Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virgina Resolutions and their Legacy

Reclaiming the American Revolution examines the struggles for political ascendancy between Federalists and the Republicans within the early days of the American Republic. Watkins views the battle by means of the lens of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, charters written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively, that had been responses to the Alien and Sedition Acts handed by Federalists that, amongst different issues, made criticism of the federal authorities a criminal offense. Viewing these acts as a risk to states’ rights, in addition to indicative of a nationwide authorities that sought supreme energy, the Resolutions restated the ideas of the American Revolution and sought to return the nation to the tenets of the Structure, during which rights for all had been protected by checking the facility of the nationwide authorities.