Page:Contemporary Opinion of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, p1.djvu/5

 American people; the next moment his admiration is excited by a prophecy since actually realized, or falsified only by circumstances which no man could then have anticipated; meanwhile he is constantly amused by bits of sophistical reasoning, by Cobbett's ignorance of American history or his failure to appreciate some of the most obvious traits of American character. Desiring to properly label Gerrard's speech and the Kentucky Resolutions, Cobbett introduced them to his readers with the remark that he had always apprehended that the chief danger from French influence lay in the possibility that France might acquire Louisiana and aid the Kentuckians in a revolt from which they "were far from being disinclined." That the action of Kentucky is a revolt due to French influence is tacitly but none the less effectively assumed in the observation, "This most impudent speech, from the governor of that country, will enable the reader to judge how far my apprehensions are well founded." To Cobbett, as to Fenno, the mere fact of opposition rather than the manner or the ground of the opposition demanded attention.

When the news of Virginia's action reached Cobbett, his anger burst forth in a long hysterical article, characterized by abusive epithets and the absence of any real argument; the Virginians are taunted with the holding of slaves and advised to study the Constitution which they profess to hold in such veneration, especially that portion of it which declares that all men are born free and equal! The address of the legislature to the people of Virginia is pronounced "little short of high treason," "the most seditious that ever daring demagogue drew up, or that ever a factious assembly had the impudence and folly to sanction." Neither the protest against the Alien and Sedition Laws nor the right of a state to render them void is discussed. In his wrath against the Republicans Cobbett quite forgot to disprove their propositions. A little later he expressed a more deliberate opinion upon the result to which the Virginia and Kentucky opposition would lead. "Virginia will have either a majority in congress or a separation of the states! And, one or the other, I am afraid she will have, ere two years are at an end." But the danger of separation, he thinks, does not come from Virginia alone. "It is very certain, too, that the New Englanders want to get rid of the Southern States. Their interests are as opposite as are the manners of their inhabitants." This idea that New England will resist the impending triumph of Virginian ideas