The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (or Resolve ) is a political statement drafted in 1798 and 1799, in which the legislature of Kentucky and Virginia takes the position that unconstitutional aliens and federal sedans. The resolution states that states have the right and obligation to declare as unconstitutional acts of Congress not authorized by the Constitution. Thus, they debate the state's rights and strict constitutional constructions. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions 1798 were written in secret by Vice Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively.
The principles stated in the resolution became known as "Principles '98". Adherents argue that countries can assess the constitutionality of the law and the decisions of the central government. The Kentucky Resolution of 1798 states that each state has the power to declare that federal law is unconstitutional and void. The Kentucky 1799 resolution adds that when countries determine that the law is unconstitutional, state cancellation is the right medicine. The Virginia Resolution of 1798 refers to "interposition" to express the idea that states have the right to "intervene" to prevent the danger caused by unconstitutional laws. Virginia's resolution reflects on joint action by the states.
The resolution has been a controversy since their journey, giving rise to the rejection of ten state legislatures. Ron Chernow assessed the theoretical damage of resolution as "deep and lasting... recipe for disunion". George Washington was so shocked by them that he told Patrick Henry that if "systematically and cruelly pursued", they would "dissolve unity or produce coercion". Their influence echoed up to the Civil War and beyond. In the years leading up to the Nullification Crisis, the resolution divided the Jefferson democrats, with supporters of state rights such as John C. Calhoun supporting the '98 Principle and President Andrew Jackson against them. Years later, the passing of the Fugitive Slavery Act of 1850 caused anti-slavery activists to cite the Resolution to support their call on Northern nations to undo what they consider unconstitutional law enforcement.
Video Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
Ketentuan Resolusi
Resolution against Alien and Sedition Acts federal, which extends the powers of the federal government. They argue that the Constitution is a "compact" or agreement among states. Therefore, the federal government has no right to use powers not specifically delegated to it. If the federal government assumes such powers, its actions can be declared unconstitutional by states. Thus, the state may decide the constitutionality of the law passed by Congress. Resolution 1 of Kentucky states:
That some states that compose the United States do not unite on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, in a compact manner, under the style and title of the Constitution for the United States, and its amendments, they form a general government for specific purposes, delegated to that government certain powers, reservations, each state itself, on self-government; and that when the general government takes over non-delegated power, its actions are invalid, void, and there is no power; that for each of these states is conditioned as a state, and is an inseparable party, its constituting states, for itself, other parties; that this government, created by this compact, is not made an exclusive or final judge of power delegated to itself, because it will make its own policy, and not the Constitution, the measure of its power; but that, as in all other cases compact between forces that do not have a common judge, each party has the same right to self-assess, as well as a violation of the mode and size of the indemnity.
The main provisions of the Kentucky Resolution are Resolution 2, which denies the Congress more than a few correctional powers by stating that Congress has no authority to punish crimes other than those specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The Alien and Sedition Acts are asserted as unconstitutional, and therefore void, as they deal with crimes not mentioned in the Constitution:
That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a force to punish betrayal, falsification of securities and current coins from the United States, piracy, and crimes committed on the high seas, and violations of the laws of states, and no other crimes, that; and it is true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution has also stated that "the power which is not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the United States, is reserved to the United States or to the people" The Congress, ratified on the 14th day of July 1798, and entitled "An Act in addition to his act entitled A Law for Penalty for Crimes Against the United States," as well as the actions authorized by them in the June days , 1798, entitled "An Act to punish fraud committed in US banks," (and all other acts deemed to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so implied in the Constitution,) are entirely void, there is no power at all.
The resolution of Virginia 1798 also relies on a concise theory and asserts that states have the right to determine whether federal government action exceeds constitutional limits. The Virginia resolution introduced the idea that countries can "intervene" when the federal government acts unconstitutional, in their opinion:
That this Assembly expressly and unequivocally declares that it views the power of the federal government as the result of a compact in which states are parties, being constrained by the innocent sense and intent of a compact instrument, since nothing is more valid than they are authorized by the grant mentioned in the compact; and that, in the case of the use of any other force which is intentional, explicit and dangerous, it is not provided by the compact, the states, who are parties therein, has the right, and is obliged to bind, to intervene, to withstand the progress of the crime, and to maintain, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and freedoms, approach them.
