The States as Final Interpreters
491
1787 down to the Civil War, the nation was preoccupied with questions
of State sovereignty and the nature of the Union. State challenges to Federal power were the common order of the day, almost the theme song, it
would seem, of American politics in the early Republic.
From a reading of the Convention documents, The Federalist, and the
Constitution, it was by no means clear what kind of Union the Framers
had designed. The Federalist party, favoring an expansive or nationalistic interpretation, pointed to the Preamble of the Constitution as proof
that sovereignty resided in ‘‘We the People,’’ not ‘‘We the States.’’ The
several States, said Federalist leaders such as John Marshall, had surrendered their sovereignty to the national government. The Jeffersonian Republican-Democrats, favoring a narrow or States’ Rights interpretation, argued that the Union was a compact of States, each of which
had retained the essential attributes of sovereignty. The Preamble refers
to the ‘‘People’’ rather than the ‘‘States,’’ they countered, because at the
time of the Federal Convention it would have been premature to speak for
all of the States. Rhode Island had not sent any delegates to the Convention, and there was considerable uncertainty at the time whether all of the
States would ratify the Constitution. There were elements of truth to both
sides of the argument, of course, because ultimate sovereignty had been
reserved neither to the ‘‘people’’ as such nor to the States alone, but to
those who ratified the Constitution—‘‘the States and the people thereof.’’
The sentiment for State sovereignty and States’ Rights was a powerful
force throughout the Union, but as time wore on it became increasingly
sectional—North against South. The ‘‘irrepressible conflict’’ over the issue of slavery contributed substantially to this polarization, but there
were other differences—cultural and economic—which contributed
significantly to sectional estrangement. The first major dispute actually
involved freedom of speech and press when members of the Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, challenged the
constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Passed by a Federalistcontrolled Congress in 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts were designed
to limit the influence of political radicals, particularly newspaper editors
and pamphleteers, who were espousing French revolutionary doctrines
and allegedly encouraging subversive activities. The Federalists, alarmed
by the military aggression of revolutionary France and the atrocities com-