But the Federalists were blind to considerations like these. As Schouler well remarks: "A sort of photophobia afflicted statesmen, who, allowing little for the good sense and spirit of Americans, or our geographical disconnection with France, were crazed with the fear that this Union might be, like Venice, made over to some European potentate, or chained in the same galley with Switzerland or Holland, to do the Directory's bidding. That, besides this unfounded fear, operated the desire of ultra-Federalists to take revenge upon those presses which had assailed the British treaty and other pet measures, and abused Federal leaders; and the determination to entrench themselves in authority by forcibly disbanding an opposition party which attracted a readier support at the polls from the oppressed of other countries, no candid writer can at this day question." [1798] It was next the turn of the Republicans to blunder. In November, 1798, the Kentucky Legislature passed a series of resolutions, drawn up by John Breckenridge upon a sketch by Jefferson, in effect declaring the alien and sedition acts not law, but altogether void and of no force. In December the Virginia Legislature put forth a similar series by Madison, milder in tone and more cautiously expressed, denouncing those acts as "palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution." A year after their first utterance, the Kentucky law-makers further "resolved that the several States who formed (the Constitution), being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy." Virginia again declared it a State's right "to interpose" in such cases. These resolutions were intended to stir reflection and influence opinion, and, if possible, elicit a concurrent request to Congress from the various States to repeal the obnoxious acts. They do not hint at the use of force. Their execration of the hated laws is none too strong, and their argument as a whole is masterly and unanswerable. But at least those of Kentucky suggest, if they do not contain, a doctrine respecting the Constitution which is untenable and baneful, in kernel the same that threatened secession in Jackson's time and brought it in Buchanan's. The State, as such, is not a party to the Constitution. Still less is the Legislature. Nor is either, but the Supreme Court, the judge whether in any case the fundamental law has been infringed.