in charge the sedition bill; this committee reported an amended bill July 2, which passed the Senate on the 3d. On the same day the House agreed to the Senate amendments, and on the 6th the act was approved.

REFERENCES. -Text in U. S. Stat. at Large, I., 577, 578. Compare Revised Statutes (ed. 1878), secs. 4067-4070. The text of the bill introduced May 18 is in the Annals, 5th Cong., under date of May 22.

An Act respecting Alien Enemies.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted

That whenever there shall be

a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies. And the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized, in any event, as aforesaid, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, towards the aliens who shall become liable, as aforesaid; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject, and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those, who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, shall refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which shall be found necessary in the premises and for the public safety: Provided, that aliens resident within the United States, who shall become liable as enemies, in the manner aforesaid, and who shall not be chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety, shall be allowed, for the recovery, disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for their departure, the full time which is, or shall be stipulated by any treaty, where any shall have been between the United States, and the hostile nation or government, of which they shall be natives, citizens, denizens or subjects: and when no such treaty shall have existed, the President of the United States may ascertain and declare such reasonable time as may be consistent with the

public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality.

[Sections 2 and 3 relate to the duties of courts and marshals in connection with this act.]

No. 61. Sedition Act

July 14, 1798

JUNE 23, 1798, Senator Lloyd of Maryland gave notice of his intention to ask for leave to bring in a bill "to define more particularly the crime of treason, and to define and punish the crime of sedition." When the matter came up on the 26th, a motion was made to refer the request to a committee; the motion was lost, the vote being 4 to 17, and by a vote of 14 to 8 leave was given to introduce the bill. The next day the bill, by a vote of 15 to 6, was referred to a committee. Amendments to the bill were reported by the committee July 2, agreed to on the 3d, and the bill, by a vote of 18 to 5, ordered to a third reading. On the 4th the bill passed, the vote being 18 to 6. In the House the following day a motion to reject the bill was defeated, 36 to 47. July 6 an attempt to refer the bill to a select committee also failed, and a set of resolutions for the punishment of seditious writers, submitted by Harper of South Carolina, was referred to the Committee of the Whole House. The sedition bill was considered July 9; all except the first section of the Senate bill was stricken out and new sections inserted; on the 10th the amended bill, by vote of 44 to 41, passed the House. On the 12th the Senate concurred in the House amendments; on the 14th the act was approved.

REFERENCES. Text in U. S. Stat. at Large, I., 596, 597. An abstract of the Senate bill is in the Annals, 5th Cong., II., 2093. Harper's resolutions are in the House Journal, also in the Annals. For prosecutions under the sedition act, see Wharton's State Trials, 333, 659, 684, 688.

An Act in addition to the act, entitled "An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States."

SECTION I. 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 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 behaviour 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, done 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 . . . [March 3, 1801] . 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.

Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

1798, 1799

THE Virginia resolutions of 1798 and the Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 1799 were outcomes of the discussion over the alien and sedition laws. The legislature of Kentucky met Nov. 7, 1798, and on the following day John Breckinridge introduced in the House a set of resolutions, the original draft of which had been prepared by Jefferson. The resolutions, with amendments, were adopted by the House on the 10th; on the 13th the Senate concurred, and on the 16th the resolutions received the approval of the governor. A set of resolutions prepared by Madison, then a member of the Virginia legislature, was presented in that body Dec. 13, 1798, by John Taylor. The resolutions were debated until the 21st, when, by a vote of 100 to 63, they were adopted; on the 24th they passed the Senate, the vote being 14 to 3, and were approved by the governor. Copies of each set of resolutions were transmitted to the governors of the various States to be laid before the legislatures. Replies were made by the legislatures of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Delaware, and in each case were "decidedly unfavorable." In 1799 Kentucky reaffirmed its adherence to the doctrine of the resolutions of 1798, and added another resolution. In Virginia the replies of the State legislatures were referred to a committee, of which Madison was chairman, which made an elaborate report Jan. 7, 1800.

66

REFERENCES. - For the texts, see under each set of resolutions, following. The answers of the State legislatures are in Elliot's Debates (ed. 1836), IV., 558-565, where are also Madison's report of 1800, and extracts from an address to the people" accompanying the Virginia resolutions. Madison's report is also in his Writings (ed. 1865), IV., 515-555; see also various letters of Madison, ib. II., 151-156; IV., 95-III. Warfield's Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 is of special importance; cf. review in Nation, XLV., 528, 529, and correspondence in ib., XLIV., 382–384, 467, 468.

1 The act was not renewed. — ED.

No. 62. Kentucky Resolutions

REFERENCES.

November 16, 1798

Text in Shaler's Kentucky, 409-416, certified as a true copy of the original in the Massachusetts archives. The formal endorse ments at the end are omitted. Jefferson's draft is in his Works (ed. 1856), IX., 464-471.

I. 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.

II. Resolved, 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 also 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 Sedition Act of July 14, 1798] . . ; 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"