Alien and Sedition Laws; its tone is remarkably moderate throughout. Of course Bacon's reasoning did not convince any of his Federalist colleagues, but it cannot be said to have been without effect, for the President of the Senate moved that the report be referred back to the committee "for the purpose of strengthening it by new and more cogent reasons."[1]
Three days later the committee presented its report again, containing "additional reasons in support of the alien and sedition laws." As now amended the report was passed by a vote of thirty-one to two, one Federalist voting against it because of a passage declaring that in all cases involving the Constitution and laws of the United States the decision belongs to the judiciary. On the day following the matter was reconsidered and the passage altered to read "cases in law and equity," whereupon the objecting Federalist changed sides, leaving the final vote all but unanimous.[2]
In the House of Representatives consideration of the report was confined to a single day, February 12. This debate was open to the public and from the reports of the Mercury and the Chronicle a good idea of the debate may be obtained.[3]
For the Federalists, Mr. Pickman of Salem opened in what the Mercury called "a very able, eloquent and classical speech." He pronounced the Alien and Sedition Laws both constitutional and expedient, denying that aliens had any rights under the Constitution. The greater part of his speech was a defence of what he denominated the chief feature of the report, its constitutional doctrines. It is evident that Pickman dwelt more particularly upon the disastrous consequences which would certainly follow interference by the states than upon the question of their right to interfere, using that ex necessitate method of constitutional argumentation so much employed by the Federalists—a given course of action would result badly, therefore it must be inhibited by the Constitution.
Colonel Barnes of Marlborough denied the right of the state governments to interfere in any manner in federal questions, and from this principle disapproved of giving any opinion upon the subject. This scruple, which was shared by other Federalists, was overcome by the next Federalist speaker, John Lowell, who explained that the report should be considered as only an expression of the individual opinions of the members, not as a legislative declaration. Some such expression of their individual opinions was
