congressman from Connecticut in Congress. I believe he I
believe he spits in the congressman's eye before he starts
caning him over the head. It's one of the famous
caning incidents in Congress. He's a Vermonter, Matthew Lyon, shout
out to my favorite New England state, Vermont. Lyon is
also a Republican and he is bent on saying what
he thinks. So after the Sedition Act is passed, Lyon
goes back to his hometown newspaper is running for re
election for Congress at the same time, and maligns the
president in print. Well. The President then sends a marshall
up there to find the congressman and imprison him for
his offense of bringing into disrepute the president of the
United States. So we see this is an abrogation of
freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Matthew Lyon ironically
is popularly elected back into Congress out of his jail cell.
So it's a funny little story that's incident here. Meanwhile,
in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson, No, it might be, it might
be actually in Washington at this stage. I think. I
think Adams is the first president occupy the White House,
so I think they might be in Washington City. At
this point, Jefferson and his colleague James Madison are privately
approached by the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. They are
asked to anonymously write resolutions from both states condemning the
Sedition Act and also outlining their strict construction of the Constitution.
And so we find the famous Kentucky and Virginia resolutions.
I'm going to focus today just on the Kentucky resolution
because it is in some ways more forthright, and it's
also Thomas Jefferson's. So this gets adopted by the legislature
of Kentucky. It is some years later, it's eighteen fourteen,
I believe, when our own John Taylor of Caroline reveals
that Thomas Jefferson was the author of this resolution, it
was assumed before then that it was a Kentucky statesman
by the name of Breckenridge who had authored this, but
he had not publicly avowed it. It was just assumed.
So later on it comes out that it's Thomas Jefferson,
and it was John Taylor who actually revealed that. So
the Kentucky Resolution of seventeen ninety eight resolved that the
several states composing the United States of America are not
united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government,
but that by compact under the style and title of
a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments there too,
they constituted a general government for special purposes. So we
see the framing here. It's important to note just how
they understand the formation of the Union. They say, look here,
we have all these sovereign states. They've won their independence
from Great Britain. Now they've organized a union government for themselves.
This is their special agent. They have not so rendered
all of their legal powers to this creation of theirs
that they made just a few years ago. This is
actually a special power meant for special purposes. And we
know what those purposes are. They are all enumerated in
the Constitution so you see here he's insisting the states
are the parent, the federal government is the child of
the parent. The states are preliminary. The federal government is
an extension of the power of the states and obviously
subordinate to them, just as a child is subordinate to
its parents. He says, these special purposes delegated to that
government certain definite powers, reserving each state to itself the
residuary mass of right to their own self government, and
that whatever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts
are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. So he is proposing,
ultimately here the states are a check on undelegated powers
to the federal government. They can review things the federal
government does, and they can reject various powers. This is
partly the essential argument that we find in the declaration.
Is not surprising the Jefferson is the author of both
that when a government steps outside of its bounds, as
the right of the people to alter or abolish it,
that's what the declaration says. That this compact, each state
has acceded as a state and is an integral party
its co states, forming as to itself the other party
that the government created by this compact was not made
the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the
powers delegated to itself. Okay, so he's insisting the federal
government cannot judge the extent of its own powers, that
that is the definition of tyranny, in fact, since that
would have made its discretion and not the Constitution, the
measure of its powers. But that, as in all other
cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each
party has an equal right to judge for itself as
well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
So he continues, resolved that the Constitute or the construction
applied by the General Government, as is evinced by Sundry
of their proceedings to those parts of the Constitution of
the United States, which delegate to Congress of power to
lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay
the debts, and provide for the common defense and general
welfare of the United States, and to make all laws
which shall be necessary and proper for curing into execution
the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of
the United States or any department thereof, goes to the
destruction of all the limits prescribed to their power by
the Constitution. That words meant by that instrument to be
subsidiary only to the execution of the limited powers ought
not be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers.
So this is his attack on Hamilton's expansive reading of
the vague phrases of the Constitution, namely the Necessary and
Proper Clause and the General Welfare Clause. He says, because
if you expand those readings to mean that the government
determines the extent of its own powers, then the rest
of the Constitution is meaningless. Why put any other barriers
up on any debatable point? And there must also be
a final check on that power. Jefferson here and by
extension Kentucky, Virginia, and James Madison, they are proposing the
states are a check on the federal power. The expansive
reading that Hamilton favors resolved that the preceding resolutions be
transmitted to the Senators and Representatives in Congress from this
Commonwealth of Kentucky, who are hereby and joined to present
the same to their respective houses, and to use their
best endeavors to procure the next session of Congress a
repeal of the aforesaid unconstitutional and obnoxious acts. Lastly resolved
that the Governor of this Commonwealth be and is hereby
authorized and requested, to communicate the preceding resolutions to the
legislatures of the several States to assure them that this
Commonwealth considers union for specified national purposes, and particularly for
those specified in their relate Federal Compact, to be friendly
to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of all the states
that faithful to that Compact, according to the plain intent
and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to
by the several parties. It is sincerely anxious for its
preservation that it does also believe that to take from
the states all their powers of self government and transfer
them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to
the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that Compact,
is not for the peace, happiness, or prosperity of these states,
And that therefore this Commonwealth is determined, as it doubts
not its co states are tamely to submit to undelegated
and consequently unlimited powers in no manner body of men
on earth. That if the acts before specified should stand.