Maps Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
History Resolution
There are two sets of Kentucky Resolutions . The Kentucky state legislature passed its first resolution on 16 November 1798 and the second on 3 December 1799. Jefferson wrote Resolution 1798. The author of Resolution 1799 is not known with certainty.
James Madison wrote Virginia Resolution . Virginia state legislation passed it on December 24, 1798.
The Kentucky Resolution of 1798 states that the actions of national governments outside the scope of its constitutional powers are "not authoritarian, void, and no coercion". Although Jefferson's draft of Resolution 1798 has claimed that every country has the right of "cancellation" of unconstitutional laws, it does not appear in the final form of the Resolution. Instead of claiming to exclude Alien and Sedition Acts, Resolution 1798 called on other states to join Kentucky "in declaring these actions null and void" and "in requesting their revocation at the next Congress session". Jefferson at one point set a threat for Kentucky to break away, but dropped it from the text.
The Kentucky Resolution of 1799 was written in response to states that rejected Resolution 1798. Resolution 1799 used the term "cancellation", which was removed from the Jefferson draft of Resolution 1798, resolved: "That some states that constitute [the Constitution], are sovereign and independent, have unquestionable right to judge its violation, and, That the cancellation, by that sovereignty, of all unauthorized acts committed under the color of the instrument, is a legitimate remedy. "Resolution 1799 does not assert that Kentucky will unilaterally refuse to enforce the Alien and Sedition Acts. Conversely, Resolution 1799 states that Kentucky "will be subject to the Law of the Union" but will continue to "challenge in a constitutional way" Alien and Sedition Acts. Resolution 1799 concludes by stating that Kentucky entered a "solemn protest" against them Acts.
The Virginia resolution does not refer to "cancellations," but instead uses the "interposition" notion of the states. The resolution states that when the national government acts outside the scope of the Constitution, states "have the right, and in a bound obligation, to intervene, to resist the progress of evil, and to defend, within their respective limits, authority, rights and freedoms, important to them ". The Virginia resolution does not indicate what form this "interposition" might take or how it affects it. The Virginia Resolution appeals to other countries for agreement and cooperation.
Many scholars (including Koch and Amon) have noted that Madison had the words "void, and no force or effect" was issued from Virginia Resolution before it was adopted. Madison later explained that he did this because the individual state has no right to declare federal law null and void. Instead, Madison explains that "interposition" involves collective action of states, not rejection by individual states to enforce federal law, and that the abolition of the words "null and void or effect" is intended to clarify that no individual country can invalidate federal law.
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, while claiming the right of cancellation, does not assert that each country may exercise that right. Conversely, the cancellation is described as an action that must be taken by "some states" that constitute the Constitution. The Kentucky Resolution thereby finally proposes joint action, as did Virginia Resolution.
The resolutions merged with the basic beliefs of the Jefferson party and were used as party documents in the 1800 election. When they were herded to the Virginia House of Delegates by John Taylor of Caroline they became part of the Old Republicans legacy. Taylor rejoiced in what the House of Delegates had made of Madison's design: he had read the claim that Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional as meaning that they "lacked power or effect" in Virginia - that is, that they were void. The future Governor of Virginia and US War Secretary James Barbour concluded that "unconstitutional" includes "emptiness, and no force or effect", and that Madison's textual change does not affect its meaning. Madison himself strongly denied reading this Resolution.
The long-term interests of the Resolution lie not in their attacks on Alien and Sedition Acts, but rather in their strong statements about the theory of state rights, which led to different concepts of cancellation and interposition.
Response from another country
The resolution was submitted to other countries for approval, but to no avail. Seven states officially responded to Kentucky and Virginia by rejecting the Resolution and three other countries passed a resolution expressing disapproval, with four other countries taking no action. No other country confirms the resolution. At least six countries responded to the Resolution by taking the position that the constitutionality of Congressional action is a question for federal court, not the state legislature. For example, the Vermont resolution states: "It does not belong to the state legislature to decide the constitutionality of laws made by the general government: this force is exclusively granted in the courts of the Union courts." In New Hampshire, newspapers treat them as military threats and respond with the shadow of civil war. "We think it is very likely that Virginia and Kentucky will be very disappointed with their infernal plan of insurgency and exciting commotion," he said. The state's unanimous state reply was blunt:
Completed , That the legislature of New Hampshire firmly declares a resolute resolution to defend and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this country, against any aggression, whether foreign or domestic, and that they will support the United States government in all steps guaranteed by the first.
