The explanation then defends the assertion in the resolutions, that these assumptions of powers, extending the sovereignty of the United States, supersede the sovereignty of the States in the cases reserved to them, and that its result “would be to transform the republican system of the United States into a monarchy.” This fear that the government would by assuming undelegated powers end in a monarchy was the objection to the Constitution made in the convention that formed it, and in the conventions of the people of the different States when they adopted it. And in the Virginia resolutions it is said to be “the general sentiment of America.” It is further argued this great assumption of increased prerogative and patronage of the President might enable him to secure his re-election and regulate the succession and establish it as hereditary. This fear of that day to us seems absurd; but in the days of George the Third, and not so many years from the Stuarts, it had a more plausible foundation. The explanation further says, and it is in fact an admission of its truth, “that it has been stated that it belongs to the judiciary of the United States and not to the State Legislatures to declare the meaning of the Federal Constitution.” “But a declaration that proceedings of the Federal Government are not warranted by the Constitution is a novelty neither among the citizens nor among the Legislatures of the States.” The report then takes up and undertakes to defend the resolve, that the government has manifested a spirit to enlarge its granted powers by a forced construction of the Constitution. It instances especially the Alien and Sedition Laws, and declares the Alien Law to be unconstitutional, because it gave the President legislative and judicial powers in addition to those of the Executive. The Act, it says, enabled him to send out of the country, in times of peace, aliens, citizens of a friendly nation whom he should judge dangerous to the public safety or suspect of treacherous or secret machinations against the government, giving him thus legislative power, making his will the law. He also is the judiciary; without the oath or affirmation of an accuser, his suspicion the only evidence to convict; his order the only judgment to be executed. And this order may be so made as to deprive the victim of the privilege of the _habeas corpus_. The Sedition act was also claimed to be beyond the power of Congress for many reasons, and emphatically because it punished by fine and imprisonment false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government; thus abridging the liberty of the press, the provision in the amendments of the constitution for which Virginia had been so strenuous.