The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1348: The Road to Civil War Pt. 4 - The 'Principles of '98' - w/ George Bagby

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

67 MinutesSafe for WorkGeorge Bagby is a content creator and publisher of long-forgotten books. George joins Pete to continue a series detailing the long lead up to America's Civil War.George's Twitter AccountGeorge's Pinned Tweet w/ Links George's YouTube ChannelPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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AIB for the life you're after. Allied Irish Bank's PLC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. If you want to get the show early and ad-free, head on over to thepecignones show.com. I'm going to say this slow because I know a lot of you are doing this at one and a half speed or two-time speed. If you want an RSS feed, it is only available if you subscribe through Substack or Patreon. You will get the audio file if you subscribe through my website, subscribe star, or Gumroad. and the links are all there at the Piquinoes Show.com. I just want to give thanks, continued thanks,

to all of you who support me and allow me to do this and be able to put out the amount of content I can do and hopefully the kind of quality that keeps you coming back. So I'm only able to do this because of you. So head on over to the Piquanones Show.com and you will get the episodes early and ad free. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pete Kenyneau show.

George Bagby is back, and we are going to continue the series looking at the lead-up to America's Civil War. How are you doing this evening of Mr. Bagby? I'm doing well. I'm as busy as a bee. I've been under the weather lately. it's really weird when you get a fever and you have delirium. Have you had that happen before? Only once.

Really? Yes. Well, it's really strange because you feel very detached, but you become, or at least I become obsessed about very obscure matters. And I'll stay up all night thinking of things that have no significance. Yeah. Which is what I went through a couple nights ago. But I'm on the mend now.

Well, that's good. That's good. Yeah, I remember, I think the reason is because you can't think straight. You can't keep a thought so you're constantly bouncing from one subject to the next in your mind. Yeah, it's a very confused situation. It's a strange mental state. Yeah. But I've got here for us tonight.

material about the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. So we continue on this theme of conflict between the federalists and the Republicans, the Republicans being Jefferson's faction in the early Republic, better identified with the Democrats, what becomes the Democratic Party later on. But at this stage, they're more commonly called the Republicans. So back during the Washington administration in this period that we've been discussing recently with the debate over the bank and the debt and the constitutional powers and interpretations, the Republic of France was just getting started.

The French Revolution was underway. You remember at the start of Washington's administration, he recalls Thomas Jefferson, who was the very francophile American ambassador in Paris. He replaces Thomas Jefferson. Well, Thomas Jefferson becomes Secretary of State, so his foreign minister, he replaces Thomas Jefferson with Gouverner Morris, the famous New York Federalist, man who physically wrote the Philadelphia Constitution. He was known to have a very good hand, and so they asked him to be the pinman. But Gouverner Morris goes to Paris, and he's quite appalled. by the progress of the French Revolution.

Even Thomas Jefferson was eventually startled by the excesses of the French Revolution. Their war on the clergy, they're martyering the priesthood in Paris, and really grotesque things going on there. This is all before the terror, of course. but Governor Morris becomes very antagonistic to the Jacobin court, the Republicans in Paris. The French Republic has a very complex relationship with the United States. They assume the king's debts and assets, and so they assume the money that the United States, government owes to the former king, King Louis, and they eventually agree to some treaties and such,

but the relationship during the Washington administration is antagonistic with the French Republic. Washington makes it known that he doesn't want to have anything to do with the French Republic's numerous wars of these egalitarians, these... dreamers, revolutionaries, they declare liberty, equality, fraternity, and then they declare war on all of their neighbors and propose to disestablish their churches, presumably martyr their clergy, and liberate them all from their nobility and monarchs, which their neighbors are not so interested in having done to them. So there's war that springs out across Europe. The French Republic sends Citizen Genet to America as their ambassador. Citizen Guinea has a brief tenure in America, but he is the cause of much controversy while he is here.

