[CougarGA7]

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolves of 1798, authored by Jefferson and Madison, show the two to be strong defenders of state’s rights versus the national government, granting states the power to nullify federal law. George Washington didn’t like the resolves, clearly seeing that they could lead to disunion. But it can’t be argued that the Founders were set against secession when two of the more prominent ones authored the Resolves.

There is no mention of secession in either the Kentucky or Virginia Resolves. In fact quite the opposite is true. The Virginia Resolve opens with a statement affirming the assembly's desire to uphold and defend the Constitution. It goes on to say that the assembly "solemly declares a warm attachment to the Union of the States". The argument it goes on to make is that that the Union is one in which the states have the power to over-ride any federal laws they deem detrimental to the state, not leave the Union as a result.

This would be the only resolution that Washington would have likely made any comment on since the announcement of the passage of the Kentucky Resolution coincided with the announcement of Washington's death being only separated by a couple of weeks. (Patrick Henry had died 5 months earlier)

But the Kentucky Resolution's language is even more pointed against the idea of secession. In is it states that the commonwealth of Kentucky "does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union....and will be among the last to seek its dissolution."

Does that mean that some of the founders would never entertain separation from the Union? No, but these examples really do not provide any proof to that supposition. These resolutions are an argument of state's rights over federal authority, not union or disunion, at a time when it was still being felt out what the limits of the new federal union was.

The Constitution itself is a series of compromises including ones that are designed to satisfy those who had very strong feelings toward individual states rights, like Madison and Jefferson, and those who felt the need for a more powerful central government like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams.

In the case of these resolutions the argument that they do make is correct in that the Alien and Sedition Acts did violate the Constitution of the United States, but no where do they suggest secession as a recourse to this fact.

[Pelham]

George Washington's letter of January 15, 1799 to Patrick Henry addresses the Resolves and his concern that the men promoting them were opposed to the General Government and seeking to destroy the Union.

So while the language of the resolutions doesn't mention secession the implication of their logic was already recognized by Washington, among others. The Resolves and their Compact Theory of the American founding would remain a philosophical basis for both secession and nullification.