Virginia General Assembly | The first official printing of Jefferson and Madison’s “Virginia Resolutions”

Virginia General Assembly

Acts Passed at a General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia: Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Richmond, on December 3, 1798. Richmond: Meriwether Jones and John Dixon, 1798–1799

Folio (299 x 165 mm). Title-page lightly toned and soiled. Bound to style in half calf and period marbled boards, spine gilt, red morocco lettering-piece. Full black morocco folding case, spine lettered and decorated gilt.

The first official printing of Jefferson and Madison’s “Virginia Resolutions” which stand as one of the foremost documents in the history of “States Rights” argument and American libertarianism. 

“The stage was set by the bitter Federalist-Republican arguments of the 1790s, culminating in the so-called Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798, passed by the Federalist majority in Congress. These restrictive measures on free speech raised serious questions about the ultimate scope of federal powers and were viewed by the Republicans as unconstitutional attacks on civil liberties and the prerogatives of the states. … [While] the Virginia Resolutions were drafted by Madison and those of Kentucky by Jefferson, they are similar in content and were ultimately the result of the close collaboration between the two men” (Celebration).

The immediate effect of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions was not great, particularly since the Jeffersonian revolution of 1800 swept away the laws they targeted. However, “[t]hey were widely invoked from the South Carolina Nullification Crisis of 1832 to secession before the Civil War, and they are still cited as primary doctrines in States’ Rights theory and American libertarianism. Written by two of the United States’ greatest political minds, they also contained the seeds of the destruction of the Union” (Celebration).

PROVENANCE

Benjamin Harrison (undoubtedly a member of the prominent Virginia family, signatures on title-page)

REFERENCE

Celebration of My Country 141; ESTC W7000; Evans 36629; Tower 937; Swem 7904