Question XXVI.

Whether the King be above the Law or No.

We may consider the question of the law's supremacy over the king, either in the supremacy of constitution of the king, or or direction, or of limitation, or of co-action and punishing. Those who maintain this, "The king is not subject to the law," if their meaning be, "The king as king is not subject to the law's direction," they say nothing; for the king, as the king, is a living law; then they say, "The law is not subject to the law's direction:" a very improper speech; or, the king, as king, is not subject to the co-action of the law: that is true; for he who is a living law, as such, cannot punish himself, as the law saith.

Assert. 1. — The law hath a supremacy of constitution above the king: —

1. Because the king by nature is not king, as is proved; therefore, he must be king by a politic constitution and law; and so the law, in that consideration, is above the king, because it is from a civil law that there is a king rather than any other kind of governor. 2. It is by law, that amongst many hundred men, this man is king, not that man; and because, by the which a thing is constituted, by the same thing it is, or may be dissolved; therefore, 3. As a community, finding such and such qualifications as the law requireth to be in a king, in this man, not in that man, — therefore upon law-ground they make him a king, and, upon law-grounds and just demerit, they may unmake him again; for what men voluntary do upon condition, the condition being removed, they may undo again.

Assert. 2. — It is denied by none but the king is under the directive power of the law, though many liberate the king from the co-active power of a civil law. But I see not what direction a civil law can give to the king if he be above all obedience, or disobedience, to a law, seeing all law-direction is in ordine ad obedientiam, in order to obey, except thus far, that the light that is in the civil law is a moral or natural guide to conduct a king in his walking; but this is the morality of the law which enlighteneth and informeth, not any obligation that aweth the king; and so the king is under God's and nature's law. This is nothing to the purpose.

Assert. 3. — The king is under the law, in regard of some coercive limitation; because, 1. There is no absolute power given to him to do what he listeth, as a man. And because, 2. God, in making Saul a king, doth not by any royal stamp give him a power to sin, or to play the tyrant; for which cause I expone these of the law, omnia sunt possibilia regi, imperator omnia potest. Baldus in sect. F. de no. for. fidel. in F. et in prima constitut. C. col. 2. Chassanæus in catalog, glories mundi. par. 5. considerat. 24. et tanta est ejus celsitudo, ut non posset et imponi lex in regno suo. Curt. in consol. 65. col. 6. ad. F. Petrus Rebuff. Notab. 3. repet. l. unscæ. C. de sentent. quæ pro eo quod n. 17, p. 363. All these go no otherwise but thus, The king can do all things which by a law he can do, and that holdeth him, id vossumus quod jure possumus; and, therefore, the king cannot be above the covenant and law made betwixt him and his people at his coronation-oath; for then the covenant and oath should bind him only by a natural obligation, as he is a man, not by a civil or politic obligation, as he is a king. So then, 1. It were sufficient that the king should swear that oath in his cabinet-chamber, and it is but a mocking of an oath that he swear it to the peopled 2. That oath given by the representative-kingdom should also oblige the subjects naturally, in foro Dei, not politically, in foro humano, upon the same reason. 3. He may be resisted as a man.

Assert. 4. — The fourth case is, if the king be under the obliging politic co-action of civil laws, for that he, in foro Dei, be under the morality of civil laws, so as he cannot contravene any law in that notion but he must sin against God, is granted on all hands. (Deut. xvii. 20; Josh. i. 3; 1 Sam. xii. 15.) That the king bind himself to the same law that he doth bind others, is decent, and obligeth the king as he is a man; because, 1. (Matt. vii. 12,) It is said to be the law and the prophets, " All things whatsoever ye would men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." 2, It is the law, imperator l. 4. digna vox. C. de lege et tit. Quod quisque juris in alium statuit, eodem et ipse utatur. Julius Cæsar commanded the youth who had deflowered the emperor's daughter to be scourged above that which the law allowed. The youth said to the emperor, Dixisti legem Cæsar, — "You appointed the law, Cæsar." The emperor was so offended with himself that he had failed against the law, that for the whole day he refused to taste meat.[1]

Assert. 5. — The king cannot but be subject to the co-active power of fundamental laws. Because, 1. This is a fundamental law that the free estates lay upon the king, that all the power that they give to the king, as king, is for the good and safety of the people; and so what he doth to the hurt of his subjects, he doth it not as king. 2. The law saith, Qui habet potestatem constituendi etiam et jus adimendi, l. nemo. 37. l. 21. de reg. jure. Those who have power to make have power to unmake kings. 3. Whatever the king doth as king, that he doth by a power borrowed from (or by a fiduciary power which is his by trust) the estates, who made him king. He must then be nothing but an eminent servant of the state, in the punishing of others. If, therefore, he be unpunishable, it is not so much because his royal power is above all law co-action, as because one and the same man cannot be both the punisher and the punished; and this is a physical incongruity rather than a moral absurdity. So the law of God layeth a duty on the inferior magistrate to use the sword against the murderer, and that by virtue of his office; but I much doubt, if for that he is to use the sword against himself in the case of murder, for this is a truth I purpose to make good, That suffering, as suffering, according to the substance and essence of passion, is not commanded by any law of God or nature to the sufferer, but only the manner of suffering. I doubt if it be not, by the law of nature, lawful even to the ill-doer, who hath deserved death by God's law, to fly from the sword of the lawful magistrate; only the manner of suffering with patience is commanded of God. I know the law saith here, That the magistrate is both judge and the executor of the sentence against himself, in his own cause, for the excellency of his office.[2] Therefore these are to be distinguished, whether the king, ratione demeriti et jure, by law be punishable, or if the king can actually be punished corporally by a law of man, he remaining king; and since he must be a punisher himself, and that by virtue of his office. In matters of goods, the king may be both judge and punisher of himself, as our law provideth that any subject may plead his own heritage from the king before the inferior judges, and if the king be a violent possessor, and in mala fide for many years, by law he is obliged, upon a decree of the lords, to execute the sentence against himself, ex officio, and to restore the lands, and repay the damage to the just owner; and this the king is to do against himself, ex officio. I grant here the king, as king, punisheth himself as an unjust man, but because bodily suffering is mere violence to nature, I doubt if the king, ex officio, is to do or inflict any bodily punishment on himself. Nemo potest a scipso cogi. l. ille a quo, sect. 13.

