The Virginia Resolutions (1798); Hunter v. Martin – Virginia, 1813 (18 Va. 1 ), reversed, 14 U.S. 304 (1816)
“[T]his Assembly …. views the powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact [the U.S. Constitution] to which the states are parties …; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, … have the right, and are in duty bond, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil.” – Virginia Resolutions (1798) “[W]e consider the resolutions from the state of Virginia as a very unjustifiable interference with the generally government and constituted authorities of the United States, and of dangerous tendency, and therefore not fit subject for the further consideration of the General Assembly.” – Delaware’s response (1798) | Sedition Act (1798) - courtesy Wikimedia Commons “[T]o give to the general government … a direct and controlling operation upon the state departments, as such, would be to change at once, the whole character of our system. The independence of the state authorities would be extinguished, and a superiority, unknown to the constitution, would be created, which would, sooner or later terminate in an entire consolidation of the states into one complete national sovereignty.” - Justice __ Cabell, in Hunter “[The federal Judiciary Act] was an after-thought, well calculated to aggrandize the general government, at the expence of those of the states; to work a consolidation of the confederacy; and can only be pretended to be justified by the broad principles of construction, which brought the alien and sedition laws into our code! I would consign it to a common tomb with them, as members of the same family, and originating in the same era of our government.” – Justice Spencer Roane, in Hunter |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 3. OLD SOUTH LEGAL HISTORY > 3.2 The Old South: The Early Republican Era (1787-1831) > 3.2.1 Coastal Upper South (1787-1831): Revolutionary Backwash >