At the time when the republicans of our country were so much alarmed at the proceedings of the federal ascendancy in Congress, in the executive and the judiciary departments, it became a matter of serious consideration how head could be made against their enterprises on the constitution.  The leading republicans in Congress found themselves of no use there, browbeaten, as they were, by a bold and overwhelming majority.  They concluded to retire from that field, take a stand in the State legislatures, and endeavor there to arrest their progress.  The alien and sedition laws furnished the particular occasion.  The sympathy between Virginia and Kentucky was more cordial, and more intimately confidential, than between any other two States of republican policy.  Mr. Madison came into the Virginia legislature. 1 was then in the Vice-Presidency, and could not leave my station.  But your father, Colonel W. C. Nicholas, and myself happening to be together, the engaging the co-operation of Kentucky in an energetic protestation against the constitutionality of those laws, became a subject of consultation.  Those gentlemen pressed me strongly to sketch resolutions for that purpose, your father undertaking to introduce them to that legislature, with a solemn assurance, which I strictly required, that it should not be known from what quarter they came.  I drew and delivered them to him, and, in keeping their origin secret, he fulfilled his pledge of honor.  Some years after this, Colonel Nicholas asked me if I would have any objection to its being known that I had drawn them.  I pointedly enjoined that it should not.  Whether he had unguardedly intimated it before to any one, I know not:  but I afterwards observed in the papers repeated imputations of them to me; on which, as has been my practice on all occasions of imputation, I have observed entire silence.  The question, indeed, has never before been put to me, nor should I answer it to any other than yourself; seeing no good end to be proposed by it, and the desire of tranquillity inducing with me a wish to be withdrawn from public notice.  Your father’s zeal and talents were too well known, to derive any additional distinction from the penning these resolutions.  That circumstance, surely, was of far less merit than the, proposing and carrying them through the legislature of his State.  The only fact in this statement, on which my memory is not distinct, is the time and occasion of the consultation with your father and Colonel Nicholas.  It took place here I know; but whether any other person was present, or communicated with, is my doubt.  I think Mr. Madison was either with us, or consulted, but my memory is uncertain as to minute details.

I fear, Dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis, with this difference only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single-handed in the present assaults on the constitution.  But its assaults are more sure and deadly, as from an agent seemingly passive and unassuming.  May you and your cotemporaries meet them with the same determination and effect, as your father and his did the alien and sedition laws, and preserve inviolate a constitution, which, cherished in all its chastity and purity, will prove in the end a blessing to all the nations of the earth.  With these prayers, accept those for your own happiness and prosperity.