University of Virginia Library

ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO THE PEOPLE
OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA.

Fellow-Citizens,—Unwilling to shrink from our representative
responsibility, conscious of the purity of our motives,
but acknowledging your right to supervise our conduct, we
invite your serious attention to the emergency which dictated
the subjoined resolutions. Whilst we disdain to alarm you
by ill-founded jealousies, we recommend an investigation,
guided by the coolness of wisdom, and a decision bottomed
on firmness but tempered with moderation.

It would be perfidious in those entrusted with the guardianship
of the State sovereignty, and acting under the solemn
obligation of the following oath, "I do swear that I will support
the Constitution of the United States," not to warn you of
encroachments which, though clothed with the pretext of necessity,
or disguised by arguments of expediency, may yet establish
precedents which may ultimately devote a generous and
unsuspicious people to all the consequences of usurped power.

Encroachments springing from a government whose organization
can not be maintained without the co-operation of the

States, furnish the strongest excitements upon the State Legislatures
to watchfulness, and impose upon them the strongest
obligation to preserve unimpaired the line of partition.

The acquiescence of the States under infractions of the
federal compact, would either beget a speedy consolidation,
by precipitating the State governments into impotency and
contempt; or prepare the way for a revolution, by a repetition
of these infractions, until the people are roused to appear
in the majesty of their strength. It is to avoid these calamities
that we exhibit to the people the momentous question,
whether the Constitution of the United States shall yield to a
construction which defies every restraint and overwhelms the
best hopes of republicanism.

Exhortations to disregard domestic usurpation, until foreign
danger shall have passed, is an artifice which may be forever
used; because the possessors of power, who are the advocates
for its extension, can ever create national embarrassments,
to be successively employed to soothe the people into sleep,
whilst that power is swelling, silently, secretly, and fatally.
Of the same character are insinuations of a foreign influence,
which seize upon a laudable enthusiasm against danger from
abroad, and distort it by an unnatural application, so as to
blind your eyes against danger at home.

The sedition act presents a scene which was never expected
by the early friends of the Constitution. It was then admitted
that the State sovereignties were only diminished by powers
specifically enumerated, or necessary to carry the specified
powers into effect. Now, Federal authority is deduced from
implication; and from the existence of State law, it is inferred
that Congress possess a similar power of legislation; whence
Congress will be endowed with a power of legislation in all cases
whatsoever, and the States will be stripped of every right
reserved, by the concurrent claims of a paramount Legislature.

The sedition act is the offspring of these tremendous pretensions,
which inflict a death-wound on the sovereignty of
the States.

For the honor of American understanding, we will not
believe that the people have been allured into the adoption
of the Constitution by an affectation of defining powers, whilst
the preamble would admit a construction which would erect the
will of Congress into a power paramount in all cases, and therefore
limited in none. On the contrary, it is evident that the
objects for which the Constitution was formed were deemed
attainable only by a particular enumeration and specification
of each power granted to the Federal Government; reserving
all others to the people, or to the States. And yet it
is in vain we search for any specified power embracing the
right of legislation against the freedom of the press.

Had the States been despoiled of their sovereignty by the
generality of the preamble, and had the Federal Government
been endowed with whatever they should judge to be instrumental
towards union, justice, tranquillity, common defence,
general welfare, and the preservation of liberty, nothing could
have been more frivolous than an enumeration of powers.

It is vicious in the extreme to calumniate meritorious public
servants; but it is both artful and vicious to arouse the public
indignation against calumny in order to conceal usurpation.
Calumny is forbidden by the laws, usurpation by the Constitution.
Calumny injures individuals, usurpation, States.
Calumny may be redressed by the common judicatures; usurpation
can only be controlled by the act of society. Ought
usurpation, which is most mischievous, to be rendered less
hateful by calumny, which, though injurious, is in a degree less
pernicious? But the laws for the correction of calumny were
not defective. Every libellous writing or expression might
receive its punishment in the State courts, from juries summoned
by an officer, who does not receive his appointment
from the President, and is under no influence to court the
pleasure of Government, whether it injured public officers or
private citizens. Nor is there any distinction in the Constitution
empowering Congress exclusively to punish calumny
directed against an officer of the General Government; so that

a construction assuming the power of protecting the reputation
of a citizen officer will extend to the case of any other
citizen, and open to Congress a right of legislation in every
conceivable case which can arise between individuals.

In answer to this, it is urged that every Government
possesses an inherent power of self-preservation, entitling it
to do whatever it shall judge necessary for that purpose.