These conclusions would flow from them, that the general Government
may place any act they think proper on the list
of crimes, and punish it themselves, whether enumerated or not
enumerated by the Constitution, as cognizable by them, That they
may transfer its cognizance to the President, or any other
person who may himself be the accuser, council, judge, and jury,
whose suspicions may be the evidence, his order, the sentence,
his officer, the executioner, and his breast the sole record
of the transaction, that a very numerous and valuable description
of the inhabitants of these states, being by this President
reduced as outlaws to the absolute dominion of one man,
and the barrier of the Constitution thus swept away from us.
All no rampart now remains against the passions and the
powers of the majority of Congress to protect from a
like exportation or more grievous punishment the minority of the
same body, the legislature, judges, governors, and counselors of the states,
nor their other peaceable inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim
the constitutional rights and liberties of the state and people,
or who for other causes good or bad, may be
obnoxious to the views or marked by the suspicions of
the president, or be thought dangerous to his or their
elections or other interests public or personal. That the friendless
alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of
a first experiment. Who he's playing the heartstring tug right there.
But the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed,
or already has a sedition act marked him as its prey.
That these and successive acts of the same character, unless
arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these states
into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against
republican governments and new pretexts. For those who wish it
to be believed that man cannot be governed but by
a rod of iron, that it would be a dangerous delusion.
Where a confidence in the men of our choice to
silence our fears for the safety of our rights. That
confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is
founded in jealousy and not in confidence. It is jealousy
and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down
those whom we are obliged to trust with power, that
our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and
no further our confidence may go. And let the honest
advocate of confidence read the Alien and Sedition Acts, and
say if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing
limits to the government it created, and whether we should
be wise in destroying those limits. Let him say what
the government is, if it not be a tyranny which
the men of our choice have conferred on the President,
and the president of our choice has assented to and
accepted over the friendly strangers to whom the mild spirit
of our country and its laws had pledged hospitality and protection.
That the men of our choice have more respected the
barest suspicions of the President than the solid rights of innocence,
the claim of justification, the sacred force of truth, and
the forms and substance of law and justice. In questions
of power. Let no more be heard of confidence in man,
but bind him down from mischief by the claims the Constitution.
That this Commonwealth does not therefore call on its co
states for an expression of their sentiments on the acts
concerning aliens, and for the punishment of certain crimes herein
before specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are or are
not authorized by the federal compact. So he says here,
and this is very important. It's ultimately up to the
states to determine whether a controversial law is constitutional or not.
This is the doctrine of state nullification or interposition. That
the states retain authority to judge the meaning of the
contract of union that they assented to, because they are
parties to this contract, and that the agent they created,
the federal government, does not have the ultimate authority to
determine what that contract means, which actually created it. So
this is the novel doctrine here, and this is a
very important doctrine for our understanding going forward. This is
the famous states rights doctrine of the Jeffersonian school, and
we see its origins here in seventeen ninety eight. These
are afterwards referred to as the Principles of ninety eight.
This is a Jeffersonian rallying cry so to continue, and
I'm almost unfeared with the documentary. It doubts not that
their sense will be so announced as to prove their
attachment unaltered to limited government, whether general or particular, and
that the rights and liberties of their co states will
be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked on a
common bottom with their own. That they will concur with
the Commonwealth in considering the set ax as so palpably
against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration,
that the Compact is not meant to be the measure
of the powers of the General Government, but that it
will proceed in the exercise over these states of all
powers whatsoever, so that the Constitution doesn't in fact limit
what the federal government can in fact do. That they
will view this as seizing the rights of the states
and consolidating them in the hands of the general government,
but a power assumed to bind the states, not merely
in cases made federal, but in all cases whatsoever, by
laws made not with their consent, but by others against
their consent. That this would be to surrender the forms
of government we have chosen, and to live under one
deriving its powers from its own will and not from
our authority. And that the co States, recurring to their
natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in
declaring these acts void of no force, and will each
unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their appeal in the
next session of Congress. So we see there his climactic conclusion.
The Governor of Kentucky, through this resolution drafted by Jefferson,
declares the Sedition Act void and of no force in
the Commonwealth. This presents ultimately a conflict between two executive roles.
Will the President send his enforcers, ultimately backed by the
United States Army, to ensure that the law of the
land is enforced in Kentucky and Virginia. Will this lead
to conflict between the governor's state forces and the army
of the United States. It could, It did not on
this occasion. Instead, the federal authorities backed off. John Adams
was not interested in forcing the issue. It turned out
to be an extremely unpopular law, and it tempted his
opponents to extremity. They were all very eager to act
out and get charges so they could make examples. Curiously,
what follows is in eighteen hundred, Thomas Jefferson replaces Adams
in the White House. Jefferson then commutes various sentences, and
there are popular drives among the Republicans to raise funds
to restore those fined by the Sedition Act. Just all
very interesting ordeal. But this is the story of the
Alien and Sedition Acts, both of which may be our
particular interest to Americans at this point in our history,
and I feel I'm lament to say we seem as
divided on the question now as we were then. But
the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. The Kentucky resolution, which we
went in some depth with here the origin of the
substance of nullification, the major weapon of the state's rights school.
