Source: Kentucky
Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson, 16 November 1798.
I Resolved, that the several States composing
the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited
submission to their general government; but that by compact under the style and
title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they
constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that
government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the
residuary mass of right to their own self government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative,
void, and of no force . . . That the government created by this compact was not
made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to
itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution,
the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among
parties having no common Judge, each party has an equal right to judge for
itself as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. . . .
III. Resolved, that it
is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the
amendments to the Constitution that "the powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively or to the people;" and that no power
over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were
reserved to the States, or to the people: That thus was manifested their
determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the
licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening
their useful freedom. . . .
VIII. Resolved, that the
preceding Resolution be transmitted to the Senators and Representatives in
Congress from this Commonwealth, who are hereby enjoined to present the same to
their respective Houses, and to use their best endeavors to procure, at the
next session of Congress, a repeal of the aforesaid unconstitutional and
obnoxious [Alien and Sedition] acts.