They contended, the object of the Revolution had been to secure local government and in recognition of this purpose, the convention had refrained from providing means whereby the states could be coerced into submission. As a counter attack the Kentucky legislature passed certain resolutions in which there was an element of sedition; but the resolutions were justified by the alien and sedition laws. Mr. Jefferson is chargeable with the authorship of the Kentucky resolutions. At a conference held at Monticello, he was asked to and drafted the resolutions, which somewhat modified were presented by Mr. Breckenridge to the Kentucky Legislature on November 8, and adopted November 10, with but one dissenting vote, Mr. Murray, in the House, and unanimously by the Senate. The resolution charged Congress with usurpation of power in enacting the Alien and Sedition laws and defined and declared for state rights: to the effect that when a state deemed a federal law unconstitutional or oppressive, if Congress refused to repeal it, the state had the right to declare it inoperative within her boundaries and to protect her citizens against penalty for its violation. Virginia was the only other state siding with Kentucky in the controversy, which it did by milder resolutions. These resolutions gave birth to the new Democratic party and raised a great political question, state rights, which for more than three score years, continued a national issue. The alien law fixed the period of residence before naturalization at fourteen years and gave to the president power to expel all aliens whom he judged dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States. The sedition act, in the face of constitutional provisions guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press, made it a crime “for any person unlawfully to combine and conspire to oppose or impede any governmental measure or to intimidate any person holding a public office or to incite insurrection, riot or unlawful assembly or to print or publish any false, scandalous and malicious writing against the Government or either house of congress or the president with intent to defame them or bring them into contempt or disrepute or to excite against them hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition or with intent to excite any unlawful combination therein for opposing or resisting any law—or to aid, abet or encourage any hostile design of any foreign nation against the United States.” Mr. Jefferson, called the father of the new Democratic Party, wrote Mr. S. T. Mason: “For my part I consider these laws as only an experiment on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution. If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another Act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life * * *”