'How an earlier 'Patriot Act' law brought down a president'

From: "Darryl B. McDowell"
CCLNews>'How an earlier 'Patriot Act' law brought down a president'

The Constitution & Civil Liberties
Thom Hartmann:
'How an earlier 'Patriot Act' law brought down a president'
Posted on Tuesday, June 17 @ 09:43:15 EDT By Thom Hartmann, The Scoop

Many Americans are suggesting that the Patriot Act (and its proposed
"improvements" in Patriot II) is totally new in the experience of America and
may spell the end of both democracy and the Bill of Rights. History, however,
shows another view, which offers us both warnings and hope.

Although you won't learn much about it from reading the "Republican histories"
of the Founders being published and promoted in the corporate media these days,
the most notorious stain on the presidency of John Adams began in 1798 with the
passage of a series of laws startlingly similar to the Patriot Act.

It started when Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin and
editor of the Philadelphia newspaper the Aurora, began to speak out against the
policies of then-President John Adams. Bache supported Vice President Thomas
Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party (today called the Democratic Party) when
John Adams led the conservative Federalists (who today would be philosophically
identical to GOP Republicans). Bache attacked Adams in an op-ed piece by calling
the president "old, querulous, Bald, blind, crippled, Toothless Adams."

To be sure, Bache wasn't the only one attacking Adams in 1798. His Aurora was
one of about 20 independent newspapers aligned with Jefferson's
Democratic-Republicans, and many were openly questioning Adams' policies and
ridiculing Adams' fondness for formality and grandeur.

On the Federalist side, conservative newspaper editors were equally outspoken.
Noah Webster wrote that Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans were "the refuse, the
sweepings of the most depraved part of mankind from the most corrupt nations on
earth." Another Federalist characterized the Democratic-Republicans as
"democrats, momocrats and all other kinds of rats," while Federalist newspapers
worked hard to turn the rumor of Jefferson's relationship with his deceased
wife's half-sister, slave Sally Hemmings, into a full-blown scandal.

But while Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans had learned to develop a
thick skin, University of Missouri-Rolla history professor Larry Gragg points
out in an October 1998 article in American History magazine that Bache's
writings sent Adams and his wife into a self-righteous frenzy. Abigail wrote to
her husband and others that Benjamin Franklin Bache was expressing the "malice"
of a man possessed by Satan. The Democratic-Republican newspaper editors were
engaging, she said, in "abuse, deception, and falsehood," and Bache was a "lying
wretch."

Abigail insisted that her husband and Congress must act to punish Bache for his
"most insolent and abusive" words about her husband and his administration. His
"wicked and base, violent and calumniating abuse" must be stopped, she demanded.

Abigail Adams followed the logic employed by modern-day "conservatives" who call
the administration "the government" and say that those opposed to an
administration's policies are "unpatriotic," by writing that Bache's "abuse"
being "leveled against the Government" of the United States (her husband) could
even plunge the nation into a "civil war."

Worked into a frenzy by Abigail Adams' and Federalist newspapers of the day,
Federalist senators and congressmen - who controlled both legislative houses
along with the presidency - came to the defense of John Adams by passing a
series of four laws that came to be known together as the Alien and Sedition
Acts.

The vote was so narrow - 44 to 41 in the House of Representatives - that in
order to ensure passage the lawmakers wrote a sunset provision into its most
odious parts: Those laws, unless renewed, would expire the last day of John
Adams' first term of office, March 3, 1801.

Empowered with this early version of the Patriot Act, President John Adams
ordered his "unpatriotic" opponents arrested, and specified that only Federalist
judges on the Supreme Court would be both judges and jurors.

Bache, often referred to as "Lightning Rod Junior" after his famous grandfather,
was the first to be hauled into jail (before the laws even became effective!),
followed by New York Time Piece editor John Daly Burk, which put his paper out
of business. Bache died of yellow fever while awaiting trial, and Burk accepted
deportation to avoid imprisonmentand then fled.

Others didn't avoid prison so easily. Editors of seventeen of the twenty or so
Democratic-Republican-affiliated newspapers were arrested, and ten were
convicted and imprisoned; many of their newspapers went out of business.