That the legislature of the state is not an appropriate tribunal to determine the constitutionality of general government law; that the duty of such decisions is properly and exclusively justified to the judicial department.
Alexander Hamilton, then built troops, suggested to send him to Virginia, with some "clear reasons". The steps will be taken, Hamilton hinted at an ally in Congress, "to act on the law and put Virginia on the match test".
Report 1800
In January 1800, the Virginia General Assembly issued the 1800 Report, a document written by Madison in response to criticism of the Virginia Resolution by other countries. The 1800 Report reviewed and confirmed every part of the Virginia Resolution, affirming that states have the right to declare that federal action is unconstitutional. The report goes on to affirm that the declaration of unconstitutionality by a country will be an expression of opinion, without any legal effect. The purpose of such a declaration, says Madison, is to mobilize public opinion and to withdraw cooperation from other countries. Madison pointed out that the power to make a binding constitutional determination remains in federal court:
It has been said that it belongs to the United States justice, and not the state legislature, to express the meaning of the Federal Constitution.... the declaration [citizen or state legislature], whether to affirm or deny the constitutionality of the measures of the Federal Government... is an expression of opinion, not accompanied by any effect other than what they can produce by opinion, with interesting reflection. The exposition of the judiciary, on the other hand, is done immediately with force. The former may cause a change in the legislative expression of the will of the public; possible for a change in judicial opinion; the latter impose the will of the public, while it will and the opinion continues unchanged.
Madison later declared that a state, having declared unconstitutional federal legislation, could take action by communicating with other countries, attempting to solicit their support, petitioning Congress to revoke the relevant law, introducing amendments to the Constitution in Congress, or calling the Constitution of the Convention.
However, in the same document Madison explicitly argues that states retain the supreme authority to decide on the constitutionality of federal law, in "extreme cases" such as the Alien and Sedition Act. The Supreme Court may decide in a last resort only in cases relating to the actions of other branches of the federal government, but can not take over the final decision-making power of states that are "sovereigns" in a compact constitution. According to Madison, the state can rule out not only the actions of Congress, but also the decision of the Supreme Court:
- The resolution presupposes that dangerous forces, not delegated, can not only be confiscated and carried out by other departments, but that the judicial department, too, may exercise or sanction harmful forces outside the granting of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the parties' ultimate right to the Constitution, to assess whether the plot has been violently violated, should be extended to violations by a delegated authority as well as by others - by the judiciary or by the executive or legislature.
- However, it is true, therefore, it may be that the judicial department, in all questions asked of him by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in its relationship with the authorities of other departments of government; not related to the rights of the parties to the constitutional constitution, from which the judicial, as well as other departments, hold delegated beliefs. In every other hypothesis, the delegation of the judicial authority would invalidate the authority delegating it; and the approval of this department with others in the deprived power may be subverted forever, and beyond the scope of the possibilities of all legitimate efforts, the Constitution which are all instituted to be preserved.
Madison then firmly denied that each country had the right to annul the federal law.
Influence Resolution
Although the New England states rejected the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798-99, a few years later, the governments of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island state threatened to disregard the Embargo Act of 1807 under the authority of the state to defend the law. considered by those countries unconstitutional. Rhode Island justifies its position on embargo actions based on explicit interposition language. However, none of these countries actually pass a resolution that excludes the Embargo Law. Instead, they challenged him in court, appealed to Congress for his removal, and proposed some constitutional amendments.
A few years later, Massachusetts and Connecticut affirmed their right to test constitutionality when ordered to send their militias to defend the coast during the 1812 War. Connecticut and Massachusetts questioned another embargo passed in 1813. Both states objected, including this statement from the Massachusetts legislature. , or General Court:
The power to regulate trade is abused, when it is used to destroy it; and the abuse of authority and the willingness of power provide the right of resistance, as much as direct and obvious plunder. State-reserved sovereignty, provided to protect citizens from violence by the United States, as well as for domestic regulatory purposes. We reject the idea that an independent, sovereign and independent state of Massachusetts is reduced to municipal enterprise, without the power to protect its people, and to protect them from oppression, from any quarter. When a national complex is violated, and a citizen of this State is oppressed by a cruel and unreasonable law, this Legislature is bound to exert its power, and seizes from its oppressor its victim.
