date or prevent any person holding a place or office in or 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, counsel, 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.

SEC. 2. And be it 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 any false, 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 stir up sedition 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, and one in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against

the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, and declared, That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act, for the writing or publishing any libel aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defence, the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That this act shall continue and be in force until the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and one, and no longer: Provided, that the expiration of the act shall not prevent or defeat a prosecution and punishment of any offence against the law, during the time it shall be in force.

Approved, July 14, 1798.

THE VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS.

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the expression of the opposition to the Alien and Sedition laws originated in a conference at Monticello between Thos. Jefferson and two brothers, Geo. Nicholas, of Kentucky, and Wm. C. Nicholas, of Virginia, while Madison may have been present. As a result, Jefferson drafted the Kentucky resolutions and Madison, the Virginia. Jefferson's resolutions were passed by the Kentucky legislature November 10, 1798, and Madison's, by the Virginia legislature December 21, 1798. These resolutions were forwarded to the legislatures of the several states and elicited decidedly unfavorable replies from the states north of the Potomac. In answer to these replies the Kentucky resolutions of 1799 were adopted.

Jefferson's latest biographer, John T. Morse, says the Kentucky Resolutions "remained a foundation and sufficient precedent and authority for all the subsequent secession doctrines of the Eastern states, for the nullification proceedings of South Carolina, almost, if not quite, for the Rebellion of 1861."

The Kentucky legislature somewhat modified Jefferson's draft, striking out the nullification

clause, which, however, appeared in the final resolution in the next year, 1799.

Consult Schouler's U. S., I., 423; Bryant and Gay's U. S., IV., 130; Von Holst's Const. Hist. U. S., I., 143; Hildreth's U. S., V., 272; McMaster's U.S., II., 419; Morse's Jefferson, 193. The original draft of the Kentucky Resolution is in Jefferson's Works, IX., 494. The replies of the States to the Resolutions, together with Madison's Report in the replies, are in Elliot's Debates, vol. IV.

VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS OF 1798.

VIRGINIA to wit,

IN THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES,
Friday, December 21st, 1798.

Resolved, that the General Assembly of Virginia doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of this state, against every aggression, either foreign or domestic, and that they will support the government of the United States in all measures, warranted by the former.

That this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the union of the states, to maintain which, it pledges its powers; and that for this end, it is their duty, to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles, which constitute the only basis of that union, because a faithful observance of them, can alone secure its existence, and the public happiness.

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of

the instrument constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.

That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret, that a spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the Federal Government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound certain general phrases (which having been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the former articles of confederation were the less liable to be misconstrued) so as to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular enumeration, which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases; and so as to consolidate the states by degrees into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable consequence of which would be, to transform the present republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy.

That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the constitution, in the two late cases of the "Alien and Sedition acts," passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the Federal Government; and which by uniting legislative and judicial powers, to those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government, as well as the particular organization and positive provisions of the federal constitution: and the other of which acts, exercises in like manner a power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary expressly and positively forbidden by