This is a repetition of the doctrine of implication and expediency
in different language, and admits of a similar and decisive
answer, namely, that as the powers of Congress are defined,
powers inherent, implied, or expedient, are obviously the creatures
of ambition; because the care expended in defining
powers would otherwise have been superfluous. Powers extracted
from such sources will be indefinitely multipled by
the aid of armies and patronage, which, with the impossibility
of controlling them by any demarcation, would presently
terminate reasoning, and ultimately swallow up the State
sovereignties.

So insatiable is a love of power that it has resorted to a
distinction between the freedom and licentiousness of the press
for the purpose of converting the third amendment of the
Constitution, which was dictated by the most lively anxiety
to preserve that freedom, into an instrument for abridging it.
Thus usurpation even justifies itself by a precaution against
usurpation; and thus an amendment universally designed to
quiet every fear is adduced as the source of an act which has
produced general terror and alarm.

The distinction between liberty and licentiousness is still a
repetition of the Protean doctrine of implication, which is ever
ready to work its ends by varying its shape. By its help, the
judge as to what is licentious may escape through any constitutional
restriction. Under it men of a particular religious
opinion might be excluded from office, because such exclusion
would not amount to an establishment of religion, and because
it might be said that their opinions are licentious. And under
it Congress might denominate a religion to be heretical and

licentious, and proceed to its suppression. Remember that
precedents once established are so much positive power; and
that the nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence,
will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly
lethargy. Remember, also, that it is to the press mankind are
indebted for having dispelled the clouds which long encompassed
religion, for disclosing her geniune lustre, and disseminating
her salutary doctrines.

The sophistry of a distinction between the liberty and the
licentiousness of the press is so forcibly exposed in a late
memorial from our late envoys to the Minister of the French
Republic, that we here present it to you in their own words:

"The genius of the Constitution, and the opinion of the
people of the United States, cannot be overruled by those
who administer the Government. Among those principles
deemed sacred in America, among those sacred rights considered
as forming the bulwark of their liberty, which the
Government contemplates with awful reverence and would
approach only with the most cautious circumspection, there is
no one of which the importance is more deeply impressed on
the public mind than the liberty of the press. That this
liberty is often carried to excess; that it has sometimes degenerated
into licentiousness, is seen and lamented, but the remedy
has not yet been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable
from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a shoot which
cannot be stripped from the stalk without wounding vitally the
plant from which it is torn. However desirable those measures
might be which might correct without enslaving the press, they
have never yet been devised in America. No regulations exist
which enable the Government to suppress whatever calumnies
or invectives any individual may choose to offer to the public
eye, or to punish such calumnies and invectives otherwise than
by a legal prosecution in courts which are alike open to all who
consider themselves as injured."

As if we were bound to look for security from the personal
probity of Congress amidst the frailties of man, and not from

the barriers of the Constitution, it has been urged that the
accused under the sedition act is allowed to prove the truth
of the charge. This argument will not for a moment disguise
the unconstitutionality of the act, if it be recollected that
opinions as well as facts are made punishable, and that the
truth of an opinion is not susceptible of proof. By subjecting
the truth of opinion to the regulation, fine, and imprisonment,
to be inflicted by those who are of a different opinion, the
free range of the human mind is injuriously restrained. The
sacred obligations of religion flow from the due exercise of
opinion, in the solemn discharge of which man is accountable
to his God alone; yet, under this precedent the truth of religion
itself may be ascertained, and its pretended licentiousness
punished by a jury of a different creed from that held by the
person accused. This law, then, commits the double sacrilege
of arresting reason in her progress towards perfection, and of
placing in a state of danger the free exercise of religious opinions.
But where does the Constitution allow Congress to
create crimes and inflict punishment, provided they allow the
accused to exhibit evidence in his defense? This doctrine,
united with the assertion, that sedition is a common law
offence, and therefore within the correcting power of Congress,
opens at once the hideous volumes of penal law, and turns
loose upon us the utmost invention of insatiable malice and
ambition, which, in all ages, have debauched morals, depressed
liberty, shackled religion, supported despotism, and
deluged the scaffold with blood.