Assert. 6. — There be some laws made in favour of the king, as king, as to pay tribute. The king must be above this law as king. True, but if a nobleman of a great rent be elected king, I know not if he can be free from paying to himself, as king, tribute, seeing this is not allowed to the king by a divine law, (Rom. siii. 6,) as a reward of his work; and Christ expressly maketh tribute a thing due to Cæsar as a king. (Matt. xxii. 21.) There be some solemnities of the law from which the king may be free; Prickman (D. c. 3, n. 78) relateth what they are; they are not laws, but some circumstances belonging to laws, and he answereth to many places alleged out of the lawyers, to prove the king to be above the law. Malderus (in 12. Art. 4, 5, 9, 96,) will have the prince under that law, which concerneth all the commonwealth equally in regard of the matter, and that by the law of nature; but he will not have him subject to these laws which concerneth the subjects as subjects, as to pay tribute. He citeth, Francisc. a Vict. Covarruvias, and Turrecremata. He also will have the prince under positive laws, such as not to transport victuals; not because the law bindeth him as a law, but because the making of the law bindeth him, tanquam conditio sine qua non, even "as he who teacheth another that he should not steal, he should not steal himself," (Rom. ii.) But the truth is, this is but a branch of the law of nature, that I should not commit adultery, and theft, and sacrilege, and such sins as nature condemneth, if I shall condemn them in others, and doth not prove that the king is under the co-active power of civil laws. Ulpianus (L 31. F. de regibus) saith, "The prince is loosed from laws." Bodine (de Repub. l. 7, c. 8). — "Nemo imperat sibi," no man commandeth himself. Tholosanus saith, (de Rep. l. 7, c. 20,) "Ipsius est dare, non accipere leges," the prince giveth laws, but receiveth none. Donellus (Lib. 1, Comment, c. 17) distinguisheth betwixt a law and a royal law proper to the king. Trentierus (vol. i. 79, 80) saith, "The prince is freed from laws;" and that he obeyeth laws, de honestate, non de necessitate, upon honesty, not of necessity. Thomas P. (1. q. 96, art. 6,) and with him Soto Gregorius de Valentia, and other schoolmen, subject the king to the directive power of the law, and liberate him of the co-active power of the law.

Assert. 7. — If a king turn a parricide, a lion, and a waster and destroyer of the people, as a man he is subject to the co-active power of the laws of the land. If any law should hinder that a tyrant should not be punished by law, it must be because he hath not a superior but God, for royalists build all upon this; but this ground is false: —

Arg. 1. — Because the estates of the kingdom, who gave him the crown, are above him, and they may take away what they gave him; as the law of nature and God saith, If they had known he would turn tyrant, they would never have given him the sword; and so, how much ignorance is in the contract they made with the king, as little of will is in it; and so it is not every way willing, but, being conditional, is supposed to be against their will. They gave the power to him only for their good, and that they may make the king, is clear. (2 Chron. xxiii. 11; 1 Sam. x. 17, 24; Deut. xvii. 14-17; 2 Kings xi. 12; 1 Kings xvi. 21; 2 Kings x. 5; Judg. ix. 8.) Fourscore valiant men of the priests withstood Uzziah with corporal violence, and thrust him out, and cut him off from the house of the Lord. (2 Chron. xxvi. 18.)

Arg. 2. — If the prince's place do not put him above the laws of church discipline, (Matt. xviii.. for Christ excepteth none, and how can men except?) and if the rod of Christ's "lips smite the earth, and slay the wicked," (Isa. xi. 4.) and the prophets Elias, Nathan, Jeremiah, Isaiah, &c., and John Baptist, Jesus Christ, and his Apostles, have used this rod of censure and rebuke, as servants under God, against kings, this is a sort of spiritual co-action of laws put in execution by men; and by due proportion corporal co-action being the same ordinance of God, though of another nature, must have the like power over all, whom the law of God hath not excepted; but God's law excepteth none at all.

Arg. 3. — It is presumed that God hath not provided better for the safety of the part than of the whole, especially when he maketh the part a mean for the safety of the whole. But if God have provided that the king, who is a part of the commonwealth, shall be free of all punishment, though he be a habitual destroyer of the whole kingdom, seeing God hath given him to be a father, tutor, saviour, defender thereof, and destined him as a mean for their safety, then must God have worse, not better, provided for the safety of the whole than of the part. The proposition, is dear, in that God (Rom. xiii. 4; 1 Tim. ii. 2) hath ordained the ruler, and given to him the sword to defend the whole kingdom and city; but we read nowhere that the Lord hath given the sword to the whole kingdom, to defend one man, a king, though a ruler, going on in a tyrannical way of destroying all his subjects. The assumption is evident: for then the king, turning tyrant, might set an army of Turks, Jews, or cruel Papists to destroy the church of God, without all fear of law or punishment. Yea, this is contrary to the doctrine of royalists: for Winzetus (adversus Buchananum, p. 275) saith of Nero, that he, seeking to destroy the senate and people of Rome, and seeking to make new laws for himself, excidit jure regni) lost right to the kingdom. And Barclaius (Monarch. l. 3, c. ult. p. 213,) saith, a tyrant, such as Caligula, spoliare se jure regni, spoileth himself of the right to the crown. And in that same place, regem, si regnum suum alienæ ditioni manciparit, regno cadere, if the king sell his kingdom, he loseth the title to the crown. Grotius, (de jure belli et pacis, l. i. c. 4, n. 7,) Si rex hostili animo in totius populi exitium feratur, amittit regnum, if he turn enemy to the kingdom, for their destruction, he loseth his kingdom, because (saith he) voluntas imperandi, et voluntas perdendi, simul consistere non possunt, a will or mind to govern and to destroy cannot consist together in one. Now, if this be true, that a king, turning tyrant, loseth title to the crown, this is either a falling from his royal title only in God's court, or it is a losing of it before men, and in the court of his subjects. If the former be said, 1. He is no king, having before God lost his royal title; and yet the people is to obey him as "the minister of God," and a power from God, when as he is no such thing. 2. In vain do these authors provide remedies to save the people from a tyrannous waster of the people, if they speak of a tyrant who is no king in God's court only, and yet remaineth a king to the people in regard of the law: for the places speak of remedies that God hath provided against tyrants cum titulo, such as are lawful kings, but turn tyrants. Now by this they provide no remedy at all, if only in God's court, and not in man's court also, a tyrant lose his title. As for tyrants sine titulo, such as usurp the throne, and have no just claim to it, Barclaius (adver. Monarch, l. iv. c. 10. p. 268) saith, "Any private man may kill him as a public enemy of the state:" but if he lose his title to the crown in the court of men, then is there a court on earth to judge the king, and so he is under the co-active power of a law; — then a king may be resisted, and yet those who resist him do not incur damnation; the contrary whereof royalists endeavour to prove from Rom. xiii.; — then the people may unking one who was a king. But I would know who taketh that qei~on ti from him, whereby he is a king, that beam of divine majesty? Not the people; because royalists say, they neither can give nor take away royal dignity, and so they cannot unking him.