It's interesting to note that for all the differences that we've delineated between Hamilton and Jefferson and their perspectives. That Hamilton is from the start, a great critic of the French Revolution, and a great sympathizer with the king. Jefferson, not surprisingly, being a very radical Democrat, and a personal friend of Thomas Payne, Thomas Payne is a figure here that is always lurking around. the people who are willing to be friends with Thomas Payne discredit themselves to some degree in this generation. And it is important to note how friendly Jefferson was and also Jefferson's protege,

the future president James Monroe, was very good friends with Thomas Payne. Actually, has Thomas Payne live with him for long periods of time. So their affections in this, this stage. It reflects their political beliefs in disposition here in America, but it plays out very dramatically over in France. So Gannay is sent to America to collect the debts that were owned owed to the former king. He wants to reestablish French holdings in the Americas. So he wants to foment rebellion in French Canada. He wants to get French Louisiana back from Spain,

which is a Catholic monarchy that the Republic is now at war with. And he's also interested in interfering in American Internal Affairs in the early Republic. He wants to make the United States a base of privateers against British merchantmen in the Atlantic. So he brings a budget along for this, and he talks with lots of local officials to get this established. Now, this obviously could make us a kind of party to France's war in Europe. So it's a naturally security concern. Gannes' privateers, which he sponsors in the Americas, they sail up the Delaware River one day and just happened to find a British merchant ship there.

They capture it and tow it back to Philadelphia as a prize. So this is going on inside of our territorial waters. Gannay really wants to draw in the American Republic on the side of the French Republic's European adventures. Sustainability isn't simply good business. It's good for all kinds of business. And in today's climate, it's not just what you achieve that matters. It's how you achieve it.

That's why AIB is driving positive change with practical knowledge, supports, and our business sustainability loan, designed to help businesses achieve more sustainable growth. Search AIB Business Sustainability Loan today. AIB. For the life you're after. Allied Irish Bank's PLC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. And he is constantly writing correspondence to officials and private persons across the United States

trying to lobby for these efforts. And he does have a budget involved here. Surprisingly, he gets George Rosh. Rogers Clark, General Clark from Kentucky to correspond with him about the possibility of leading Kentucky riflemen down to the lower Mississippi Valley to take New Orleans from the inland from the Spaniards who were in charge of it at that point. So Ginnay goes quite a distance. Gennay eventually corresponds with Secretary of State Jefferson. Jefferson unwisely corresponds with Gennay, but his correspondence isn't ultimately discrediting to him.

Jefferson is a lifelong Francophile and initially a big fan of the French Revolution. Ghana is asking Secretary of State Jefferson what the American attitude would be to General George Rogers Clark leading a personal expedition down to take Louisiana from the Spanish. And Jefferson responds very tactfully and tells citizen Gennay, being that the Spanish are not at war with the United States, and being that these are not at war with the United States, and being that these are American citizens who are talking about doing this, this could mean treason charges for all involved if they are undertaking on their own initiative, war with a foreign power,

to try to get us involved in entanglements in Europe. We are totally against that. We don't want that. And anyone that enlisted with you to do that would probably get a treason charge. But Jefferson was also careful to sign his correspondence on this occasion. He says, I write you as citizen, Mr. Jefferson, not in the capacity of Secretary of State. So he's kind of trying to divide his office from his person here.

But we see some of the dangerous things that Genné is up to. In the eventful year 1793, the French Republic declares formal war on Great Britain, and Washington responds with a declaration of neutrality. Once again, we see a division between Jefferson and Hamilton, as we usually do in the cabinet. Hamilton says that the executive should have the prerogative to make these major foreign policy declarations. Jefferson says, no, this should be a representative process. It should come out of Congress. Congress should debate pros or cons of neutrality. And then Congress should declare the policy.

And then the president does it with the authority of Congress. The president just proclaims whatever Congress has to say. So we see that very procedural sort of process. And this is part of Jefferson's ultimate idealism about the democratic process as a form. He believes that this is going to solve all manner of problems. And of course, this is not how these things efficiently work. the president does make any number of policies and declarations. So Hamilton has the description there.

That is ultimately how it ends up working. But Gannay, with the declaration of neutrality, the French Republic takes this as a hostile statement from the Americans, that they are not willing to signal solidarity with fellow republics like themselves. Gannay is given instructions from his handlers back in Paris to foment popular demonstrations in the new capital of Philadelphia against Washington. So these are pro-war demonstrations going on in Philadelphia.

This so alarms Vice President Adams that he orders chests of arms to be brought in to defend the government because he's worried about a violent riot. Adams calls this the terrorism excited by Gennay in his memoirs. In a cabinet meeting in the summer of 93, when Genné is up to his shenan. Anagans there in Philadelphia trying to pressure the Washington administration to declare in France's favor and to give them concessions or even an alliance.