All the preceding arguments, arising from a deficiency of
constitutional power in Congress, apply to the alien act; and
this act is liable to other objections peculiar to itself. If a
suspicion that aliens are dangerous constitute the justification
of that power exercised over them by Congress, then a similar
suspicion will justify the exercise of a similar power over
natives; because there is nothing in the Constitution distinguishing
between the power of a State to permit the residence
of natives and of aliens. It is, therefore, a right originally

possessed, and never surrendered, by the respective States, and
which is rendered dear and valuable to Virginia, because it is
assailed through the bosom of the Constitution, and because
her peculiar situation renders the easy admission of artisans
and laborers an interest of vast importance.

But this bill contains other features, still more alarming
and dangerous. It dispenses with the trial by jury; it violates
the judicial system; it confounds legislative, executive,
and judicial powers; it punishes without trial; and it bestows
upon the President despotic power over a numerous class of
men. Are such measures consistent with our constitutional
principles? And will an accumulation of power so extensive
in the hands of the Executive, over aliens, secure to natives
the blessings of republican liberty?

If measures can mould governments, and if an uncontrolled
power of construction is surrendered to those who administer
them, their progress may be easily foreseen, and their end
easily foretold. A lover of monarchy, who opens the treasures
of corruption by distributing emolument among devoted
partisans, may at the same time be approaching his object
and deluding the people with professions of republicanism.
He may confound monarchy and republicanism, by the art of
definition. He may varnish over the dexterity which ambition
never fails to display, with the pliancy of language,
the seduction of expediency, or the prejudices of the times;
and he may come at length to avow that so extensive a
territory as that of the United States can only be governed
by the energies of monarchy; that it cannot be defended,
except by standing armies; and that it cannot be united
except by consolidation.

Measures have already been adopted which may lead to
these consequences. They consist—

In fiscal systems and arrangements, which keep a host of
commercial and wealthy individuals imbodied, and obedient
to the mandates of the treasury.

In armies and navies, which will, on the one hand, enlist the

tendency of man to pay homage to his fellow-creature who
can feed or honor him; and on the other, employ the principle
of fear, by punishing imaginary insurrections, under the pretext
of preventive justice.

In the extensive establishment of a volunteer militia,
rallied together by a political creed, armed and officered by
executive power, so as to deprive the States of their constitutional
right to appoint militia officers, and to place the great
bulk of the people in a defenceless situation.

In swarms of officers, civil and military, who can inculcate
political tenets tending to consolidation and monarchy both
by indulgencies and severities; and can act as spies over the
free exercise of human reason.

In destroying, by the sedition act, the responsibility of
public servants and public measures to the people, thus
retrograding towards the exploded doctrine "that the administrators
of the Government are the masters, and not the
servants, of the people," and exposing America, which acquired
the honour of taking the lead among nations towards
perfecting political principles, to the disgrace of returning
first to ancient ignorance and barbarism.

In exercising a power of depriving a portion of the people of
that representation in Congress bestowed by the Constitution.

In the adoration and efforts of some known to be rooted
in enmity to Republican Government, applauding and supporting
measures by every contrivance calculated to take
advantage of the public confidence, which is allowed to be
ingenious, but will be fatally injurious.

In transferring to the Executive important legislative powers;
particularly the power of raising armies, and borrowing
money without limitation of interest.

In restraining the freedom of the press, and investing the
Executive with legislative, executive, and judicial powers,
over a numerous body of men.

And, that we may shorten the catalogue, in establishing,
by successive precedents, such a mode of construing the

Constitution as will rapidly remove every restraint upon
Federal power.

Let history be consulted; let the man of experience reflect:
nay, let the artificers of monarchy be asked what further materials
they can need for building up their favorite system.

These are solemn but painful truths; and yet we recommend
it to you not to forget the possibility of danger from without,
although danger threatens us from within. Usurpation is
indeed dreadful; but against foreign invasion, if that should
happen, let us rise with hearts and hands united, and repel the
attack with the zeal of freemen who will strengthen their title
to examine and correct domestic measures, by having defended
their country against foreign aggression.

Pledged as we are, fellow-citizens, to these sacred engagements,
we yet humbly and fervently implore the Almighty
Disposer of events to avert from our land war and usurpation,
the scourges of mankind; to permit our fields to be cultivated
in peace; to instil into nations the love of friendly intercourse;
to suffer our youth to be educated in virtue, and to preserve
our morality from the pollution invariably incident to habits
of war; to prevent the laborer and husbandman from being
harassed by taxes and imposts; to remove from ambition the
means of disturbing the commonwealth; to annihilate all
pretexts for power afforded by war; to maintain the Constitution;
and to bless our nation with tranquillity, under whose
benign influence we may reach the summit of happiness and
glory, to which we are destined by nature and nature's God.