“The several states composing the US. of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government…”
–Thomas Jefferson in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798

William J. Watkins, Jr., Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Ask the typical undergraduate to discuss the ideas advanced in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and you may as well be asking for an overview of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. Yet these nearly forgotten documents fully merit a place among the most important political writings in American history, both in terms of the ideas they put forth and the influence they had on subsequent generations of American political thinkers. That’s why William Watkins’ book is something to celebrate.

The Resolutions in effect posed and sought to answer a series of fundamental questions. How is the central government to be restrained? Are frequent elections and internal checks and balances sufficient, or does the limitation of federal power require still more institutional safeguards? Which institution, if any, possesses the definitive word on constitutional disputes between the federal government and the states?