Secretary of War, Knox, presents the president with a lithograph made in Philadelphia presenting George Washington in line at a guillotine. So this is what Gannay is. promoting in Philadelphia of violent riot or threats of violence against the president and his ministers.

This ultimately overwhelms even the friendly Thomas Jefferson who won't tolerate too much criticism of France. Even Thomas Jefferson eventually agrees this man is persona non grata. We cannot tolerate this kind of activity by an official agent of an erstwhile ally.

What results in the following years is very interesting. The proclamation of neutrality, the famous farewell address where Washington is advising a continued policy of neutrality. In the Adams administration, which follows, we have the interesting quasi-war with France. So France starts attacking American shipping in the Atlantic.

This is mostly operation taking place at sea. And this lasts from 1797 to 1800. This is all but declared war with France. There are casualties. French and American

warships are meeting each other and exchanging fire in the Atlantic. And you also have a coincident with this, the curious XYZ affair in Paris. So this is the mission of Elbridge, Jerry, Charles Pinckney, and I forget who else. several American diplomats in Paris were told, more or less, by by French agents, code named X, Y, and Z, that they must pay a substantial bribe

to the French in order to be recognized in the court. And this was just a shocking attempt of corruption. and it really exasperated American officials, and it was a major source of frigid relations between the United States and France with the following years. It's really quite remarkable that at this stage we avoided war with France, with everything that was going on. these insults to our ambassadors, demands for bribes in order to have normal diplomatic correspondence, the quasi-war, which goes on for several years, all in response to this, to lead up to my point and the main subject of our episode today, John Adams in 1798, requests and receives from the Federalist Congress.

So these are mostly New England congressmen who write these bills and sign off on them as Speaker of the House and such. He gets the Alien and Sedition Acts. So it's necessary

for us to understand the circumstances. This doesn't come out of nowhere. These are circumstances very close to a major war with a European great power. So the Alien and Sedition Acts, there's a whole series of them. I'm going to read to you excerpts from two main elements so that we can get a reading,

understanding of what these legislative acts constitute. Sustainability isn't simply good business. It's good for all kinds of business. And in today's climate. It's not just what you achieve that matters. It's how you achieve it. That's why AIB is driving positive change with practical knowledge, supports and our business sustainability loan, designed to help businesses achieve more sustainable growth. Search AIB Business Sustainability Loan today. AIB for the life you're after. Allied Irish Bank's PLC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. So, an act concerning aliens, June 1798, be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, the United States of America and Congress assembled that it is lawful for the President of the United States

at any time during the continuance of this act to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or have reasonable. grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret mechanations against the government thereof to depart out of the territory of the United States within such as time or such time as shall be expressed in such order which order shall be served on such alien by delivering him a copy thereof or leaving the same at his usual abode and return to the office of of the Secretary of State by the Marshal or other person to whom the same shall be directed. And in case any alien, so ordered to depart, shall be found at large within the United States

after the time limited such order for his departure, and not having obtained a license from the president to reside therein, or having obtained such license, shall not have confirmed thereto. every such alien shall on conviction be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three years and shall never after be admitted to become a citizen of the United States. Now, this is a very interesting act. Now, this is not the one that caused so much controversy. This does not get such an angry response from the states and from the Republicans. Gannay had certainly overstayed his welcome and had fomented rebellion against the legitimate authorities of the country.

To make all this very ironic, the same year he is rabble-rousing in Philadelphia and apparently promoting images of George Washington waiting to lose his head at the guillotine, Ghana is identified as an enemy of the revolution back in Paris of the French authorities, the Republicans, they request that Guinea be returned to Paris to face his trial. And Ghana is forced to go hat in hand to the American authorities to beg their leave to stay. so he might keep his head. This the Americans obliged to do.

