Despite their lucid reasoning and peerless prose, Jefferson and Madison’s Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions have been given short shrift in the pantheon of American documents. Yet the Resolves of 1798, as they were also known, proclaimed essential curbs against the abuse of federal power.

William J. Watkins, Jr. is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and President of the Greenville, SC, Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society.
Culture and SocietyGovernment and PoliticsGovernment PowerPolitical History
Other Independent Review articles by William J. Watkins, Jr.
Winter 2023/24 How to Interpret the Constitution
Fall 2021 Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government, 1776–1865
Summer 2021 The Constituent Power as a Remedy for the Administrative State
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