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Show ) CIIAPTER VI. VffiGINIA RESOLUTIONS OF 1798, P'ronouncing the Alien and Sedition .Laws to be unconsti· t~ional, and defining the rights of the States. (Drawn by Mr .• :Wadison.) Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia, doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to mainLain and defend the Constitution of the United Sta tes, and Lhe Constitution of this State, against every aggression, ciLher 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 power; 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 fai thful observance of them cau 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 arc parties, as limited by the plain sense and intent ion of the instrument constituting that compact, as no furth er valid than they are authorized by the grant enumerated in thu.t compact ; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not geanted by the said compact, the States who are parties th ereto, have the right, and are in duty bound to inle1·pose, for arresliug the p1·ogress of (184) VIRGI~IA R~~SOL U'l'IO~~ OJ!"' 1798. 185 the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limi ts, the authori ties, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them. 'rhat the General Assembly doth also express its deepest regret, that a spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the federal government to en large its powers by forced constrnctions of the constitutional charter which defines them : and that indicatiens have appeared of a design to expound certain gen eral phrases (which, hav ing been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the former .ArLiclcs of Confederation, were the less liable to be misconstrued) so as to destroy the meaning an d effect of the particular enumeration wh ich necessarily explains and limits the general phrases, and so as to consol idaLe Lhe Stales, by degrees, into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable result of which would be, to tran sform th e present republican system of the U nitcd States into an absolute, or, at best, a mixed monarchy. 'rhat the General .Assembly doth parLicularly protest against the pal pable and alarming infracLions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the " Alien and Sedition .Acts," p'a ssed at the late session of Congress : the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the federal government, and which, by uni ting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive subverts the general principle of free government, as well as the parLicular organization and positive provisions of the federal ConstituLion : and the other of which acts exercises, in like mann er, a power not delegated by the Consti tution, bn t, on the contrury, expressly and positively forbidqeu by one of the amendments thereto-a power, which, more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is leveled against the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual gnanli att uf' eve ry uth eL· right .. |