Arg. 4. — The more will be in the consent, (saith Ferd. Vasquez, l. i. c. 41,) the obligation is the stricter. So doubled words (saith the law, l. 1, sect. 13, n. 13) oblige more strictly. And all laws of kings, who are rational fathers, and so lead us by laws, as by rational means to peace and external happiness, are contracts of king and people. Omnis lex sponsio et contractus Reip. sect. 1, Inst. de ver. relig. Now the king, at his coronation-covenant with the people, giveth a most intense consent, an oath, to be a keeper and preserver of all good laws: and so hardly he can be freed from the strictest obligation that law can impose. And if he keep laws by office, he is a mean to preserve laws; and no mean can be superior and above the end, but inferior thereunto.

Arg. 5. — Bodine proveth, (de Rep. l. 2, c. 5, p. 221,) that emperors at first were but princes of the commonwealth, and that sovereignty remained still in the senate and people. Marius Salomonius, a learned Roman civilian, wrote six books do principatu. to refute the supremacy of emperors above the state. Ferd. Vasq. (illust. quest. part. 1. l. 1, n. 21) proveth, that the prince, by royal dignity, leaveth not off to be a citizen, a member of the politic body, and not a king, but a keeper of laws.

Arg. 6. — Hence, the prince remaineth, even being a prince, a social creature, a man as well as a king; one who must buy, sell. promise, contract, dispose: therefore, he is not regula regulans, but under rule of law; for it is impossible, if the king can, in a political way, live as a member of a society, and do and perform acts of policy, and so perform them, as he may, by his office, buy and not pay; promise, and vow, and swear to men, and not perform, nor be obliged to men to render a reckoning of his oath, and kill and destroy, — and yet in curia politicæ societatis, in the court of human policy, be free: and that he may give inheritances, as just rewards of virtue and well-doing, and take them away again. Yea, seeing, these sins that are not punishable before men, are not sins before men, if all the sins and oppressions of a prince be so above the punishment that men can inflict, they are not sins before men; by which means the king is loosed from all guiltiness of the sins against the second table: for the ratio formalis, the formal reason, why the judge, by warrant from God, condemneth, in the court of men, the guilty man, is, that he hath sinned against human society through the scandal of blasphemy, or chat through some other heinous sin he hath defiled the land. Now this is incident to the king as well as to some other sinful man.

To these, and the like, hear what the axcommunicated Prelate hath to say, (c. 15, p. 146, 147,) "They say (he meaneth the Jesuits) every society of men is a perfect republic, and so must have within itself a power to preserve itself from ruin, and by that to punish a tyrant." He answereth, "A society without a head, is a disorderly rout, not a politic body; and so cannot have this power.

Ans. 1. — The Pope giveth to every society politic power to make away a tyrant, or heretical king, and to unking him, by his brethren, the Jesuits', way. And observe how papists (of which number I could easily prove the P. Prelate to be, by the popish doctrine that he delivered, while the iniquity of time, and dominion of prelates in Scotland, advanced him, against all worth of true learning and holiness, to be a preacher in Edinburgh) and Jesuits agree, as the builders of Babylon. It is the purpose of God to destroy Babylon.

2. This answer shall infer, that the aristocratical governors of any free state, and that the Duke of Venice, and the senate there, is above all law, and cannot be resisted, because without their heads they are a disorderly rout.

3. A political society, as by nature's instinct they may appoint a head, or heads, to themselves, so also if their head, or heads, become ravenous wolves, the God of nature hath not left a perfect society remediless; but they may both resist, and punish the head, or heads, to whom they gave all the power that they have, for their good, not for their destruction.

4. They are as orderly a body politic, to unmake a tyrannous commander, as they were to make a just governor. The Prelate saith, "It is alike to conceive a politic body without a governor, as to conceive the natural body without a head." He meaneth, none of them can be conceivable. I am not of his mind. When Saul was dead, Israel was a perfect politic body; and the Prelate, if he be not very obtuse in his head, (as this hungry piece, stolen from others, showeth him to be,) may conceive a visible political society performing a political action, (2 Sam. v. 1-3,) making David king at a visible and conceivable place, at Hebron, and making a covenant with him. And that they wanted not all governors, is nothing to make them chimeras inconceivable. For when so many families, before Nimrod, were governed only by fathers of families, and they agreed to make either a king, or other governors, a head, or heads, over themselves, though the several families had government, yet these associated families had no government; and yet so conceivable a politic body, as if Maxwell would have appeared amongst them, and called them a disorderly rout, or an unconceivable chimera, they should have made the Prelate know that chimeras can knock down prelates. Neither is a king the life of a politic body, as the soul is of the natural body. The body createth not the soul; but Israel created Saul king, and when he was dead, they made David king, and so, under God, many kings, as they succeeded, till the Messiah came. No natural body can make souls to itself by succession; nor can sees create new prelates always.

P. Prelate. — Jesuits and puritans differ infinitely: we are hopeful God shall cast down this Babel. The Jesuits, for ought I know, seat the superintendent power in the community. Some sectaries follow them, and warrant any individual person to make away a king in case of defects, and the work is to be rewarded as when one killeth a ravenous wolf. Some will have it in a collective body; but how? Not met together by warrant, or writ of sovereign authority, but when fancy of reforming church and state calleth them. Some will have the power in the nobles and peers; some in the three estates assembled by the king's writ; some in the inferior judges. I know not where this power to curb sovereignty is, but in Almighty God.

