Drunk with hate and a sense of power, the terrorists were running amuck. At a banquet at Hartford in July, 1799, they thrilled to the toast: ‘The Alien and Sedition Laws: Like the Sword of Eden may they point everywhere to guard our country against intrigue from without and faction from within.’[1570] And every Democrat knew that ‘faction’ was the Federalist name for party, and ‘party’ meant the Jeffersonians. Armed with the sword, the Federalists no longer bandied idle words. When George Nicholas of Kentucky challenged Robert Goodhue Harper to a debate through the press on the Sedition Law, the latter was merely amused. ‘The old proverb says, let them laugh who win; and for the converse of the maxim the consolation of railing ought to be allowed to those who lose,’ jeered Harper.[1571] Why argue? The courts were busy silencing and jailing the Jeffersonians, suppressing free speech, striking down the liberty of the press.

With the Democrats partly intimidated in the Eastern States, the honor of leading the fight against these laws was reserved for Virginia and the frontier States of Kentucky and Tennessee. Here mass meetings were held throughout the autumn of 1798. In Woodford County, Kentucky, it was declared ‘the primary duty of every good citizen to guard as a faithful sentinel his constitutional rights and to repel all violations of them from whatever quarter offered.’[1572] Four hundred gathered in Goochland County, Virginia, and, with only thirty opposed, denounced the laws and called upon the next Assembly to protest to Congress.[1573] At Charlottesville, at the foot of Monticello, the people of Albemarle County, Virginia, met to adopt resolutions of denunciation, and at Lexington, Kentucky, they added their protest.[1574] Richmond—Knoxville—followed. These resolutions were dignified and forceful protests, sponsored by men of the first ability in the communities acting. But in the House of Representatives at Philadelphia, when Jeffersonians spoke in favor of the repeal of the obnoxious measures, their voices were drowned by loud conversation, coughs, laughter, the scraping of the feet of the Federalists. ‘Livingston, however, attempted to speak,’ wrote Jefferson, ‘but after a few sentences the Speaker called him to order.... It was impossible to proceed.’[1575] From 1798 until 1801, liberty was mobbed in America with the zealous support of the Federal Courts, to the applause of the church—and out of these conditions came the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.

XII

On the adjournment of Congress in 1798, Jefferson returned to his Virginia home profoundly impressed with the significance of the obnoxious laws. He had supposed that the freedom of speech and the liberty of the press had been guaranteed by the Constitution. That the fundamental law was outraged by these measures he had no doubt. It was his firm conviction that they had been enacted ‘as an experiment on the American mind to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the Constitution,’ and that if it succeeded ‘we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress declaring that the President shall continue in office for life.’[1576] He was not alone in this belief.

One day in the late summer a memorable conference was held at Monticello. There, in the center of the group, was Jefferson. There, too, was W. C. Nicholas, one of the foremost Jeffersonians of Virginia, and John Breckenridge of Kentucky, who had returned on a visit to his native State. It does not appear that Madison participated in this conference, although he was in complete accord with its purpose. There the plan was perfected to launch a movement of protest against the Alien and Sedition Laws through the Legislatures of the various States in resolutions pronouncing them violative of the Constitution and void. While Jefferson, recalling the occasion a quarter of a century later, thought that he had been pressed to frame such resolutions, it is unlikely that the plan did not originate in his own mind. He had an uncanny faculty for calling forth suggestions from others to meet his views. On one point his memory was clear—there was to be the utmost secrecy as to the part he played. That he did prepare a draft is thoroughly established; that the draft finally submitted to the Kentucky Legislature, while based on the Jeffersonian draft, was the work of John Breckenridge has been convincingly maintained.[1577]

This dashing young leader of the Kentucky Democracy had been a marked figure from his earliest youth. More than six feet in height, spare and muscular in build, with the strength and grace of carriage born of his wilderness training, he looked the leader of men. His hair, a rich chestnut tending to auburn, disclosed something of his ardent temperament and was not unlike that of his idolized chief. His brown eyes could be stern or tender. His address was easy and dignified, and his manner not without that touch of gravity which creates confidence in the follower. There was much of tenderness and everything of generosity in his nature to explain the love which enveloped him wherever he went.

Born of Scotch-Irish stock in Virginia thirty-eight years before, his had been an extraordinary career. Scarcely was he out of college when, without any effort on his part, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates at the age of nineteen. When the House refused him his seat because of his age, his loyal constituents elected him again. Again refused his seat, he was elected for the third time, and seated. During the next five years he distinguished himself by his industry and ability no less than by the charm of his personality. It was about this time that the young man ascended the hill to Monticello to sit at the feet of the god of his idolatry. Jefferson was impressed by ‘the large scope of his mind,’ his great store of information, and ‘the moral direction’ of his ideas.[1578] There had to be something extraordinary in the man to whom Gallatin looked a little later as the man best qualified to continue the work of Jefferson, Madison, and himself.[1579]

At the bar Breckenridge distinguished himself by his erudition, his industry, and the fluency and force of his arguments, which were notably free from the floridity then so popular in the South. Elected to Congress when thirty-three, he had abandoned his seat to remove to Lexington, Kentucky, where he acquired a large plantation and settled down to the practice of his profession. Almost immediately he was deeply engaged in politics. He was made President of the Democratic Society of Kentucky and became one of the most engaging of the Democratic leaders of the pioneer State. Returning to Kentucky with the Jefferson draft, he made some changes, and on November 8th presented the Resolutions to the Legislature. The debate was brief, and on the 10th they were adopted.

The Virginia Resolutions, written by James Madison after conferences with Jefferson, were introduced in the Legislature of that State by the celebrated John Taylor of Caroline. These, too, were speedily adopted after a brilliant debate in which their sponsor and Giles crossed swords with the eloquent George Keith Taylor.

The primary purpose of these Resolutions was to concentrate attention on the Alien and Sedition Laws. They were to be sent to the Legislatures of all the States where they would be thoroughly discussed. Jefferson was too wise to have expected a favorable response from Legislatures dominated by the Federalists. But there would be debate, agitation, newspaper controversy—the hated laws would have the searchlight turned full upon them. Historians have been interested in these Resolutions because they set forth in the most impressive manner the compact theory of the Union on which the nullificationists and secessionists were to seize much later as justification for their course. We are interested here in the contemporary view and the political aspect. The reader of to-day is apt to overlook the fact that they were primarily intended as a protest against interference with the freedom of speech and the liberty of the press, and only ‘incidentally they gave expression to a theory concerning the nature of the federal union.’[1580] That this was the general contemporary interpretation is shown in the actions of the other Legislatures. Thus Maryland, Federalist, rejected the Resolutions as ‘highly improper’ because ‘a recommendation to repeal the Alien and Sedition Laws would be unwise and impolitic.’[1581] Thus Delaware, Federalist, dismissed them as a ‘very unjustifiable interference with the general government.’ Thus New Hampshire, Federalist, declared the obnoxious laws ‘constitutional and ... highly expedient.’ The Federalists of Rhode Island pronounced them ‘within the powers delegated to Congress and promotive of the welfare of the United States.’