other cases of compact among powers having no commonrnjudge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself,rnas well of infractions as of the mode and measure ofrnredress.rnThis is the strongest possible statement of what becamernknown as the “compact theory,” and in the eighth Resolution,rnKentucky laid her cards on the table —and they were allrntrumps. Arguing that the unauthorized centralization of powerrn”is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States,” itrnis resolved that “where powers are assumed which have notrnbeen delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.rn. .. Every state has a natural r i g h t . . . to nullify of their own authorityrnall assumptions of power by others within their limits.”rnThe author of the Kentucky Resolutions was not a 16-yearoldrnJohn C. Calhoun but Madison’s political chief andrnthen-mentor, Thomas Jefferson. Madison, in drawing up thernresolutions that were moved by John Taylor in the Virginia legislative,rnwas acting in concert with (or, rather, under instructionsrnfrom) Jefferson, who was working feverishly in this periodrnto prevent the break-up of the federal union. A firm stand onrnstates’ rights, he thought, would keep Virginia from bolting.rnThe Virginians were disgusted with the New England administrationrnof John Adams, which (so they believed) was everyrnday assuming monarchical dimensions, and they were infuriatedrnby the Alien and Sedition Acts, designed to punish the Jeffersoniansrnand their immigrant friends. “But if,” wrote Jeffersonrnto John Taylor on June 4,1798, “on a temporary superiorifyrnof the one party, the other is to resolve to a scission of thernUnion, no federal government can ever exist,” because thernhabit of fissioning, once established, would not cease untilrnNorth Carolina and Virginia would part company. “A little patience,”rnhe concluded, “and we shall see the reign of witchesrnpass over, their spells dissolve, and the people recovering theirrntrue sight, restore the government to its true principles.”rnBy 1798, Jefferson had quarreled with his old friend and colleaguernJohn Adams, and neither of the men (or their supporters)rnwas capable of being fair to the other. The followers of VicernPresident Jefferson viewed President Adams as “King John,” arnpriggish and conceited despot in embryo and an enemy to republicanrngovernment. The misnamed Federalists, on the otherrnhand, red-baited Jefferson and his friends as bloodthirsty Jacobins,rnalready sharpening the blades on their guillotines.rnThere was some truth (though not much) in each side’s propaganda.rnJohn Adams was something of a prig—how could therndescendant of Puritans help it?—and he had grown flat-footed,rnpolitically, from standing too much upon ceremony.rnJefferson, on the other hand, was subject to most of the folliesrnof the 18th century. He believed in progress and enlightenment,rnviewed inherited rank and status as the enemy of humanity,rnand believed that the purely moral doctrines of Jesusrnhad been perverted by priests and bigots into a system that oppressedrnthe human mind. As a conventional child of the Enlightenment,rnJefferson was a platitudinizing leftist with an abilityrnto turn a phrase, an honest Voltaire, a Tom Paine with roots.rnBut Jefferson did have roots in the soil of Virginia, with runnersrnconnecting him with the best families in the Old Dominion. Itrnwas not his fashionable radicalism or acquaintance withrnFrench intellectuals that made Jefferson distinctive, but thernlessons he learned as a Virginian. Jefferson the radical is merelyrnan American philosophe; Jefferson the Virginian is the greatrnreactionary of the American political tradition.rnJefferson showed his two sides on virtually every issue, but asrnhe matured, the Virginian slowly overtook the philosophe (a reversalrnof the Jekyll and Hyde story). In his early days, he spokernwindily about the need for a new, more progressive education;rnhe ended up both as a militant apologist for the classical traditionrnand—as Albert Jay Nock pointed out—as a staunch elitist.rnThe authors of Who Killed Homer? are aware that Jefferson’srnUniversity of Virginia had something like an open curriculum.rnWliat they do not know is that UVA required graduates “to bernable to read the highest classics in the language with ease, thoroughrnunderstanding, and just quantity.” (Jefferson took a keenrninterest in Greek and English prosody.)rnIn his political struggle with Hamilton and his allies, Jeffersonrncame to believe that Hamilton was attempting to reinflictrnthe British system of organized corruption upon the Americanrnpeople. The fulfillment of this ambition required a centralizationrnof power that went beyond the limits laid down in the Constitution:rna national bank undergirded by a national debt thatrnwould make the government dependent upon the commercialrninterests who, in turn, would support the government; restrictionsrnon the press that would prevent the emergence of a principledrnopposition; and a crackdown on foreigners that wouldrnquarantine Americans against the French political disease.rnIn protesting against the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Jeffersoniansrnhad to move cautiously, to avoid the impression thatrnthey were either opposing the ascendant Federalists for purelyrnpolitical motives or defending traitors and foreign agitators.rnMadison and Jefferson took their stand on the Constitution’srnreservation of unenumerated powers to the states and to thernpeople. In the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson goes to whatrnseems to be the absurd length of insisting that “alien friends arernunder the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the Staternwherein they are: that no power over them has been delegatedrnto the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinctrnfrom their power over citizens.”rnEven the most entrenched advocates of states’ rights wouldrnprobably concede that immigration and naturalization are mattersrnbetter left to the general government, but Jefferson’s positionrnis far from unworkable. In frontier communities, for example,rnaliens were often allowed to vote in local elections, onrnthe grounds that they were part of the local —if not of the nationalrn—community, and it is not too much of a stretch to imaginerna federal republic in which Florida might choose to take inrnan unlimited supply of Cuban exiles who would not be allowedrnto enter Georgia. Contrariwise, Florida would have been ablernto reject both the “Marielitos” expelled by Castro and thernHaitians whose highly dubious claims to refugee status were acknowledgedrnby the federal government, much to the disgust ofrnthe people of Florida and their governor. The whole immigrationrndebate might be depoliticized if border states were able tornimport seasonal labor without imposing them as welfarernclaimants and supposititious citizens on the entire nation.rnA state-and-local approach would also defuse the abortionrndebate, the same-sex marriage crisis, Mormon polygamy, thernwar on drugs, and the gun issue. Nationalists will alwaysrnprotest, claiming that guns, drugs, and homosexual couples willrnfind their way from one state to another, but Muslims have norndifficulty, apparently, in bringing their harems and high explosivesrninto the United States. Fifty separate (but cooperating) jurisdictionsrnwould have to do a better job of putting tourniquetsrnon the spreading poison of drugs and automatic weapons thanrn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn