To George Washington from Henry Lee, Jr., 29 January 1799
From Henry Lee, Jr.
Richmond 29th Jany [17]99.
dear sir.
In our late session the views of opposition to govt have been disclosed with more than usual frankness.
That you may possess an accurate copy of the address on the part of the minority I beg leave to forward to you the enclosed.1
If the people will generally read the proceedings of the legislature I console myself with the hope that the disposition of Virga will change respecting congressional politics. I have the honor to be most respectfully Sir [your] real friend
H. Lee
ALS, NjMoHP.
1. On 23 Jan. 1799, a little more than a month after adopting James Madison’s famous Virginia Resolutions opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Republican majority in the Virginia legislature adopted a second attack on the acts, entitled “Address of the General Assembly to the People of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” The Federalists in the Virginia legislature, for their part, drew up and promulgated the minority’s defense of the acts and a rejection of the principles of Madison’s Virginia Resolutions. Since the nineteenth century historians have identified James Madison as author of “Address of the General Assembly” attacking the Alien and Sedition Acts and John Marshall as author of the address defending the acts. The editors of the new edition of Madison’s Papers demonstrate that Madison in fact was not the author of the assembly’s address, and the editors of the new edition of Marshall’s Papers argue persuasively that it was not Marshall but Henry Lee who wrote the minority’s defense of the Alien and Sedition Acts (“Note on the Virginia Resolutions, 10 January 1799, and the Address of the General Assembly to the People of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 23 January 1799” in 17:199–206; “Congressional Election Campaign: Editorial Note,” in 3:494–502). For an account of the various addresses proposed, adopted, and rejected by the Virginia legislature in December 1798 and January 1799, see 538–42.