Countering the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional, Jefferson and Madison clandestinely drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 and 1799. These documents set forth arguments for states’ rights. The Constitution, they wrote, was an agreement between the states. If the federal government assumed powers not in the Constitution, states could decide a law’s constitutionality. States could decide whether to uphold them. The Kentucky legislature passed the first of Thomas Jefferson’s resolutions in November 1798, and the second in December 1799. The Virginia legislature passed James Madison’s resolution in December 1798.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
James Madison (1751-1836)
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in 1798 and 1799, arguing that if the federal government assumed powers that were not part of the Constitution, as it did with the Alien and Sedition Acts, states had the right to decide whether to abide by them. In the resolutions, they set forth the argument for states’ rights.
Jefferson and Madison used arguments in their resolutions as a plank in their platform during the election of 1800. Carey did not support the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. An ardent nationalist, he tactfully avoided public comment.[1] Carey would campaign passionately for national unity near the end of the War of 1812 when New England threatened to secede from the Union, and later during the Nullification Crisis, when Southerners asserted states’ rights.
Despite his differences with Jefferson and Madison on states’ rights, Carey worked closely with his friend Tench Coxe campaigning for Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800, favoring rapprochement with France. Carey gathered documents of public interest on the war, the XYZ Affair, and America’s relationship with France. He distributed them over his national network. In June 1799, he published The American Museum an Annual Register of Fugitive Pieces for the Year 1798, resurrecting his popular magazine to promote the Democratic-Republican’s position on the issue. Tench Coxe used the piece effectively as campaign propaganda.[2]
After the harassment that Carey received from Cobbett and the Bank of the United States he worked more furtively, but effectively, gathering valuable information from his network of contacts throughout the United States and writing propaganda for the Democratic-Republicans. His associates in these efforts, Dr. Michael Lieb and William Duane, were evolving as leaders of the radical faction of Pennsylvania’s Democratic-Republican Party. Carey continued to organize the Irish in Philadelphia, delivering their vote in the election.[3]
When the House of Representative finally elected Thomas Jefferson president of the United States, in 1801, Carey sought the spoils of victory from his Democratic-Republican cronies. He was rewarded with two profitable contracts; the first to provision a state agency with office supplies and the second to print an edition of Pennsylvania’s state laws.
Throughout his career, Carey launched ambitious projects with bursts of enthusiasm subsequently incurring debts. He had difficulty securing loans. His credit was a nagging source of anxiety. After the election, he had his eye on a seat on the board of the Bank of Pennsylvania. He lobbied through Pennsylvania Jeffersonians Nathaniel Boileau, Michael Leib and Samuel Maclay to be elected by Pennsylvania’s senate to that position.[4] He was eternally grateful, especially to Nathaniel Boileau, for it meant that he could at last easily secure credit.”[5]
“I printed and published above twice as many books as were necessary from the extent of my business; and, in consequence, incurred oppressive debts to banks—was laid under contribution to interest to them, and to usurers, which not only swallowed up my profits, but kept me in a constant state of penury…I have owed for months together from 3 to $6,000, borrowed from day to day, and sometimes in the morning to be paid at 1 o’clock the same day, to meet checks issued the preceding day…I have walked, lame as I was, from 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning, till 2 or half past 2, trying to borrow money.” [6]
Mathew Carey
“[election to the directorship of the Bank of Pennsylvania] afforded considerable facility for meeting my engagements. My debts rose extravagantly high and…I was treated with great lenity by the Directors who allowed my notes to run on, without curtailment, for six or eight months.” [7]
Mathew Carey
CAREY THE NATIONALIST | America’s First Best Selling Novel
[1] Edward C. Carter II, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, Nationalist, 1760-1814, Bryn Mawr College PhD. Dissertation, 1962, 264.
[2] Carter, The Political Activities of Mathew Carey, 265.
[3] Edward C. Carter II, “ The Birth of a Political Economist: Mathew Carey and the Re-charter Fifht of 1810-1811” Pennsylvania History, V. 33 N. 3. 277.
[4] Carter, “Birth of a Political Economist,” 278.
[5] Carter, “Political Activities of Mathew Carey,” 268; Carey to Nathaniel Boileau, November 24, December 22, 1800, January 5, January 19 and December 29, 1801. Lea and Febiger Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
[6] Mathew Carey, Autobiography, (Brooklyn: Research Classics, 1942) 41.
[7] Carey, Autobiography, 48.