University of Virginia Library

8165. STATES, Kentucky's appeal to.—

* * * This Commonwealth * * * calls on
its co-States for an expression of their sentiments
on the acts concerning aliens, and for
the punishment of certain crimes hereinbefore
specified, plainly declaring whether these acts
are or are not authorized by the Federal compact.
And it doubts not that their sense will
be so announced as to prove their attachment

unaltered to limited government, whether
general or particular. And that the rights
and liberties of their co-States will be exposed
to no dangers by remaining embarked
in a common bottom with their own. That
they will concur with this Commonwealth in
considering the said acts as so palpably
against the Constitution as to amount to an
undisguised declaration that that compact is
not meant to be the measure of the powers of
the General Government, but that it will proceed
in the exercise over these States, of all
powers whatsoever: that they will view this
as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating
them in the hands of the General Government,
with a power assumed to bind the
States (not merely in the cases made Federal
(casus fæderis), but, in all cases whatsoever,
by laws made, not with their consent,
but by others against their consent: that this
would be to surrender the form of government
we have chosen, and live under one deriving
its powers from its own will, and not
from our authority; and that the co-States
recurring to their natural right in cases not
made federal, will concur in declaring these
acts void, and of no force, and will each
take measures of its own for providing that
neither these acts, nor any others of the General
Government, not plainly and intentionally
authorized by the Constitution, shall be
exercised within their respective territories.—
Kentucky Resolutions. Washington ed. ix, 471. Ford ed., vii, 305.
(1798)

See Kentucky Resolutions.