He actually settles in the state of New York, lives the rest of his days there. But we can see the origin of the Alien Act. John Adams is quite adamant, as are his federalist allies in Congress at the time. They do not want any of these foreign agents. There's a lot of worry about these foreign lobbyists that are trying to work their way into influencing American policy, that they're throwing money around like Citizen Gennay was doing, trying to intimidate American elected office holders,

and trying to manipulate them into intervention on their side, in another continent. And this is very subversive and legitimate interest. So hence we have the Alien Act. Now we have the more controversial of the two acts, the Sedition Act. Now Sedition is another word for treason. July 1798. So we see that there is a slight date difference between the two. The Alien Act I just read was from June of the same year. Be it enacted that if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or

prevent any person from holding a place or office 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 a conviction before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $5,000, 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 some and for such time as the said court may direct. Now, this is the section that is less controversial. It is against the law to plot to overthrow the government. This is kind of self-evident. You know, the government can arrest you for plotting to overthrow the president, to overthrow the Constitution. This is the legitimate risk of such a conspiracy. But obviously, the wording of this law certainly resonates with me quite differently.

after the summer of love. People counseling, advising, or attempting to procure insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination. This all resonates with me very much. Maybe because we don't see any effort to prosecute people who are obviously guilty of sedition. The second part

of the Sedition Act, this is the controversial part. So, Section 2, it be 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 surreepidition 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 in the United States, done in pursuance of any such law or the powers in him vested by the Constitution of the United States, and so on.

The person being convicted thereof before any court of the United States, having jurisdiction shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $2,000 and by imprisonment not exceeding two years. So that is the troublesome law. This is the one that gets the Adams administration excoriated on the state levels. we must remember that with Jefferson's failure, in his opinion on the bank, the Jeffersonians are going down to the state level for their main opposition. They are not in the Adams administration. John Adams, unlike Thomas, or unlike George Washington, he does not ask.

people of the anti-federalist persuasion into his cabinet. Adams has a thoroughly federalist cabinet. Jefferson, however, is John Adams's vice president, not because they are good friends, but because Thomas Jefferson got the second highest number of electoral votes. So the way that the president, works in this period is that the primary electoral vote getter becomes president of the United States. The person who comes in second becomes vice president of the United States.

So they do propose party tickets and recommend, you know, certain support. The federalist wanted Pinckney of South Carolina to be the vice president, but he didn't make it. he came in third. So Jefferson, who is a member of the Republican opposition, he is actually vice president at this time. But the various states who are Republican heavy decide to oppose this federalist overreach. This is obviously a abrogation of freedom of speech. and freedom of the press. The vagaries of misleading people lying about the intentions of the government, what does it say, publishing false, scandalous, and malicious writings to defame the government or the president,

to bring them into contempt or disrepute. These are all less than objective sorts of descriptions of activity. We have seen plenty of recent examples in our own legislation and enforcement based on alleged malice or falsehood. in people's pleas or public speech is very interesting that the January 6th rioters come to mind. They are pleading that they went to a peaceable demonstration, that they did not break any laws while they were there. They're charged with attempting to overthrow the government and lying in their plea, that they're part of a conspiracy and so on.

So we see how this criminalization of saying false things, saying scandalous things. You know, there's so much about the January 6 people that they believed and promulgated what the federal authorities said was a false reckoning of the election. and this is basically their charge against them. You aren't allowed to believe that about the election. It's illegitimate to demonstrate concerning that. And these are all interesting details, but we see some of the civil aspects of the Sedition Act.

The first part of the Sedition Act is, not so controversial. I suppose it's just a restatement of law forbidding treason. And you must remember this was done in a time of practical war, all but declared war with France. The second part doesn't work so well, especially considering the First Amendment. Now, this was precisely what the Bill of Rights was supposed to protect. The Republicans are unwilling to speak too loudly about this in public places because that would now malign the president or the intentions of Congress. These are specifically excluded by the Sedition Act.

Thomas Jefferson is quite upset. by the Sedition Act. He is vice president of the United States when this is passed by Congress and signed into law. He is fearful that if he speaks publicly and in his own name about this act, that he's going to get rounded up. He's going to have this law enforced against him. It is enforced against other public characters. There's a very amusing fellow from Vermont. His name is Matthew Lyon. He is a newspaper editor, a colorful figure.