Ans. 1. Jesuits and puritans differ infinitely; true. Jesuits deny the Pope to be antichrist, hold all Arminian doctrine, Christ's local descension to hell, — all which the Prelate did preach. We deny all this.

2. We hope also the Lord shall destroy the Jesuits' Babel; the suburbs whereof, and more, are the popish prelates in Scotland and England.

3. The Jesuits, for ought he knoweth, place all superintendent power in the community. The Prelate knoweth not all his brethren, the Jesuits', ways; but it is ignorance, not want of good-will. For Bellarmine, Beucanus, Suarez, Gregor. de Valentia, and others, his dear fellows, say, that all superintendent power of policy, in ordine ad spiritualia is in the man, whose foot Maxwell would kiss for a cardinal's hat.

4. If these be all the differences, it is not much. The community is the remote and last subject, the representative body the nearest subject, the nobles a partial subject; the judges, as judges sent by the king, are so in the game, that when an arbitrary prince at his pleasure setteth them up, and at command that they judge for men, and not for the Lord, and accordingly obey, they are by this power to be punished, and others put in their place.

5. A true cause of convening parliaments the Prelate maketh a fancy at this time: it is as if the thieves and robbers should say a justice-court were a fancy; but if the Prelate might compear before the parliament of Scotland, (to which he is an outlaw like his father, 2 Thess. ii. 4,) such a fancy, I conceive, should hang him, and that deservedly. P. Prelate (p. 147, 148). — The subject of this superintending power must be secured from error in judgment and practice, and the community and states then should be infallible.

Ans. — The consequence is nought. No more than the king, the absolute independent, is infallible. It is sure the people are in less hazard of tyranny and self-destruction than the king is to subvert laws and make himself absolute; and for that cause there must be a superintendent power above the king, and God Almighty also must be above all.

P. Prelate. — The parliament may err, then God hath left the state remediless, except the king remedy it.

Ans. — There is no consequence here, except the king be impeccable. Posterior parliaments may correct the former. A state is not remediless, because God's remedies, in sinful men's hands, may miscarry. But the question is now, Whether God hath given power to one man to destroy men, subvert laws and religion, without any power above him to coerce, restrain, or punish?

P. Prelate (c. 15, p. 148). — If, when the parliament erreth, the remedy is left to the wisdom of God, why not when the king erreth?

Ans. — Neither is antecedent true, nor the consequence valid, for the sounder part may resist; and it is easier to one to destroy many, having a power absolute, which God never gave mm, than for many to destroy themselves. Then, if the king Uzziah intrude himself and sacrifice, the priests do sin in remedying thereof.

P. Prelate. — Why might not the people of Israel, peers or sanhedrim, have convened before them, judged and punished David for his adultery and murder? Romanists and new statists acknowledge no case lawful, but heresy, apostacy, or tyranny; and tyranny, they say, must be universal, manifest as the sun, and with obstinacy, and invincible by prayers, as is recorded of Nero, whose wish was rather a transported passion, than a fixed resolution. This cannot fall in the attempts of any but a madman. Now this cannot be proved our king; but though we grant in the foresaid case, that the community may resume their power, and rectify what is amiss, which we cannot grant; but this will follow by their doctrine, in every case of male administration.[3]

Ans. — The Prelate draweth me to speak of the case of the king's unjust murder, confessed (Psal. li.); to which I answer: He taketh it for confessed, that it had been treason in the sanhedrim or states of Israel to have taken on them to judge and punish David for his adultery and his murder; but he giveth no reason for this, nor any word of God; and truly, though I will not presume to go before others in this, God's law (Gen. ix. 6, compared with Num. xxxv. 30, 31) seemeth to say against them.

6. Nor can I think that God's law, or his deputy the judges, are to accept the persons of the great, because they are great; (Deut. i. 17; 2 Chron. xix. 6, 7;) and we say, we cannot distinguish where the law distinguisheth not. The Lord speaketh to under judges (Lev. xix. 15,) "Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty," or of the prince, for we know what these names lwOdgF and )b@frF meaneth. I grant it is not God's meaning that the king should draw the sword against himself, but yet it followeth not, that if we speak of the demerit of blood, that the law of God accepteth any judge, great or small; and if the estates be above the king, as I conceive they are, though it be a human politic constitution, that the king be free of all co-action of law, because it conduceth for the peace of the commonwealth; yet if we make a matter of conscience, for my part I see no exception that God maketh it; if men make, I crave leave to say, a facto ad jus non sequitur; and I easily yield that in every case the estates may coerce the king, if we make it a case of conscience. And for the place, (Ps. li. 4,) "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned," yti)+fxf K1d@:bal; K1l; flatterers allege it to be a place proving that the king is above all earthly tribunals, and all laws, and that there was not on earth any who might punish king David; and so they cite Clemens Alexandrin. (Strom. l. 4.) Arnobi., Psal. 1., Dydimus, Hieronim.; but Calvin on the place, giveth the meaning that most of the fathers give, — Domine, etiam si me totus mundus absolvat, mihi tamen plusquum satis est, quod te solum judicem sentio. It is true, Beda, Euthymius, Ambrosius, (Apol. David, c. 4 and c. 10,) do all acknowledge from the place, de facto, there was none above David to judge him, and so doth Augustine, Basilius Theodoret, say, and Chrysostomus, and Cyrillus, and Hieronimus, (Epist. 22.) Ambrose (Sermon 16, in Psal. cxviii.) Gregorius, and Augustine (Joan 8,) saith, he meaneth no man durst judge or punish him, but God only. Lorinus, the Jesuit, observeth eleven interpretations of the fathers all to this sense: "Since (Lyra saith) he sinned only against God, because God only could pardon him;" Hugo Cardinalis, "Because God only could wash him," which he asketh in the text. And Lorinus, "Solo Deo conscio peccavi." But the simple meaning is, 1. Against thee only have I sinned, as my eye-witness and immediate beholder; and, therefore, he addeth — and have done this evil in thy sight. 2. Against thee only, as my judge, that thou mayest be justified when thou judged, as clear from all unrighteousness, when thou shalt send the sword on my house. 3. Against thee, O Lord only, who canst wash me, and pardon me (ver. 1, 2). And if this "thee only" exclude altogether Uriah, Bathsheba, and the law of the judges, as if he had sinned against none of these in their kind, then is the king, because a king, free, not only from a punishing law of man, but from the duties of the second table simply, and so a king cannot be under the best and largest half of the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. He shall not need to say, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that sin against us; for there is no reason, from the nature of sin, and the nature of the law of God, why we can say more the subjects and sons sin against the king and father, than to say the father and king sin against the sons and subjects. By this, the king killing his father Jesse, should sin against God, but not break the fifth command, nor sin against his father. God should in vain forbid fathers to provoke their children to wrath.

