protest and partial acceptance of the reasoning upon which the remedy was grounded.[1]
When the Kentucky Resolutions were laid before the General Court of Massachusetts the Federalist leaders in that body seem to have determined that the disapprobation of Massachusetts should be expressed with no uncertain sound. Accordingly, a joint committee of both houses was appointed for their consideration; this committee, consisting of three from the Senate and four from the House, was composed entirely of Federalists and had for its most distinguished members John Lowell and Nathan Dane.[2] The Virginia Resolutions, arriving after the appointment of the committee, were also referred to it.[3]
Both sets of resolutions were in the hands of the committee by January 18, but the report upon them was not presented to the Senate until Saturday, February 2. On the Monday following, as the result of a considerable debate upon the proper form of proceeding, the report was referred back to the committee to be changed from resolutions into a declaration. The next day the report came up for discussion on its merits. What was said by the Federalists cannot be ascertained, as the Senate met in secret session and none of the Federalists published their speeches. There was but one Republican in the Senate, John Bacon of Berkshire, but he made a determined protest against the report of the joint committee and afterwards published his speech in the Chronicle.[4]
Remarking that the committee had chosen to direct their arguments chiefly at establishing the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Laws, Bacon announced that his attention would be confined to that question, even to the exclusion of another of at least equal importance, "the question respecting the right finally to judge and determine as to the constitutionality of the acts of the General Government." The remainder of the speech, which occupied four columns in the Chronicle, is a well-considered presentation of the familiar Republican arguments against the constitutionality of the
- ↑ The attitude of the Republicans in the legislature appears to have been that of the party generally; see an article from the Albany Register, reprinted by the Chronicle (Boston), February 25, 1799.
"It is impossible to conceive a doctrine more opposed to the constitution of our choice, than that a decision as to the constitutionality of all legislative acts rests solely with the Judiciary Department; it is removing the corner stone on which our federal compact rests; it is taking from the people the ultimate sovereignty, and conferring it on agents appointed for specified purposes; it is giving an administration the power of passing what laws they please, and of course a power to set at defiance the constitution whenever it may run counter to their projects of tyranny and ambition." - ↑ The names will be found in the Columbian Centinel, January 23, 1799.
- ↑ Massachusetts Mercury, January 22, 1799.
- ↑ February 14, 1799.
