Convinced that the Federalist administration of President John Adams and Congress were determined to subvert liberty for the sake of security and retention of their own power, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison responded with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The most serious and immediate threat to liberty was “The Sedition Act” (July 14, 1798) passed by the Federalist dominated Congress, which attempted to control public meetings, speaking, or writing against the government. Jefferson, the leader of the Democratic Republican Party and “strict constructionist” for matters pertaining to the Constitution, authored “The Kentucky Resolutions” expressing his resolve that the states, acting through their state legislatures, had the right to declare any law they deemed “unconstitutional” as null and void within their state. Of the nearly one-dozen American citizens charged under The Sedition Act, all were Democratic Republicans.

The funds were to be used for the expenses of Meriweather Lewis to undertake exploration up the Missouri River. This effort was prior to the Treaty of April 30 between the United States and France for the purchase of Louisiana, and therefore constituted Americans crossing the Mississippi River into the territory currently occupied by Spain, but which had been transferred to France, and which, nonetheless, was foreign soil at this time. See Jefferson’s rationale in Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, Volume I, pages 437–439.

Per the Constitution, ratification of treaties was the responsibility of the United States Senate.

Source: Senate Executive Journal, Vol. 1 (1789–1805), 450. Online through the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov./ammem/amlaw/louisiana2.html

Because the two conventions of April 30, 1803 with France required appropriations, this responsibility for meeting the financial requirements rested with the House of Representatives.

Source: Annals of Congress, 8th Congress, 1st Session, 382–385. Online through the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=013/llac013.db&recNum=200

In 1801, the rebels of Haiti drafted their first Constitution based upon American and French models for the Island of Saint-Domingue; then, in 1805 (May 20, 1805), Haitian leaders prepared a much more extensive Constitution for their nation, the first to be created by slave revolution.