Wednesday, April 3, 2024

You Have Read of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Haven't You?


The Sedition Act that Adams signed into law surpassed anything dreamt of by our modern Thought Police.

Opposition party journalists and even a sitting U.S. Congressman - Matthew Lyon, a Republican Representative from Vermont - among others were jailed for intent and design to defame the government and President Adams. 

(On second thought, some of them probably do dream of that.) 

And the deportation powers of the Alien Act went well, well, beyond anything promised by the next Trumpening. 

It's frankly wild that Adams has the reputation of a pluperfect liberal.

6 comments:

James said...

Didn't work then won't work now.

James said...

Didn't Adams brother (attorney) represent the British soldiers involved in the "Boston Massacre"?

TSB said...

John Adams himself defended them, and successfully. That was a ticklish situation to be sure.

The ACLU used to have a John Adams Project that advocated for prisoners at GITMO, naming it that as a gesture to his defense of the Redcoats.

He had his pros and cons, and I put the Alien and Sedition Acts in the con category.

James said...

The Founders were a strange bunch. Brilliant but strange.

James said...

Fortunately we've never had any strange people in Texas ( where I'm from).

TSB said...

A lot of those 'strange' types had Gone to Texas, I recall reading. (Or maybe that doesn't count, technically, if it was still part of Mexico then?).

I don't know where the new strange people are coming from today, but I do hope they are out there somewhere.