Liberty’s First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech
Disagreement frequently elicits feelings of fear of the unknown. So it’s no surprise when the animosity between the Federalists and Democrat-Republicans in the late 1700s turned to active persecution of the latter party. The Federalists viewed themselves as educated, well-to-do purveyors of good government. Here are the flagrantly biased ends to which the Federalists would go to silence anyone (who we would today call “protestors”) who slandered or threatened anyone in government, including President John Adams, through local and national editorials. Men like Adams and Timothy Pickering compelled legislators to create and pass the Sedition Act of 1798, which legalized the aforesaid persecution into prosecution. Feisty men, including Matthew Lyon, Benjamin Bache (Ben Franklin’s grandson), and Thomas Callender refused to be silenced and were harassed, tried, and found guilty of violating this new law, which basically and outrageously destroyed freedom of speech.
The multiple sides of the intricate legal debacles of this freedom are painstakingly but dynamically chronicled herein. A fascinating, detailed examination of this right is still being debated over two hundred years later.
