A Crossroads Resource

Unit V: The Ambiguous Democracy in America: 1800-1848

Question/Problem 2: How did individuals and states challenge the power of the federal government in the young nation?

Student Resource C:
Challenges to the Federal Government

Background

As a young nation, the United States feared being drawn into wars between Great Britain and France. In 1798, after a diplomatic incident in which French officials insulted the American officials by demanding a bribe, Congress enacted, and President John Adams signed into law, the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were to stay in effect until 1801. The Alien Act controlled immigration from Europe and made it harder for an immigrant to become an American citizen. The Sedition Act made it illegal for anyone to say, write, or publish criticism of the government or of the President. People who violated the Alien Act would be thrown out of the country; people who violated the Sedition Act would be fined and jailed. Virginia and Kentucky denounced the Alien a nd Sedition Acts as unconstitutional, but the other state governments refused to listen. James Madison wrote the Virginia Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolutions.

Virginia's Response to the Alien and Sedition Acts

That the General Assembly doth particularly PROTEST against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the 'Alien and Sedition Acts,' passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the Federal Government, and which, by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of [the] executive, subverts the general principles of free government, as well as the particular organization and positive provisions of the Fede ral Constitution: and the other of which acts exercises, in like manner, a power not delegated by the Constitution, but, on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto, --a power which, more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.

Henry Steele Commager, Documents of American History, p. 182.

Directions: Using all the information shown above answer questions 1-4.

1. What were the reasons for the conflict?

2. How did the state of Virginia challenge the power of the federal government?

3. What specific power of the federal government did the state of Virginia challenge?

4. What is the state of Virginia's view of the power of the federal government in this conflict?

Use your textbook or other resources to answer the following question.

5. What was the outcome of this challenge?

Back To Question #2