At one point, he gets into a real fight with a congressman from Connecticut in Congress. I believe he spits in the congressman's eye before he starts caning him over the head. It's one of the famous caning incidents in Congress. He's a Vermonter,

Matthew Lyon. Shout out to my favorite New England state, Vermont. Lion is also a Republican. And he is bent on saying, what he thinks. So after the Sedition Act is passed, Lyon goes back to his hometown newspaper,

is running for reelection for Congress at the same time, and maligns the president in print. Well, the president then sends a marshal up there to fine the congressman and imprison him for his offense of bringing in to disrepute the president of the United States. So we see this is an abrogation of freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Matthew Lyon, ironically, is popularly elected back into Congress out of his jail cell. So it's a funny little story that's incident here. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson, no, it might be actually in Washington at this stage. I think Adams is the first president to occupy the White House. So I think they might be in

Washington City at this point. Jefferson and his colleague, James Madison, are privately approached by the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. They are asked to anonymously write resolutions from both states condemning the Sedition Act and also outlining their strict construction of the Constitution. And so we find the famous Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. I'm going to focus today just on the Kentucky resolution because it is in some ways more forthright and it's also Thomas Jefferson's. So this gets adopted by the legislature of Kentucky. It is some years later, it's 1814, I believe, when our own John Taylor of Caroline reveals that Thomas Jefferson was the author of this resolution. It was assumed before then that it was a Kentucky statesman by the name of

Breckenridge who had authored this, but he had not publicly avowed it. It was just assumed so. Later on, it comes out that it's Thomas Jefferson, and it was John Taylor who actually revealed that. So the Kentucky Resolution of 1798 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. So we see the framing here. it's important to note just how they understand the formation of the union.

They say, look here, we have all these sovereign states. They've won their independence from Great Britain. Now they've organized a union government for themselves. This is their special agent. They have not surrendered all of their union government. legal powers to this creation of theirs that they made just a few years ago. This is actually a special power meant for special purposes. And we know what those purposes are.

They are all enumerated in the Constitution. So you see here he's insisting the states are the parent, the federal government is the child of the parent. The states are preliminary. The federal government is an extension of the power of the states and obviously subordinate to them, just as a child is subordinate to its parents.

He says these 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 whatever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. So he is proposing, ultimately here, the states are a check on undelegated powers to the federal,

government. They can review things the federal government does and they can reject various powers. This is partly the essential argument that we find in the Declaration is not surprising. Jefferson is the author of both. That when a government steps outside of its bounds is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. That's what the Declaration says. that this compact, each state has 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. Okay, so he's insisting the federal government cannot judge the extent of its own powers, that that is the definition of tyranny, in fact.

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. So, he continues, resolved that the construction applied by the general government, as is evinced by sundry of their proceedings to those parts of the Constitution of the United States, which delegate to Congress a power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposes, and exises to pay the debts

and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution and the government of the United States or any department thereof goes to the destruction of all the limits prescribed to their power by the Constitution, that words meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of the limited powers ought not be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers.

So this is his attack on Hamilton's expansive reading of the vague phrases of the Constitution, namely the necessary and proper clause and the general welfare clause. He says, because if you expand those readings to mean that the government determines the extent of its own powers, then the rest of the Constitution is meaningless. why put any other barriers up on any debatable point? And there must also be a final check on that power. Jefferson here, and by extension, Kentucky, Virginia, and James Madison, they are proposing the states are a check on the federal power,

the expansive reading that Hamilton favors. resolved that the preceding resolutions be transmitted to the senators and representatives in Congress from this Commonwealth of Kentucky, who were hereby enjoined to present the same to their respective houses, and to use their best endeavors to procure the next session of Congress a repeal of the aforesaid, unconstitutional, and obnoxious acts. Lastly, resolved that the governor of this Commonwealth be, and is hereby authorized and requested to communicate the preceding resolutions to the legislatures of the several states, to assure them that this Commonwealth considers union for specified national purposes, and particularly for those specified in their late federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of all the states, that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning, in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation, that it does

also believe that to take from the states all their powers of self-government, and transfer them to a general and consolidated government without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact is not for the peace, happiness, or prosperity of these states, and that, therefore, this Commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-states are, tamely to submit to undelegated and consequently unlimited powers in no man or body of men on earth, that if the acts before specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from them, that the general government may place any act they think proper on the list of crimes and punish it themselves, whether enumerated or not enumerated by the Constitution as cognizable by them,