1. And kings to do injustice to their subjects, because by this the superior cannot sin against the inferior, forasmuch as kings can sin against none but those who have power to judge and punish them; but God only, and no inferiors, and no subjects, have power to punish the kings; therefore kings can sin against none of their subjects; and where there is no sin, how can there be a law? Neither major or minor can be denied by royalists.

2. We acknowledge tyranny must only unking a prince. The Prelate denieth it, but he is a green statist. Barclay, Grotius, Winzetus, as I have proved, granteth it.

3. He will excuse Nero, as of infirmity, wishing all Rome to have one neck, that he may cut it off. And is that charitable of kings, that they will not be so mad as to destroy their own kingdom? But when histories teach us there have been more tyrants than kings, the kings are more obliged to him for flattery than for state-wit, except we say that all kings who eat the people of God, as they do bread, owe him little for making them all mad and frantic.

4. But let them be Neroes, and mad, and worse, there is no coercing of them, but all must give their necks to the sword, if the poor Prelate be heard; and yet kings cannot be so mad as to destroy their subjects. Mary of England was that mad. The Romish princes who have given (Rev. xvii. 13) their power and strength to the beast, and do make war with the Lamb; and kings inspired with the spirit of the beast, and, drunk with the wine of the cup of Babel's fornications, are so mad; and the ten emperors are so mad, who wasted their faithlulest subjects.

P. Prelate. — If there be such a power in the peers, resumable in the exigent of necessity, as the last necessary remedy for safety of church and state, God and nature not being deficient in things necessary, it must be proved out of the Scripture, and not taken on trust, for affirmanti incumbit probatio.

Ans. — Mr Bishop, what better is your affirmanti incumbit, &c., than mine? for you are the affirmer. 1. I can prove a power in the king, limited only to feed, govern, and save the people; and you affirm that God hath given to the king, not only a power official and royal to save, but also to destroy and cut off, so as no man may say, Why doest thou this? Shall we take this upon the word of an excommunicated prelate? Profer tabulas, John P. P., I believe you not, royal power is, Deut. xvii. 18; Rom. iii. 14. I am sure there is there a power given to the king to do good, and that from God. Let John P. P. prove a power to do ill, given of God to the king. 2. We shall quickly prove that the states may repress this power, and punish the tyrant — not the king, when he shall prove that a tyrannous power is an ordinance of God, and so may not be resisted; for the law of nature teacheth, — if I give my sword to my fellow to defend me from the murderer, if he shall fall to and murder me with my own sword, I may (if I have strength) take my sword from him.

P. Prelate. — 1. It is infidelity to think that God cannot help us, and impatience that we will not wait on God. When a king oppresseth us, it is against God's wisdom that he hath not provided another mean for our safety than intrusion on God's right. 2. It is against God's power, — 3. His holiness, — 4. Christian religion, that we necessitate God to so weak a mean as to make use of sin, and we cast the aspersion of treason on religion, and deter kings to profess reformed catholic religion; — 6. We are not to jostle God out of his right.

Ans. 1. — I see nothing but what Dr Ferne, Grotius, Barclay, Blackwood, have said before, with some colour of proving the consequence. The P. Prolate giveth us other men's arguments, but without bones. All were good, if the state's coercing and curbing a power which God never gave to the king were a sin and an act of impatience and unbelief; and if it were proper to God only, by his immediate hand, to coerce tyranny. 2. He calleth it not protestant religion, either here or elsewhere, but cunningly giveth a name that will agree to the Roman catholic religion. For the Dominicans, Franciscans, and the Parisian doctors and schoolmen, following Occham, Gerson, Almain, and other papists, call themselves reformed catholics. He layeth this for a ground, in three or four pages, — where these same arguments are again and again repeated in terminus, as his second reason, (p. 149,) was handled ad nauseam (p. 148); his third reason is repeated in his sixth reason, (p. 151.) He layeth down, I say, this ground, which is the begged conclusion, and maketh. the conclusion the assumption, in eight raw and often-repeated arguments, — to wit, That the parliament's coercing and restraining of arbitrary power is rebellion, and resisting the ordinance of God. But he dare not look the place, Rom. xiii., on the face. Other royalists have done it with bad success. This I desire to be weighed, and I retort the Prelate's argument. But it is indeed the trivial argument of all royalists, especially of Barclay, — obvious in his third book. If arbitrary and tyrannical power, above any law that the lawful magistrate commandeth under the pain of death, — Thou shalt not murder one man, Thou shalt not take away the vineyard of one Naboth violently — be lawful and warrantable by God's word, then an arbitrary power, above all divine laws, is given to the keeping of the civil magistrate. And it is no less lawful arbitrary, or rather tyrannical power, for David to kill all his subjects, and to plunder all Jerusalem, (as I believe prelates and malignants and papists would serve the three kingdoms, if the king should command them,) than to kill one Uriah, or for Ahab to spoil one Naboth. The essence of sin must agree alike to all, though the degrees vary.

Of God's remedy against arbitrary power hereafter, in the question of resistance; but the confused engine of the Prelate bringeth it in here, where there is no place for it.

