Washington was made commander in chief of the land forces with Hamilton as second in command, but neither had occasion to serve actively. [Illustration: CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY.] =277. The Alien and Sedition Laws.=—Meanwhile Adams and the Federalists, who had the sympathy of the country in the impending war, speedily lost it by passing the famous “Alien and Sedition Laws.” The editors of the Republican press, being in many cases foreign-born, had been friendly to France since the days of the French Revolution and of Genet’s mission, and had attacked Adams and his party violently. The Federalists, believing that the liberties of the country would be destroyed if this license were not checked, not only passed a rigid naturalization law, but also one providing for the removal from the country of dangerous aliens designated by the President. =278. Features of the Sedition Law.=—To this act against foreigners, which was tyrannical in theory although not in practice, an even worse law was added relative to sedition. It was designed to punish persons who conspired in order to resist the government’s measures or to intimidate officeholders. It was also aimed at persons guilty of libeling the government, Congress, or the President. Practically this was to gag the press in the interest of the Federalist party. The first conspicuously effective use of the law was made against an obnoxious Republican editor named Callender. But the journalists took shelter behind public opinion, and the Federalists soon found to their sorrow that they had gone too far in their attack on popular liberties. =279. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.=—Jefferson led the resistance to the unpopular law, and as he could hope to do nothing with Congress until a new election, he turned to the state legislatures. In those of Virginia and Kentucky, in the fall of 1798, resolutions were adopted, since known as the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. These declared that, as the Constitution was a compact between the states, the latter have individually the right to pass judgment upon the enactments of the general government, which derives its power to make laws from the Constitution. In pursuance of this assumed right the legislatures representing the two states pronounced the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional and void and called on other states to do likewise. In 1799 the Kentucky legislature passed a second series, which declared that all acts of the general government unauthorized by the Constitution ought to be nullified by the states. The immediate object and effect of these resolutions was to render the Alien and Sedition Laws unpopular and suspected. The chief effect, however, was seen later to lie in the support given by the names of Madison and Jefferson, authors respectively of the Virginia and Kentucky series, to the theory of the “compact” origin of the government and to the subsequent Carolina doctrine of nullification.