So with the Kentucky resolution we see the pivot of
the Jeffersonians, Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Randolph. They lose some
of the key battles in the Washington administration. They exhibit
their position and such, but they don't carry the day.
Hamilton more or less gets everything that he wants. They
take their battle back down to the state level. The
result in the Adams administration is the resolutions against the
Alien Institution Acts. So they're trying to rally state interposition
as their final barrier for their vision of the strict
construction of the Constitution. I cannot overstate just how important
this element is in the future of the sectional conflict
the Southern Jeffersonians. What becomes the Democratic Party later in
our history, think of the Democratic Party of Andrew Jacks.
They are referencing bits like this from our former history. However,
they are not the only ones to reference this. As
I will point out presently in a future episode, this
doctrine that the States reserved rights, and that this is
somehow guarded by the Tenth Amendment, that they are sovereign
powers and may restore a full measure of sovereignty when
they choose whose potential. This comes up during the War
of eighteen twelve in a really interesting way, and we'll
go in some depth on that point later on. But
this is the origin of the theory of nullification and
its original and brilliant exponent in Thomas Jefferson in the
Kentucky Resolution. Do you have anything else to add to
all of this tonight, pe.
Speaker 1: No, that was very thorough. That was very thorough, good background,
good examples, and definitely leading up to the subject that
we we're going to end on. This is one of
the most important things for people to understand that if
the States felt that a law was unconstitutional, they had
a right to say no.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: There's some it's it's so it's so simple, that's That's
the thing about it is it's a very A lot
of people think that, you know, take political theory, and
you know, you can dive down all these rabbit holes.
But as far as our system is designed, this is
very simple.
Speaker 2: Yes, and and it it can get kind of hairy
to dissect because of the complex nature of this huge,
continence sized union. That we have this great and mysterious
division of sovereign powers between the state and the federal government.
So we have all all the different states and their
own institutions, their own stories and regions and differing laws,
and then we have the federal level. And the federal
government does a number of things the states don't do,
and the states do a number of things federal government
doesn't do. There's this interesting between them. And yet we
see from the very start a conflict in power, and
what the claims of power are in each sphere, how
sovereign each is, each actor in this There is a
very good book about this particular subject, which I really
wish I had with me. My library is still packed
up awaiting the sale of my house. Say a prayer
for me. Not many people are coming to look at it.
But there's a book called imperium at imperio. And it's
by Forrest MacDonald, who is one of the greats on
this issue. And it's all about this matter of states
asserting sovereignty in whatever context. So he meticulously documents this,
and this is an excellent work on this particular subject.
And we see that it is not just a sectional issue.
It's not something that only Southerners believed in. It's not
something that was peculiar to the Dixiecrats at one point
or something or that was done for other motives, like
a theory that's cooked up because they really want to
get something else done or something. It's something very old
and it's done in many parts of the country. We
have interesting examples which we will get to. The Maryland
government outlaws the Bank of the United States basically taxes
it out of existence. This is an effort to check
federal power by a state law and by state authority.
It's overruled famously by John Marshall in his landmark case
McCulla versus Maryland, where he basically reads Hamilton's theory into
the constitutional opinion. But this doesn't stop the effort of nullification.
Even on the same manner. After McCulla versus Maryland. The
state of Ohio, which is a Northern state, taxes the
Bank of the United States out of existence in Ohio
and simply ignores the Supreme Court ruling. Other examples of this.
After the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty, several Northern states,
including Massachusetts and Wisconsin, nullify the Congressional Fugitive Slave Act
in their states. Now that's federal law, but there was
a popular reaction and it gets nullified at later dates.
So we see here this issue of nullification is not
particular to the Southern States. This is an American tradition
and it's exercised in any number of issues, and also
in spite of Supreme Court rulings. Because ultimately, the argument
in the Kentucky resolution, as we just saw, is that
the state is a party to this compact. The state
is an adherent to this agreement that forms the Union. Therefore,
the state has an authority to say just what that
agreement constituted, and that the Supreme Court is not the
ultimate authority. A federal judge doesn't have the ultimate say
in what the law is. The state can have a
stay too. Now that's a very complex theory, and we
can have legitimate disagreement about just how all that works out,
but that's the origin, all right.
Speaker 1: Already looking forward to the next episode. Just in case
somebody is picking this episode up first, do your plugs please.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed so. I'm George Bagbee. I'm doing lots of
podcast work presently. I'm the proprietor of Tallman Books, which
is my press. I republish lots of history books. Primarily,
I've got a lot of stuff about the Civil War
and reconstruction, republishing a big series about American history. It's
fifty volumes of American history from Yale University Press from
the nineteen twenties. It was a series called The Chronicles
of America. You can find all of this on my
website which is www dot Collmenbooks dot com. And I
appreciate your patronage.
Speaker 1: Thank you, mister Baggy. Until the next time, take care,
Thank you.