Most historical discussions of the opposition to the Alien and Sedition
Acts of 1798 center on the resolutions passed by the Kentucky and Virginia
legislatures during the period 1798-1800. Because these resolutions articulated
a state compact theory of the Constitution that would later become the
basis of Confederate secession, many historians regard them as the most
radical statement of Democratic-Republican opposition between 1798 and
1800. There was, however, another language of radical opposition during
the Alien and Sedition Act Crisis. In newspaper essays, political speeches,
and public meetings at the county level, Democratic-Republicans asserted
the right and duty of the people to resist unconstitutional legislation.
These statements pronounced the Alien and Sedition Acts void and of no
force, and insisted that the people must defend their liberties against
any threat, including that posed by their own representatives. This language
of opposition suggested that the people might nullify objectionable laws
of their own authority. In Virginia, Kentucky, and New Jersey, Democratic-Republicans,
assembled in militia companies, announced that they would refuse to enforce
the acts and even that they would not submit to them.
The language of popular nullification influenced both the framing of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and their reception. Madison's argument that the states alone were parties to the Constitution suggested an increasing discomfort with the more radical implications of popular sovereignty. Madison and John Taylor, sponsor of the Virginia Resolutions, saw state interposition as an attractive middle ground between submission and popular nullification. Jefferson went much further than Madison to outline an alternative based on state authority. Nevertheless, his declaration that the Alien and Sedition Acts were "void and of no force" evoked the language of popular nullification and suggested that popular disobedience might be legitimate.
Neither these resolutions nor the language of popular nullification led to open insurrection in Virginia and Kentucky. Armed resistance did take place, however, in Pennsylvania. German-American farmers led by John Fries adopted the language of popular nullification in 1799, and used force to nullify the 1798 federal Direct Tax on houses, lands, and slaves. Close examination of the ideology of these Pennsylvania insurgents reveals that they expected that the radical Democratic-Republicans of Virginia and Kentucky would march to their aid. The resistance in Pennsylvania convinced Jefferson and other leading Republicans to avoid "all show of force" and to restrict the opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts to "the constitutional means of election and petition." Thus, it was the real consequences of the language of popular nullification, acted out in Fries' Rebellion, that led the Democratic-Republicans to abandon state nullification of the Sedition Act in favor of "temperate obedience."