that they may transfer its cognizance to the president or any other person who may himself be the accuser, counsel, judge, and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence, his order, the sentence, his officer, the executioner, and his breast the sole record of the transaction, that a very numerous and valuable description of the inhabitants of these states, being by this president, reduced as outlaws to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the Constitution, thus swept away from us all,

no rampart now remains against the passions and the powers of a majority of Congress, to protect from a like exportation or more grievous punishment the minority of the same body, the legislature judges, governors, and counselors of the states, nor their other peaceable inhabitants who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights and liberties of the state and people, or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the views or marked by the suspicions of the president, or be thought dangerous to his or their elections, or other interests, public or personal, that the friendless alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment. So he's playing the heartstring tug right there.

But the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed, or already has a sedition act marked him as its prey, that these in successive acts of the same character, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these states into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against Republican governments and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron, that it would be a dangerous delusion where a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights, that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy and not in confidence.

It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power, that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which and no further our confidence may go, and let the honest advocate of confidence read the alien and sedition acts, and say, if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits. Let him say what the government is, if it not be a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on the president, and the president of our choice has assented to and accepted over the friendly strangers, to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws had pledged hospitality and protection,

that the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the president than the solid rights of innocence, the claim of justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and justice in questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the claims of the Constitution, that this Commonwealth does not, therefore, call on its co-states for an expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning aliens and for the punishment of certain crimes herein before specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are or are not authorized by the Federal Compact. So he says here, and this is very important,

it's ultimately up to the states to determine whether a controversial law is constitutional or not. This is the doctrine of state nullification or interposition that the states retain authority to judge the meaning of the contract of union that they assented to because they are parties to this contract and that the agent they created the federal government does not have the ultimate authority to determine what that contract means, which actually created it. So this is the novel doctrine here, and this is a very important doctrine for our understanding going forward. This is the famous states rights doctrine of the Jeffersonian School. and we see its origins here in 1798.

These are afterwards referred to as the principles of 98. This is a Jeffersonian rallying cry. So to continue, and I'm almost done here with the document. It doubts not that their sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government, whether general or particular, and that the rights and liberties of their co-states will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked on a common bottom with their own, that they will concur with the Commonwealth in considering the said acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised

declaration, that the compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the general government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these states of all. powers whatsoever so that the Constitution doesn't in fact limit what the federal government can in fact do that they will view this as seizing the rights of the states and consolidating them in the hands of the general government but a power assumed to bind the states not merely in cases made federal but in all cases whatsoever by laws made not with their consent but by others against their consent, that this would be to surrender the forms of government we have chosen and to live

under one deriving its powers from its own will and not from our authority, and that the co-states recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal will concur in declaring these acts void of no force, and will each unite with this Commonwealth in requesting their appeal in the next session of Congress. So we see there his climactic conclusion. The governor of Kentucky, through this resolution drafted by Jefferson, declares the Sedition Act void and of no force in the Commonwealth. This presents ultimately a conflict between two executive roles. Will the president sent his enforcers, ultimately backed by the United States Army, to ensure that the law of the land is enforced in Kentucky and Virginia.

Will this lead to conflict between the governor's state forces and the army of the United States? It could. It did not on this occasion. instead the federal authorities backed off John Adams was not interested in forcing the issue it turned out to be extremely unpopular law and it tempted his opponents to extremity

they were all very eager to act out and get charges so they could make examples curiously what follows is in 1800 Thomas Jefferson replaces Adams in the White House Jefferson then

commutes various sentences and there are popular drives among the Republicans to raise funds to restore those fined by the Sedition Act which is all

all very interesting ordeal. But this is the story of the Alien and Sedition Acts, both of which maybe our particular interest to Americans at this point in our history. And I feel, I lament to say we seem as divided on the question now as we were then. But the Virginia and Conduinary and,

Kentucky Resolutions, the Kentucky Resolution, which we went into some depth with here, the origin of the substance of nullification, the major weapon of the state's rights school. So with the Kentucky Resolution, we see the pivot of the Jeffersonians. Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Randolph, they lose some of the key battles in the Washington administration. They exhibit their position and such, but they don't carry the day. Hamilton more or less gets everything that he wants. They take their battle back down to the state level. The result in the Adams administration is the resolution. against the Alien Instition Act.