Bache's successor, William Duane (who both took over the newspaper and married
Bache's widow), continued the attacks on Adams, publishing in the June 24, 1799
issue of the Aurora a private letter John Adams had written to Tench Coxe in
which then-Vice President Adams admitted that there were still men influenced by
Great Britain in the U.S. government. The letter cast Adams in an embarrassing
light, as it implied that Adams himself may still have British loyalties
(something suspected by many, ever since his pre-revolutionary defense of
British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre), and made the quick-tempered
Adams furious.

Imprisoning his opponents in the press was only the beginning for Adams, though.
Knowing Jefferson would mount a challenge to his presidency in 1800, he and the
Federalists hatched a plot to pass secret legislation that would have disputed
presidential elections decided "in secret" and "behind closed doors."

Duane got evidence of the plot, and published it just after having published the
letter that so infuriated Adams. It was altogether too much for the president
who didn't want to let go of his power: Adams had Duane arrested and hauled
before Congress on Sedition Act charges. Duane would have stayed in jail had not
Thomas Jefferson intervened, letting Duane leave to "consult his attorney."
Duane went into hiding until the end of the Adams' presidency.

Emboldened, the Federalists reached out beyond just newspaper editors.

When Congress let out in July of 1798, John and Abigail Adams made the trip home
to Braintree, Massachusetts in their customary fashion - in fancy carriages as
part of a parade, with each city they passed through firing cannons and ringing
church bells. (The Federalists were, after all, as Jefferson said, the party of
"the rich and the well born." Although Adams wasn't one of the super-rich, he
basked in their approval and adopted royal-like trappings, later discarded by
Jefferson.)

As the Adams family entourage, full of pomp and ceremony, passed through Newark,
New Jersey, a man named Luther Baldwin was sitting in a tavern and probably
quite unaware that he was about to make a fateful comment that would help change
history.

As Adams rode by, soldiers manning the Newark cannons loudly shouted the
Adams-mandated chant, "Behold the chief who now commands!" and fired their
salutes. Hearing the cannon fire as Adams drove by outside the bar, in a moment
of drunken candor Luther Baldwin said, "There goes the President and they are
firing at his arse." Baldwin further compounded his sin by adding that, "I do
not care if they fire thro' his arse!"

The tavern's owner, a Federalist named John Burnet, overheard the remark and
turned Baldwin in to Adams' thought police: The hapless drunk was arrested,
convicted, and imprisoned for uttering "seditious words tending to defame the
President and Government of the United States."

The Alien and Sedition Acts reflected the new attitude Adams and his wife had
brought to Washington D.C. in 1796, a take-no-prisoners type of politics in
which no opposition was tolerated.

For example, on January 30, 1798, Vermont's Congressman Matthew Lyon spoke out
on the floor of the House against "the malign influence of Connecticut
politicians." Charging that Adams' and the Federalists only served the interests
of the rich and had "acted in opposition to the interests and opinions of
nine-tenths of their constituents," Lyon infuriated the Federalists.

The situation simmered for two weeks, and on the morning of February 15, 1798,
Federalist anger reached a boiling point when conservative Connecticut
Congressman Roger Griswold attacked Lyon on the House floor with a hickory cane.
As Congressman George Thatcher wrote in a letter now held at the Massachusetts
Historical Society, "Mr. Griswald [sic] [was] laying on blows with all his might
upon Mr. Lyon.. Griswald.continued his blows on the head, shoulder, & arms of
Lyon, [who was] protecting his head & face as well as he could. Griswald tripped
Lyon & threw him on the floor & gave him one or two [more] blows in the face."

In sharp contrast to his predecessor George Washington, America's second
president had succeeded in creating an atmosphere of fear and division in the
new republic, and it brought out the worst in his conservative supporters.
Across the new nation, Federalist mobs and Federalist-controlled police and
militia attacked Democratic-Republican newspapers and shouted down or threatened
individuals who dared speak out in public against John Adams.

Even members of Congress were not legally immune from the long arm of Adams'
Alien and Sedition Acts. When Congressman Lyon - already hated by the
Federalists for his opposition to the law, and recently caned in Congress by
Federalist Roger Griswold - wrote an article pointing out Adams' "continual
grasp for power" and suggesting that Adams had an "unbounded thirst for
ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice," Federalists convened a
federal grand jury and indicted Congressman Lyon for bringing "the President and
government of the United States into contempt."

