an injunction granted by a court, whether a Federal or a State court, is occasionally disregarded.[1] Things were, of course, much worse before the War of Secession had established the authority of the central government on an immovable basis. Federal law did not prove an unquestioned protection either to persons who became in some districts unpopular from preaching Abolitionism, or to those Southern slave-catchers, who endeavoured, under the Fugitive Slave laws, to recapture in the northern States slaves who had escaped from their masters.[2] Passion ran high, and great as is the respect for law, passion in America, as everywhere else in the world, will have its way.
If the duly constituted authorities of a State resist the laws and orders of the National government, a more difficult question arises. This has several times happened.
In November 1798 the legislature of Kentucky adopted resolutions declaring that the Constitution was not a submission of the States to a general government, but a compact whereby they formed such a government for special purposes and delegated to it certain definite powers; that when the general government assumed undelegated powers, its acts were unauthoritative and void; and that it had not been made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it. Five weeks later the Virginia legislature passed similar but more guarded resolutions, omitting, inter alia, the last of the above mentioned deliverances of Kentucky. Both States went on to declare that the Sedition and Alien Acts recently passed by Congress were unconstitutional, and asked the other States to join in this pronouncement and to co-operate in securing the repeal of the statutes.[3] Seven States answered, all in an adverse sense.
- ↑ The attacks upon the Chinese which Federal authorities have had to check have mostly taken place not in States but in Territories (such as Washington and Montana till recently were), where the direct power of the Federal Government is greater than in a State. See Chapter XLVII.
- ↑ It was held that a State could not authorize its courts to enforce the Fugitive Slave laws. Being Federal statutes, their enforcement belonged to the National government only. Consider Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539.
- ↑ There have been endless discussions in America as to the true meaning and intent of these famous resolutions, a lucid account of which may be found in the article (by Mr. Alex. Johnston) "Kentucky Resolutions," in the American Cyclopædia of Political Science. The Kentucky resolutions were drafted by Jefferson, who however did not acknowledge his authorship till 1821, the Virginia resolutions by the more cautious Madison. Those who defend Jefferson's
