Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions: Difference between revisions
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==Background== | ==Background== | ||
The Alien and Sedition Acts was passed by Congress in 1798 during the | The Alien and Sedition Acts was passed by Congress in 1798 during the undeclared war with France (called the "Quasi War"). The acts made a federal crime to attack the government, and restricted aliens. Enemy aliens (that is citizens of an enemy country) could be rounded up by the President; this latter authority is still in effect in 2007. The Federalist party passed the act, warning of the dangers of French subversion. Jeffersonian Republicans complained the laws were not needed and that their friends and allies were the target. | ||
==The Resolutions== | ==The Resolutions== | ||
Revision as of 12:10, 20 May 2007
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were two influential American historical documents. They were resolutions passed by the state legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia, respectively, in 1798. The secret author of Virginia Resolutions was James Madison, while the Kentucky Resolutions were secretly written by Thomas Jefferson. The two documents were written in opposition of the Alien and Sedition Acts and established the theory of nullification and interposition.
Background
The Alien and Sedition Acts was passed by Congress in 1798 during the undeclared war with France (called the "Quasi War"). The acts made a federal crime to attack the government, and restricted aliens. Enemy aliens (that is citizens of an enemy country) could be rounded up by the President; this latter authority is still in effect in 2007. The Federalist party passed the act, warning of the dangers of French subversion. Jeffersonian Republicans complained the laws were not needed and that their friends and allies were the target.
The Resolutions
Thomas Jefferson and James Madsion secretly collaborated in writing different resolutions ofprotest. These were passed by the state legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, but other states refused to pass them. The authorship of Jefferson and Madison remained secret for years. Both resolutions not only condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional They went to claim that individual states could nullify federal laws deemed to be unconstitutional. Madison's Virginia Resolutions, which pronounced the compact theory, were relatively milder in terms than Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions, which explicitly stated states' rights to nullification.
Similar resolutions were proposed in other states, but they were not adopted. The Alien and Sedition Acts either expired or were repealed from 1800 to 1802, after Jefferson was elected to the presidency.
Historical significance
The Resolutions later became landmark documents supporting the concept of states' rights. They were invoked during the Nullification Crisis by John C. Calhoun to justify South Carolina's nullification of the federal tariff. The ideas underlying the Resolutions also influenced the Southern secession in the 1860s, which resulted in the American Civil War.