7. His seventh argument is: — Before God would authorise rebellion, and give a bad precedent thereof for ever, he would rather work extraordinary and wonderful miracles; and therefore would not authorise the people to deliver themselves from under Pharaoh, but made Moses a prince, to bring them out of Egypt with a stretched-out arm. Nor did the Lord deliver his people by the wisdom of Moses, or strength of the people, or any act that way of theirs, but by his own immediate hand and power.

Ans. — I reduce the Prelate's confused words to a few: for I speak not of his popish term of St. Steven, and others the like; because all that he hath said in a book of 149 pages might have been said in three sheets of paper. But, I pray you, what is this argument to the question in hand, which is, whether the king be so above all laws, as people and peers, in the case of arbitrary power, may resume their power and punish a tyrant? The P. Prelate draweth in the question of resistance by the hair. Israel's not rising in arms against king Pharaoh proveth nothing against the power of a free kingdom against a tyrant.

1. Moses, who wrought miracles destructive to Pharaoh, might pray for vengeance against Pharaoh, God having revealed to Moses that Pharaoh was a reprobate; but may ministers and nobles pray so against king Charles? God forbid.

2. Pharaoh had not his crown from Israel.

3. Pharaoh had not sworn to defend Israel, nor became he their king upon condition he should maintain and profess the religion of the God of Israel; therefore Israel could not, as free estates, challenge him in their supreme court of parliament of breach of oath; and upon no terms could they unking Pharaoh: he held not his crown of them.

4. Pharaoh was never circumcised, nor within the covenant of the God of Israel in profession.

5. Israel had their lands by the more gift of the king. I hope the king of Britain standeth to Scotland and England in a fourfold contrary relation.

All divines know that Pharaoh, his princes, and the Egyptians, were his peers and people, and that Israel were not his native subjects, but a number of strangers, who, by the laws of the king and princes, by the means of Joseph, had gotten the land of Goshen for their dwelling, and liberty to serve the God of Abraham, to whom they prayed in their bondage, (Exod. ii. 23, 24,) and they were not to serve the gods of Egypt, nor were they of the king's religion. And therefore, his argument is thus: A number of poor exiled strangers under king Pharaoh, who were not Pharaoh's princes and peers, could not restrain the tyranny of king Pharaoh; therefore, the three estates in a free kingdom may not restrain the arbitrary power of a king.

1. The Prelate must prove that God gave a royal and kingly power to king Pharaoh, due to him by virtue of his kingly calling, (according as royalists explain 1 Sam. viii. 9, 11,) to kill all the male children of Israel, to make slaves of themselves, and compel them to work in brick and clay, while their lives were a burden to them; and that if a Roman catholic, Mary of England, should kill all the male children of protestants, by the hands of papists, at the queen's commandment, and make bondslaves of all the peers, judges, and three estates, who made her a free princess; yet, notwithstanding that Mary had sworn to maintain the protestant religion, they were to suffer and not to defend themselves. But if God give Pharaoh a power to kill all Israel, so as they could not control it, then God giveth to a king a royal power by office to sin, only the royalist saveth God from being the author of sin in this, that God gave the power to sin; but yet with this limitation, that the subjects should not resist this power. 2. He must prove that Israel was to give their male children to Pharaoh's butchers, — for to hide them was to resist a royal power; and to disobey a royal power given of God, is to disobey God. 3. The subjects may not resist the king's butchers coming to kill them and their male children; for to resist the servant of the king in that wherein he is a servant, is to resist the king. (1 Sam. viii. 7; 1 Pet. ii. 14; Rom. xiii. 1.) 4. He must prove, that upon the supposition that Israel had been as strong as Pharaoh and his people; that without God's special commandment, (they then wanting the written word,) they should have fought with Pharaoh; and that we now, for all wars, must have a word from heaven, as if we had not God's perfect will in his word, as at that tune Israel behoved to have in all wars, Judg. xviii. 5; 1 Sam. xiv. 37; Isa. xxx. 2; Jer. xxxviii. 37; 1 Kings xxii. 5; 1 Sam. xxx. 5; Judg. xx. 27; 1 Sam. xxiii. 2; 2 Sam. xvi 23; 1 Chron. x. 14. But because God gave not them an answer to fight against Pharaoh, therefore we have no warrant now to fight against a foreign nation invading us; the consequence is null, and therefore this is a vain argument. The prophets never reprove the people for not performing the duty of defensive wars against tyrannous kings; therefore, there is no such duty enjoined by any law of God to us. For the prophets never rebuke the people for non-performing the duty of offensive wars against their enemies, but where God gave a special command and response from his own oracle, that they should fight. And if God was pleased never to command the people to rise against a tyrannous king, they did not sin where they had no commandment of God; but I hope we have now a more sure word of prophecy to inform us. 5. The Prelate conjectureth Moses' miracles, and the deliverance of the people by dividing the Red Sea, was to forbid and condemn defensive wars of people against their king; but he hath neither Scripture nor reasons to do it. The end of these miracles was to seal to Pharaoh the truth of God's calling of Moses and Aaron to deliver the people, as is clear, Exod. iv. 1-4, compared with vii. 3-10. And that the Lord might get to himself a name on all the earth, Rom. ix. 17; Exod. ix. 16; xiii. 13, 14. But of the Prelate's conjectural end, the Scripture is silent, and we cannot take an excommunicated man's word. What I said of Pharaoh, who had not his crown from Israel, that I say of Nebuchadnezzar and the kings of Persia, keeping the people of God captive.

P. Prelate (p. 153). — So in the book of Judges, when the people were delivered over to the hand of their enemies, because of their sins, he never warranted the ordinary judges or community to be their own deliverers; but when they repented, God raised up a judge. The people had no hand in their own deliverance out of Babylon; God effected it by Cyrus, immediately and totally. Is not this a real proof God will not have inferior judges to rectify what is amiss; but we must wait in patience till God provide lawful means, some sovereign power immediately sent by himself, in which course of his ordinary providence, he will not be deficient.