Lyon, who had served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, was
led through the town of Vergennes, Vermont in shackles. He ran for re-election
from his 12x16-foot Vergennes jail cell and handily won his seat. "It is quite a
new kind of jargon," Lyon wrote from jail to his constituents, "to call a
Representative of the People an Opposer of the Government because he does not,
as a legislator, advocate and acquiescein every proposition that comes from the
Executive."

Which brings us to today. The possible ray of light for those who oppose the
attempts of George W. Bush to emulate John Adams is found in the end of the
story of Adams' attempt to suborn the Bill of Rights and turn the United States
into a one-party state:

* The Alien and Sedition Acts caused the Democratic-Republican newspapers to
become more popular than ever, and turned the inebriatedLuther Baldwin into a
national celebrity. In like fashion, progressive websites and talk shows are
today proliferating across the internet, and victims of no-fly laws and illegal
arrests at anti-Bush rallies are often featured on the web and on radio programs
like Democracy Now.

* The day Adams signed the Acts, Thomas Jefferson left town in protest. Even
though Jefferson was Vice President, and could theoretically benefit from using
the Acts against his own political enemies, he and James Madison continued to
protest and work against them. Jefferson wrote the text for a non-binding
resolution against the Acts that was adopted by the Kentucky legislature, and
James Madison wrote one for Virginia that was adopted by that legislature.
Today, in similar fashion, over 100 communities across America have adopted
resolutions against Bush's Patriot Act, and, in the spirit of Matthew Lyon,
Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation to repeal parts of
the Act.

* Jefferson beat Adams in the election of 1800 as a wave of voter revulsion over
Adams' phony and self-serving "patriotism" swept over the nation (along with
concerns about Adams' belligerent war rhetoric against the French). Today, even
a minor appearance by Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich - both on record for
repealing much or all of the Patriot Act - draws a large crowd. There's a
growing conviction across the nation that Dean - or possibly another non-DLC
Democrat - can defeat Bush in 2004.

* When Jefferson exposed Adams as a poseur and tool of the powerful elite, the
rot within Adams' Federalist Party was exposed along with it. The Federalists
lost their hold on Congress in the election of 1800, and began a 30-year slide
into total disintegration (later to be reincarnated as Whigs and then as
Republicans). Today, as the Tom Delay and Roy Blount bribery scandals widen, tax
cuts for the rich are understood for what they are, and the corporate takeover
of America is alarming average citizens, the rot in the Republican Party is more
and more obvious. Americans are demanding representation for We, The People, and
non-DLC Democrats, Greens, and Progressives can offer it.

* In what came to be known as "The Revolution of 1800" or "The Second American
Revolution," Thomas Jefferson freed all the men imprisoned by Adams as one of
his first acts of office. Jefferson even reimbursed the fines they'd paid - with
interest - and granted them a formal pardon and apology. Today, undoing the
Patriot Act and kicking corporate money out of Washington D.C. have become
popular progressive and Democratic campaign themes.

The history of John Adams' failed presidency gives hope and encouragement to
those committed to real democracy and genuine freedom. History shows that when
enough people become politically active, they can rescue the soul of America
from sliding into a corrupt, abusive police state.

The future of our nation is now at risk just as much as it was in 1800: It's
time to wake up and work to elect and empower politicians interested in real
democracy. If we're successful, America may experience a revival every bit as
extraordinary as that brought about by Jefferson's Second American Revolution.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is the author of over a dozen books,
including "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of
Human Rights" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," and the host of a
nationally syndicated daily radio talk show. http://www.thomhartmann.com

======================================

COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN ...???
LET US HOPE AND PRAY IT DOES!!!
FWD VIA "WNDBEAR"

PASS THIS ON .....

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

PLEASE TAKE NOTE: You may modify your membership settings if you choose not to
receive individual group emails but would rather participate on our group site
where you can also view messages and post your own at any time. The address is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CCCC-USA for more information.

Subscribe: CCCC-USA-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Post message: CCCC-USA@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: CCCC-USA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner: CCCC-USA-owner@yahoogroups.com

If you wish to unsubscribe from this group at any time, please follow
instructions in group emails or by sending your request to:
CCCC-USA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Regards,
CITIZENS' CONSTITUTIONAL COMMAND CENTER

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
News-Editorials mailing list
News-Editorials@christiancommonlaw-gov.org
http://console.pacifier.com/mailman/listinfo/news-editorials