for the Federalists; Maryland five of her ten; and North Carolina, four of her twelve.

Jefferson and Burr received the solid vote of New York, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, and eight votes from Pennsylvania, five from Maryland, and eight from North Carolina. Rhode Island gave four votes to Adams, three to Pinckney, and one to John Jay.

one.

As to Mr. Jefferson's service during his four years in the Vice-Presidency there may, perhaps, be some ground for variety of opinion. Still the case is a plain From the President he soon cut loose, or there ceased to be any friendly communication between them. In the main he and his party supported Mr. Adams's peace negotiations and inclinations as far and as fast as they understood them. But with this Mr. Jefferson's good disposition towards the Administration chiefly ended. Every apparent step in relation to France met his suspicion at least, if not his determined opposition.

At the outset of the attempts of the American ministers, Marshall, Pinckney, and Gerry, to negotiate in France, unofficial persons, whose names were not then known, were employed by the Directory on the part of the French, and these individuals signed themselves X Y Z. In the dispatches sent to America these letters were employed as they were used in the correspondence, and in this shape the matter was opened to Congress by Mr. Adams. The appearance of these mysterious letters, X Y Z, at once alarmed Mr. Jefferson and many others, and they were not slow in demanding an explanation, which the President was only able to give in a way which not only merely dampened,

but also worked the downfall of, their expectations and purposes. The X Y Z communications did too much, they revealed the utter corruption and villainy of the beloved French revolutionists, and the very step the opposition took for the shame and confounding of the Administration set it forward amazingly, and started such a war-cry throughout the country as to make Mr. Jefferson and his friends feel that their time was removed into the future indefinitely. Their opposition was temporarily drowned in the great clamor for war and the Administration. Still Mr. Jefferson did not lose sight of the fact that the two great purposes of his life at that time, as he afterwards said, were to thwart the designs and acts of the Administration, and for putting the reins of government in the hands of his party friends, where he believed the country and every thing belonging to it would be perfectly safe.

While in the Vice-Presidency Mr. Adams had opportunities for some of his best and most far-reaching services to the country merely by his decisive vote in the Senate. Mr. Jefferson's opportunities in this way for good or evil were quite limited, as the Senate had, from first to last, a Federalist majority. All the annual speeches of Mr. Adams were favorably replied to by both Houses of Congress, owing to this majority. The Congressional elections of 1798, still maintained the Federal supremacy, but so intent was Mr. Jefferson on his work of providing for the transferring of national affairs to the Republicans that he seldom left his place in the Senate for fear an occasion might be lost for striking a blow. He thought, or seemed to think, that the Administration was going in a way to bring the country to ultimate ruin, and

that it was a part of his duty to do all he could to break it down, to render it unpopular with the people.

The unfavorable organization of the Senate made it necessary for him to turn his influence into other channels, which he did with a result deemed afterwards by him as worthy of great consideration. What he did during these four years towards putting down the Federalists and elevating his own party, he designated one of the most beneficial works of his life; and however little he accomplished merely in his function of Vice-President, it is probable that that position greatly advanced his partisan work and his personal interests.

As a presiding officer Mr. Jefferson was amiable and satisfactory, but in some respects he fell much below several others who have occupied the Chair of the Senate.

CHAPTER XVII.

KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS OF 1798 AND 1799— WHO WAS THE FATHER OF NULLIFICATION?

KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS, NOVEMBER, 1798.

1. 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 thereto, they constituted a general government for 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 whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: That to this compact each State 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; 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.

2. 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 laws of nations, and no other crimes whatever, and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having alto declared, "that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people;" therefore, also the same act of Congress, passed on the 14th day

of July, 1798, and entitled, "An act in addition to the act entitled, an act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,'" as also the act passed by them on the 27th day of June, 1798, entitled "An act to punish frauds committed on the Bank of the United States," (and all other their acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes other than those 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.

3. That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respeetively or to the people ;" and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved, to the States or to the people: That thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which can not be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed; and thus, also, they guarded against all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this State, by a law passed on the general demand of its citizens, had already protected them from all human restraint or interference; and that, in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press," thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false 'religion, are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals: That therefore the act of the Congress of the United States,