HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

of Massachusetts, 15; Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, 11; George Clinton, of New York, 7; John Jay, of New York, 5; James Iredell, of North Carolina, 3; George Washington, 2; John Henry, of Maryland, 2; Samuel Johnston, of North Carolina, 2; Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, 1. This extraordinarily mixed outcome, satisfactory to neither party and presaging misadventure for all future political calculations unless steps to prescribe and assure party regularity should be taken, led to the invention of the first nominating system for President and Vice-President-that by Congressional caucus.

Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-99

After the advent of the Republican party in 1791, that organization at once developed formidable strength. It controlled the House of Representatives in the Third Congress (1793-95), and lacked only two votes of a majority in the next-elected House (1795-97). But throughout John Adams's administration (17971801) the Federalists enjoyed full power in all branches of the government, which they exercised with the greatest positiveness in the partisan respect; it became a common saying of their opponents that they were "drunk with power." The outstanding result was the enactment of the famous Alien and Sedition laws (1798). In view of those measures and of the general Federalist policy favoring a strongly centralized government, the leaders of the Republicans decided on declarations affirmative of the reserved rights of the States under the Constitution as interpreted by them.

Jefferson and Madison accordingly prepared drafts of resolutions which, respectively, were submitted to the Kentucky and Virginia Legislatures.

Jefferson's resolutions were changed in certain respects by the Kentucky Legislature and then adopted (November, 1798). As altered they were:

"1. 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.

"2. 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 United States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,'-therefore, also, the same act of Congress passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and entitled 'An act in addition to the act entitled an act for the punishment of certain crimes

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

against the United States,' 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' (and all other their acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes other than those enumerated in the Constitution), are altogether void and of no force, and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved and of right appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.

"3. Resolved, That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, 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,' and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain and were reserved to the States or to the people; that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed, and thus also they guarded against all abridgement by the United States of the freedom of religious principles and exercises and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this State, by a law passed on the general demand of its citizens, had already protected them from all human restraint or interference; and that, in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution which expressly declares that 'Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,' thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehoods, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of Federal tribunals;

George Washington, 1st president; born at Bridges Creek, Westmoreland county, Va., Feb. 22, 1732; engineer and surveyor; aide de camp to Col. Braddock, 1755; commander-inchief of colonial forces, 1755-58; delegate to first and second continental congresses, 1774-1775; unanimously chosen commander-in-chief of forces raised and to be raised June 15, 1775; commanded the armies throughout the war for independence; resigned commission December 3, 1783; unanimously elected first president of the United States and inaugurated April 3, 1789, in New York City; unanimously elected for second term; declined reëlection and retired March 5, 1797; appointed lieutenant general and commander-in-chief of U. S. army and served until his death, which occurred at Mt. Vernon, Va., December 14, 1799.