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Store: An Independent Institute Book
RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy
By
William J. Watkins Jr.
Foreword by
Richard N. Rosenfeld
The history of Anglo-American liberty is, in many respects, a history of great charters and the events leading to their adoption. Consequently, Americans revere documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. However, conspicuously absent from this list of revered charters are Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Viewing the Constitution as a procedural document meant to limit government and bring it under the rule of law, the Resolves were for much of the Nineteenth Century considered as a starting point for any discussion of liberty and federal and state relations.
Unfortunately, the Resolves and the events that led to their writing have been largely forgotten today. For example, the only book-length work devoted to the Resolves is Ethelbert Dudley Warfield’s 1894 classic, The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: An Historical Study.
William Watkins’ Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy restores the Resolutions to their proper place in American history and constitutional law. By presenting the historical background to the resolutions and the interpretation of the resolutions through history, including numerous pressing contemporary issues, Watkins sheds light on federalism, decentralization, civil liberties, checks and balances and what the American constitutional experiment is and should be all about.
Reclaiming the American Revolution is thus a unique blend of history, constitutional law and political theory centered around the importance of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions as constitutional documents. Morover, the book traces the importance of the Resolves to such current controversies over federal power as the USA PATRIOT Act, medical marijuana, war powers, tax authority, etc.
Detailed Summary |
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Palgrave/Macmillan
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1. Monocrats and Jacobins
- Chapter 2. Legislation and Persecution
- Chapter 3. The Principles of 1798
- Chapter 4. Influence of the Resolutions
- Chapter 5. Consolidation
- Chapter 6. Lessons for Today
- Appendices
A. Jefferson’s Draft of the Kentucky Resolution
B. Kentucky Resolution of 1798
C. Virginia Resolution of 1798
D. Kentucky Resolution of 1799
Praise for Reclaiming the American Revolution “With Reclaiming the American Revolution, we have a thorough, thoughtful , and important study of a significant subject that has been too long neglected.”
—JOYCE O. APPLEBY, Professor of History, UCLA; past president of Organization of American Historians and American Historical Association
“Reclaiming the American Revolution, the first on the resolutions in a hundred years, is more a work for citizens than scholars. Half of it—eighty-two pages—is given to the background, preparation, and content of the resolutions. This half is solidly informed. . . . The other half of the book recounts the history of state interpositions or other forms of state resistance through the nullification crisis of 1832, the consolidation of authority in central hands in the years since the Civil War, and the current situation. . . . Reclaiming the American Revolution should stir some serious thinking about constitutional fundamentals, about whether a genuinely federal system is what the people still desire, and about new ways in which the federal division of authority might be maintained.”
—AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
“There is no more important neglected topic in American history and law than Jefferson’s and Madison’s constitutional commentary in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-1800. With historical knowledge that one can only wish more lawyers could possess, Mr. Watkins has brought our attention back to these neglected documents and their illuminating relation to American history. Even better, the author has shown for the first time that the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were a natural outgrowth of the American Revolution, and that they have relevance for today's problems—if we will let them speak to us.”
—CLYDE N. WILSON, Professor of History, University of South Carolina
“Reclaiming the American Revolution is a provocative invitation to rethink the nature of contemporary American government in the light of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. William Watkins’ brisk and panoramic account of the states’ rights tradition in American constitutionalism reminds us of the political possibilities open to courageous and spirited citizens who are dedicated to responsible liberty under the rule of law.”
—HERMAN BELZ, Professor of History, University of Maryland
“Those of us who are alarmed by the recent incursions into personal freedom that have followed in the wake of the Administration’s open-ended ‘war’ on terrorism are indebted to William Watkins for Reclaiming the American Revolution, his penetrating and insightful account of how Jefferson and Madison reacted to a situation of equal peril to American liberty. As citizens of the republic we will each be judged on how we stood against those who would eat away at our rights under the guise of protecting us from attacks on our sovereignty. We could not do better than to remind ourselves of how Jefferson and Madison responded when faced with a crisis no less grievous.”
—RONALD HAMOWY, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Alberta; editor, Cato’s Letters: Essays on Liberty by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon
“William Watkins has prepared an absorbing account of one of the most significant chapters in the early history of the American Republic. An appreciation of the story of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions is simply essential to an appreciation of our Constitution and its carefully crafted division of power between the states and the federal government. Watkins’ thoughtful and well-researched work is bound to persuade cynical members of the legal community that the current effort of the United States Supreme Court to restore the Framers’ vision of state sovereignty should not be derided, but celebrated.”
—PHILIP A. PUCILLO, Professor of Law, Ave Maria School of Law
“William J. Watkins’ important book, Reclaiming the American Revolution, is intriguing and controversial: it is based on much research, and it is full of interest for the questions it raises about federal-state relations.”
—ROBERT L. MIDDLEKAUF, Preston Hotchkiss Professor of American History, University of California, Berkeley
“Reclaiming the American Revolution attempts to elevate the Virginia Resolution (of 1798) and the Kentucky Resolutions (of 1798–1799) to the ‘Pantheon of American charters,’ second only to the U.S. Constitution. According to William J. Watkins Jr., the growth in power of the national government has destroyed the balance between national and state sovereignty that the Founders envisioned, and this book is a historical argument to restore that balance.”
—JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY
“In Reclaiming the American Revolution, Watkins is strongest when he outlines the thinking behind the 1798 resolutions, particularly Jefferson's. While he is not the first to note that Jefferson advocated Virginia and Kentucky's secession from the union in 1798, he goes further than most historians in suggesting that this strong emphasis on state sovereignty, rooted in the compact theory of the Constitution, lay at the core of Jefferson's and perhaps even Madison's vision of federalism. . . . Watkins extends this claim to assert that nullification was one of ‘the first principles of the American Revolution’ and a central component of the broader political thought of the founding era. . . . [Reclaiming the American Revolution] may very well have something important to teach us about a twenty-first-century political world.”
—JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC
“Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy is a brief, written by an attorney specializing in constitutional law, that argues for a strengthening of the role of state governments within the federal system. It is addressed to general readers. William Watkins grounds his case in an analysis of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. . . . The argument is provocative, even important. . . . the author makes a clear summary case for more state authority and initiative. . . . Reclaiming the American Revolution presents legitimate concerns about the continuing weakness of state government and protection of civil liberties.”
—HISTORY: REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS
“Watkins starts his book by describing the differences between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists in the United States in the 1790s. Democratic Republicans adhered to a strict view of the Constitution, hoping to preserve a federal system of national government based on both horizontal checks and balances and important vertical checks dependent on a state's ability to validate the actions of the national government. . . . Instructors might find Watkins's description of the Resolves and the events that led up to them useful. . . . Watkins makes the historical topics of the Resolves and the Alien and Sedition Acts relevant to contemporary debates over political power.”
—HISTORY TEACHER
“Reclaiming the American Revolution examines the politics and legislation of a tumultuous and frequently disregarded period of American history, the post-Revolutionary 1790s, and the impact those politics have had on American government. . . . In Reclaiming the American Revolution, Watkins's discussion of the role of the Constitution and the national government today is timely and thought-provoking.”
—WEST VIRGINIA HISTORY: A JOURNAL OF REGIONAL STUDIES About the Author William J. Watkins, Jr. is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute and a legal scholar specializing in constitutional law and health law. He received his J.D. cum laude from the University of South Carolina School of Law and is a former law clerk to Judge William B. Traxler, Jr. of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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