Massachusetts and Connecticut, along with representatives from several other New England countries, convened in 1814 which issued a statement affirming the right of interposition. But the statement does not seek to overturn federal law. Instead, it makes an appeal to Congress to provide New England defense and propose some constitutional amendments.
The Nullification Crisis
During the "cancellation crisis" of 1828-1833, South Carolina passed the Nullification Ordinance which was intended to overturn two federal rate laws. South Carolina asserts that 1828 Tariffs and Tariffs 1832 are outside the competence of the Constitution, and therefore "void, void, and there is no law, nor binding on this State, its officials or citizens". Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation of the doctrine of abrogation, stating: "I consider... the power to invalidate the laws of the United States, assumed by one State, inconsistent with the existence of the Union, contrary to the letter of the Constitution, unlicensed by its spirit , is inconsistent with every principle on which it is based, and destroys the great object upon which it is based. "He also denies the right to disengage:" The Constitution... forming a non-league government.... To say that any State may be happy to let go the self of the Union is to say that the United States is not a nation. "
James Madison also defied South Carolina's position on cancellation. Madison argues that she never intended her Virginia Resolution to show that every country has the power to override the actions of Congress. Madison wrote: "But after that, from no view of the subject, that the annulment of US law can be as it is now justified, the legal property of one State, as one of the Constitutions, the State does not cease to declare its compliance with the Constitution. in terms of, or a more lethal inlet for anarchy, is unimaginable. "Madison explained that when the Virginia Legislature passed the Virginia Resolution, the" interposition "it contemplated was" concrete and cooperative interposition of America, not a single state.... [ T] he Legislature explicitly rejects the notion that the declaration of the State, that US law is unconstitutional, has the effect of invalidating the law. "Madison went on to argue that the goal of the Virginia Resolution is to draw cooperation by other countries in seeking change through means provided in the Constitution, such as amendments.
The concise theory
The Supreme Court rejected the concise theory in some cases of the nineteenth century, undermining the basis for the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. In cases like Martin v. Hunter's Lessee , McCulloch v. Maryland , and Texas v. White , the Court affirmed that the Constitution has been established directly by the people, rather than being compact among the states. Abraham Lincoln also dismissed the concise theory that the Constitution is a binding contract between states and no contracts can be unilaterally altered by one party.
School desegregation
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, which decides that separate schools violate the Constitution. Many people in the southern state strongly oppose the Brown decision. James J. Kilpatrick, an editor of Richmond Newsman , wrote a series of editorial pressing "big resistance" to the integration of schools. Kilpatrick, relying on Virginia Resolution, revives the idea of ​​interposition by the state as a constitutional basis for rejecting federal government actions. A number of southern states, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia, and Florida, then passed interoffice laws and cancellations in an attempt to prevent their school's integration.
In the case of Cooper v. Aaron , the Supreme Court unanimously dismisses Arkansas's attempts to use cancellation and interposition. The Supreme Court declared that under the Clause of Supremacy, federal laws control and states have no power to avoid the application of federal law. The Court specifically rejected the notion that the Arkansas legislature and governor had the power to overturn Brown's decision.
In similar cases arising from Louisiana's interposition, Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board , the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a federal district court that rejected the interposition. The district court stated: "The conclusion is clear that interposition is not a constitutional doctrine, if taken seriously, it is the illegal disobedience of constitutional authority, otherwise it is nothing more than a protest, a breakout valve through which legislators blow off steam to ease their tensions. 'Yet no matter how solemn or enthusiastic, antposisi resolution has no legal efficacy.'
Importance of Resolution
Merrill Peterson, Jefferson's excellent biographer, stresses the negative long-term impact of Resolution, calls them "dangerous" and "hysterical" products:
Called by oppressive laws of the national government, in particular the Alien and Sedition Laws, they represent a strong defense against the principles of liberty and self-government under the United States Constitution. But because the defense involves an appeal to the principles of state rights, the resolutions strike a line of argument that is as potentially dangerous to the Union as the unclean laws against identified freedom. One hysteria tends to produce another. The crisis of freedom threatens to be a crisis of Unity. The latter was postponed in 1798-1800, but would return, and by that time the principles that Jefferson had imposed on the Alien and Sedition Act would defend the state sovereign delusion entirely as strong as the Federalist delusions he challenged.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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