Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/228

184 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS ginia, while a similar series, still more pronounced, drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, was adopted in the same year by the legislature of Kentucky. The Virginia resolutions asserted with truth that, in adopting the Federal constitution, the states had surrendered only a limited portion of their powers ; and went on to declare that, whenever the Federal government should exceed its constitutional au thority, it was the business of the state governments to interfere and pronounce such action unconstitu tional. Accordingly, Virginia declared the alien and sedition laws unconstitutional, and invited the other states to join in the declaration. Not meet ing with a favorable response, Virginia renewed these resolutions the next year. There was noth ing necessarily seditious, or tending toward seces sion, in the Virginia resolutions; but the attitude assumed in them was uncalled for on the part of any state, inasmuch as there existed, in the Federal supreme court, a tribunal competent to decide upon the constitutionality of acts of congress. The Ken tucky resolutions went further. They declared that our Federal constitution was a compact, to which the several states were the one party and the Fed eral government was the other, and each party must decide for itself as to when the compact was in fringed, and as to the proper remedy to be adopted. When the resolutions were repeated in 1799, a clause was added, which went still further and men-