Ans. 1. — All this is beside the question, and proveth nothing less than that peers and community may not resume their power to curb an arbitrary power. For, in the first case, their is neither arbitrary nor lawful supreme judge. 2. If the first prove any thing, it proveth that it was rebellion in the inferior judges and community of Israel to fight against foreign kings, not set over them by God; and that offensive wars against any kings whatsoever, because they are kings, though strangers, are unlawful. Let Socinians and anabaptists consider if the P. Prelate help not them in this, and may prove all wars to be unlawful. 3. He is so malignant to all inferior judges, as if they were not powers sent of God, and to all governors that are not kings, and so upholders of prelates, and of himself as he conceiveth, that by his arguing he will have all deliverance of kings only, the only lawful means in ordinary providence; and so aristocracy and democracy, except in God's extraordinary providence, and by some divine dispensation, must be extraordinary and ordinarily unlawful. 1. The acts of a state, when a king is dead and they choose another, shall be an anticipating of God's providence. 2. If the king be a child, a captive, or distracted, and the kingdom oppressed with malignants, they are to wait, while God immediately from heaven create a king to them, as he did Saul long ago. But have we now kings immediately sent as Saul was? How is the spirit of prophecy and government infused in them, as in king Saul? or are they by prophetical inspiration, anointed as David was? I conceive their calling to the throne on God's part differs as much from the calling of Saul and David, in some respect, as the calling of ordinary pastors, who must be gifted by industry and learning and called by the church, and the calling of apostles. 3. God would deliver his people from Babylon by moving the heart of Cyrus immediately, the people having no hand in it, not so much as supplicating Cyrus; therefore, the people and peers who made the king cannot curb his tyrannical power, if he make captives and slaves of them, as the kings of Chaldea made slaves of the people of Israel. What! Because God useth another mean, therefore, this mean is not lawful. It followeth in no sort. If we must use no means but what the captive people did under Cyrus, we may not lawfully fly, nor supplicate, for the people did neither. P. Prelate. — You read of no covenant in Scripture made without the king. (Exod. xxxiv.) Moses king of Jeshurun: neither tables nor parliament framed it. Joshua another, (Josh, xxiv.) and Asa, (2 Chron. xv.; 2 Chron. xxxiv.; Ezra x.) The covenant of Jehoiada in the nonage of Joash, was the high priest's act, as the king's governor. There is a covenant with hell, made without the king, and a false covenant. (Hos. x. 3, 4.)

Ans. — We argue this negatively. 1. This is neither commanded, nor practised, nor warranted by promise; therefore, it is not lawful. But this is not practised in Scripture; therefore, it is not lawful. It followeth it. Show me in Scripture the killing of a goring ox who killed a man; the not making battlements on a house; the putting to death of a man lying with a beast; the killing of seducing prophets, who tempted the people to go a whoring, and serve another God than Jehovah: I mean, a god made by the hand of the baker, such a one as the excommunicated Prelate is known to be, who hath preached this idolatry in three kingdoms. (Deut. xiii.) This is written, and all the former laws are divine precepts. Shall the precept make them all unlawful, because they are not practised by some in Scripture? By this? I ask, Where read ye that the people entered in a covenant with God, not to worship the golden image, and the king; and those who pretended they are the priests of Jehovah, the churchmen and prelates, refused to enter in covenant with God? By this argument, the king and prelates, in non-practising with us, wanting the precedent of a like practised in Scripture, are in the fault. 2. This is nothing to prove the conclusion in question. 3. All these places prove it is the king's duty, when the people under him, and their fathers, have corrupted the worship of God, to renew a covenant with God, and to cause the people to do the like, as Moses, Asa, and Jehoshaphat did. 4. If the king refuse to do his duty, where is it written that the people ought also to omit their duty, and to love to have it so, because the rulers corrupt their ways? (Jer. v. 31.) To renew a covenant with God is a point of service due to God that the people are obliged unto, whether the king command it or no. What if the king command not his people to serve God; or, what if he forbid Daniel to pray to God? Shall the people in that case serve the King of kings, only at the nod and royal command of an earthly king? Clear this from Scripture. 5. Ezra (ch. v.) had no commandment in particular from Artaxerxes, king of Persia, or from Darius, but a general. (Ezra vii. 23.) "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven." But the tables in Scotland, and the two parliaments of England and Scotland, who renewed the covenant, and entered in covenant not against the king, (as the P. P. saith,) but to restore religion to its ancient purity, have this express law both from king James and king Charles, in many acts of parliament, that religion be kept pure. Now, as Artaxerxes knew nothing of the covenant, and was unwilling to subscribe it, and yet gave to Ezra and the princes a warrant, in general, to do all that the God of heaven required to be done, for the religion and house of the God of heaven, and so a general warrant for a covenant, without the king; and yet Ezra and the people, in swearing that covenant, failed in no duty against their king, to whom, by the fifth commandment, they were no less subject than we are to our king: just so we are, and so have not failed. But they say, the king hath committed to no lieutenant and deputy under him, to do what they please in religion, without his royal consent in particular, and the direction of his clergy, seeing he is of that same religion with his people; whereas Artaxerxes was of another religion than were the Jews and their governor. — Ans. Nor can our king take on himself to do what he pleaseth, and what the prelates (amongst whom those who ruled all are known, before the world and the sun, to be of another religion than we are) pleaseth, in particular. But see what religion and worship the Lord our God, and the law of the land (which is the king's revealed will) alloweth to us, that we may swear, though the king should not swear it; otherwise, we are to be of no religion but of the king's, and to swear no covenant but the king's, which is to join with papists against protestants, 6. The strangers of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon fell out of Israel in abundance to Asa, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him, (2 Chron. xv. 9, 10,) and aware that covenant without their own king's consent, their own king being against it. If a people swear a religious covenant, without their king, who is averse thereunto, far more may the nobles, peers, and estates of parliament do it without their king; and here is an example of a practice, which the P. Prelate requireth. 7. That Jehoiada was governor and viceroy during the nonage of Joash, and that by this royal authority the covenant was sworn, is a dream, to the end he may make the Pope, and the archprelate, now viceroys and kings, when the throne varieth. The nobles were authors of the making of that covenant, no less than Jehoiada was; yea, and the people of the land, when the king was but a child, went unto the house of Baal, and brake down his images, &c. Here is a reformation, made without the king, by the people. 8. Grave expositors say, that the covenant with death and hell (Isa. xxviii.) was the king's covenant with Egypt. 9. And the covenant (Hos. x.) is by none exponed of a covenant made without the king. I have heard said, this Prelate, preaching on this text before the king, exponed it so; but he spake words (as the text is) falsely. The P. Prelate, to the end of the chapter, giveth instance of the ill success of popular reformation, because the people caused Aaron to make a golden calf, and they revolted from Rehoboam to Jeroboam, and made two golden calves, and they conspired with Absalom against David. — Ans. If the first example make good any thing, neither the high priest, as was Aaron, nor the P. Prelate, who claimeth to be descended of Aaron's house, should have any hand in reformation at all; for Aaron erred in that. And to argue from the people's sins to deny their power, is no better than to prove Ahab, Jeroboam, and many kings in Israel and Judah, committed idolatry, therefore they had no royal power at all. In the rest of the chapter, for a whole page, he singeth over again his matins in a circle, and giveth us the same arguments we heard before; of which you have these three notes: — 1. They are stolen, and not his own. 2. Repeated again and again to fill the field. 3. All hang on a false supposition, and a begging of the question. That the people, without the king, have no power at all.

