[Footnote 1: The Alien and Sedition acts are in Preston's _Documents_,
pp. 277-282.]

%237. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.%--The passage of these Alien
and Sedition laws greatly excited the Republicans, and led Jefferson to
use his influence to have them condemned by the states. For this purpose
he wrote a set of resolutions and sent them to a friend in Kentucky who
was to try to have the legislature adopt them.[2] Jefferson next asked
Madison to write a like set of resolutions for the Virginia legislature
to adopt. Madison became so interested that he gave up his seat in
Congress and entered the Virginia legislature, and in December, 1798,
induced it to adopt what have since been known as the Virginia
Resolutions of 1798.

[Footnote 2: Kentucky had been admitted to the Union in 1792 (see p.
213).]

Meantime the legislature of Kentucky, November, 1798, had adopted the
resolutions of Jefferson.[3]

[Footnote 3: E. D. Warfield's _Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions_. The
Resolutions are printed in Preston's _Documents_, pp. 283-298;
_Jefferson's Works_, Vol. IX., p. 494.]

Both sets declare 1. That the Constitution of the United States is a
compact or contract. 2. That to this contract each state is a party;
that is, the united states are equal partners in a great political firm.
So far they agree; but at this point they differ. The Kentucky
Resolutions assert that when any question arises as to the right of
Congress to pass any law, _each state_ may decide this question for
itself and apply any remedy it likes. The Virginia Resolutions declare
that _the states_ may judge and apply the remedy.

Both declared that the Alien and Sedition laws were wholly
unconstitutional. Seven states answered by declaring that the laws were
constitutional, whereupon Kentucky in 1799 framed another set of
resolutions in which she said that when a state thought a law to be
illegal she had the right to nullify it; that is, forbid her citizens to
obey it. This doctrine of nullification, as we shall see, afterwards
became of very serious importance.[1]

[Footnote 1: The answers of the states are printed in Elliot's
_Debates_, Vol. IV., pp. 532-539.]

%238. The Naval War with France.%--Meantime war opened with France.
The Navy Department was created in April, 1798, and before the year
ended, a gallant little navy of thirty-four frigates, corvettes, and gun
sloops of war had been collected and sent with a host of privateers to
sc