So they're trying to rally state interposition as their final barrier for their vision of the strict construction of the Constitution. I cannot overstate just how important this element is in the future of the sectional conflict. the Southern Jeffersonians what becomes the Democratic Party later in our history. Think of the Democratic Party of Andrew Jacks. They are referencing bits like this from our former history. However, they are not the only ones to reference this. As I will point out

presently in a future episode, this doctrine that the state's reserved rights and that this is somehow guarded by the 10th Amendment, that they are sovereign powers and may restore a full measure of sovereignty when they choose, at least potentially, this comes up during the War of 1812 in a really interesting way, and we'll go in some depth on that point later on. But this is the origin. of the theory of nullification and its original and brilliant exponent in Thomas Jefferson and the Kentucky Resolution. Do you have anything else to add to all of this tonight, Pete?

No, that was very thorough. That was very thorough. Good background, good examples. And definitely leading up to, you know, the subject that we're going to, to end on, this is one of the most important things for people to understand that the, if the states felt that a law was unconstitutional, they had a right to say no. Exactly. It's so, it's so simple.

That's the thing about it is it's a very, a lot of people think that, you know, take political theory and, you know, you can dive down all these rabbit holes. but as far as our system was designed, this is very simple. Yes, and it can get kind of hairy to dissect because of the complex nature of this huge continent-sized union, that we have this great and mysterious division of sovereign powers between the state and the federal government. So we have all the different states and their own institutions, their own stories and regions and differing laws.

And then we have the federal level and the federal government does a number of things the states don't do and the states do a number of things federal government doesn't do. There's this interesting division between them. And yet we see from the very start a conflict in power and what the claims of power are in each sphere. How sovereign is each actor in this? There is a very good book about this particular subject, which I really wish I had with me. my library is still packed up, awaiting the sale of my house. Say a prayer for me. Not many people are coming to look at it.

But there's a book called Imperium at Imperio, and it's by Forrest MacDonald, who is one of the greats on this issue. And it's all about this matter of states assertion. sovereignty in whatever context. So he meticulously documents this, and this is an excellent work on this particular subject. And we see that it is not just a sectional issue. It's not something that only Southerners believed in.

It's not something that was peculiar to the Dixiecrats at one point or something, or that was done for other motives, like a theory that's cooked up because they really want to get something else done or something. It's something very old, and it's done in many parts of the country. We have interesting examples, which we will get to. The Maryland government outlaws the bank,

of the United States, basically taxes it out of existence. This is an effort to check federal power by a state law and by state authority. It's overruled famously by John Marshall in his landmark case, McCullough v. Maryland, where he basically reads Hamilton's theory into the constitutional opinion. But this doesn't stop the effort of nullification, even on the same manner. After McCullough v. Maryland, the state of Ohio, which is a northern state, taxes the Bank of the United States out of existence in Ohio, and simply ignores the Supreme Court ruling.

Other examples of this, after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, several northern states, including Massachusetts and Wisconsin, nullify the Congressional Fugitive Slave Act in their states. And that's federal law. But there was a popular reaction, and it gets nullified at later dates. So we see here this issue of nullification is not particular to the southern states. This is an American tradition, and it's exercised in any number of issues, and also in spite of Supreme Court rulings. Because ultimately, the argument in the Kentucky Resolution, as we just saw, is that the state is a party to this compact. The state is an adherent to this agreement that forms the union.

Therefore, the state has an authority to say just what that agreement constituted, and that the Supreme Court is not the ultimate authority. A federal judge doesn't have the ultimate say in what the law is. The state can have a stay, too. Now, that's a very complex theory, and we can have legitimate disagreement about just how all that works out, but that's the origin. All right. Already looking forward to the next episode, just in case somebody is picking this episode up first. Do your plugs, please. Yes, indeed. So I'm George Bagby. I'm doing lots of

podcast work presently. I'm the proprietor of Tallman Books, which is my Press. I republish lots of history books primarily. I've got a lot of stuff about the Civil War and Reconstruction. Republishing a big series about American history. It's 50 volumes

of American history from Yale University Press from the 1920s. It was a series called The Chronicles of America. You can find all of this on my website, which is www. tollmenbooks.com.

And I appreciate your patronage. Thank you, Mr. Bagby. Until the next time, take care. Thank you.