The Kentucky Resolutions
November 10, 1798

[The following resolutions were adopted by the Kentucky Legislature on November 10, 1798, as a protest against the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by Congress. They were authored by Thomas Jefferson, but he did not make public the fact until years later.]

1. Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

2. Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes, whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled “An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,” as also the act passed by them on the — day of June, 1798, intituled “An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States,” (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.

3. Resolved, The it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitutions, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, our prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”; and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed. And thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this State, by a law passed on the general demand of its citizens, had already protected them from all human restraint or interference. And that in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly declares, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press”: thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, arid that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals. That, therefore, the act of Congress of the United States, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, intituled “An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,” which does abridge the freedom of the press, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force.

4. Resolved, That alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are: that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from their power over citizens. And it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” the act of the Congress of the United States, passed on the — day of July, 1798, intituled “An Act concerning aliens,” which assumes powers over alien friends, not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force.

5. Resolved. That in addition to the general principle, as well as the express declaration, that powers not delegated are reserved, another and more special provision, inserted in the Constitution from abundant caution, has declared that “the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808” that this commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends, described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens: that a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a provision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be nugatory: that to remove them when migrated, is equivalent to a prohibition of their migration, and is, therefore, contrary to the said provision of the Constitution, and void.

6. Resolved, That the imprisonment of a person under the protection of the laws of this commonwealth, on his failure to obey the simple order of the President to depart out of the United States, as is undertaken by said act intituled “An Act concerning aliens” is contrary to the Constitution, one amendment to which has provided that “no person shalt be deprived of liberty without due progress of law”; and that another having provided that “in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to public trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense;” the same act, undertaking to authorize the President to remove a person out of the United States, who is under the protection of the law, on his own suspicion, without accusation, without jury, without public trial, without confrontation of the witnesses against him, without heating witnesses in his favor, without defense, without counsel, is contrary to the provision also of the Constitution, is therefore not law, but utterly void, and of no force: that transferring the power of judging any person, who is under the protection of the laws from the courts, to the President of the United States, as is undertaken by the same act concerning aliens, is against the article of the Constitution which provides that “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in courts, the judges of which shall hold their offices during good behavior”; and that the said act is void for that reason also. And it is further to be noted, that this transfer of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the general government who already possesses all the Executive, and a negative on all Legislative powers.

7. Resolved, That the construction applied by the General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution, the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,” goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to their powers by the Constitution: that words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument: that the proceedings of the General Government under color of these articles, will be a fit and necessary subject of revisal and correction, at a time of greater tranquillity, while those specified in the preceding resolutions call for immediate redress.

8th. Resolved, That a committee of conference and correspondence be appointed, who shall have in charge to communicate the preceding resolutions to the Legislatures of the several States: to assure them that this commonwealth continues in the same esteem of their friendship and union which it has manifested from that moment at which a common danger first suggested a common union: that it considers union, for specified national purposes, and particularly to those specified in their late federal compact, to be friendly, to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all the States: that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation: that it does also believe, that to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the general government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them: that nevertheless, this commonwealth, from motives of regard and respect for its co States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject: that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, and subject as to its assumptions of power to the final judgment of those by whom, and for whose use itself and its powers were all created and modified: that if the acts before specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from them; that the general government may place any act they think proper on the list of crimes and punish it themselves whether enumerated or not enumerated by the constitution as cognizable by them: that they may transfer its cognizance to the President, or any other person, who may himself be the accuser, counsel, judge and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence, his order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his breast the sole record of the transaction: that a very numerous and valuable description of the inhabitants of these States being, by this precedent, reduced, as outlaws, to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the Constitution thus swept away from us all, no ramparts now remains against the passions and the powers of a majority in Congress to protect from a like exportation, or other more grievous punishment, the minority of the same body, the legislatures, judges, governors and counsellors of the States, nor their other peaceable inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights and liberties of the States and people, or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the views, or marked by the suspicions of the President, or be thought dangerous to his or their election, or other interests, public or personal; that the friendless alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment; but the citizen will soon follow, or rather, has already followed, for already has a sedition act marked him as its prey: that these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested at the threshold, necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood and will furnish new calumnies against republican government, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron: that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go; and let the honest advocate of confidence read the Alien and Sedition acts, and say if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits, Let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have con erred on our President, and the President of our choice has assented to, and accepted over the friendly stranger to whom the mild spirit of our country and its law have pledged hospitality and protection: that the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicion of the President, than the solid right of innocence, the claims of justification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and justice. In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this commonwealth does therefore call on its co-States for an expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning aliens and for the punishment of certain crimes herein before specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are or are not authorized by the federal compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government, weather general or particular. And that the rights and liberties of their co-States will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked in a common bottom with their own. That they will concur with this commonwealth in considering the said acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States, of all powers whatsoever: that they will view this as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed to bind the States (not merely as the cases made federal, casus fœderis but), in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent: that this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shalt be exercised within their respective territories.

9th. Resolved, That the said committee be authorized to communicate by writing or personal conference, at any times or places whatever, with any person or persons who may be appointed by any one or more co-States to correspond or confer with them; and that they lay their proceedings before the next session of Assembly.