Jon Roland
The Alien and Sedition Acts, and the USA PATRIOT Act
Sun Aug 8, 2004 03:24
64.140.158.253

The Alien and Sedition Acts, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, and the
Virginia Report, are online at http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr.htm . They
provide some of the clearest and most pointed expositions of the
constitutional views of Jefferson and Madison available, and should be read
and discussed by all Americans.

------
The Revolution of 1800 and the USA PATRIOT Act
By William J. Watkins
<http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040802Watkins.html>http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040802Watkins.html

In this election year, there are significant parallels between the USA
PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Enacted in the
aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the PATRIOT Act has augmented the
power of federal authorities to pry into the affairs of innocent Americans.
In the summer of 1798, the United States Congress passed and President John
Adams signed similar legislation. At base, the Alien and Sedition Acts
prohibited criticism of the federal government and gave President Adams the
power to deport any alien he viewed as suspicious. Americans found guilty
of sedition faced prison terms of up to five years and hefty fines. In
certain circumstances, aliens remaining in the United States could be
imprisoned “so long as, in the opinion of the President, the public safety
may require.”

This legislation made a mockery of the First Amendment and deprived aliens
of basic due process of law. The Alien and Sedition Acts were the federal
government’s first direct assault on American civil liberties. From this
assault and the response, we can learn lessons relevant to our own time.

As is often the case with illiberal legislation, the Acts were a product of
temporary Strum und Drang. In the 1790s, a number of Americans feared the
democratic excesses of the French Revolution would be exported to the
United States. They believed that French agents were plotting the
destruction of the Constitution and the overthrow of the Adams
administration. Rumors abounded in Philadelphia that Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison planned to assist a French invasion force that was sailing
across the Atlantic. Some expected a guillotine would be set up to deal
with patriotic Americans. In this environment, Adams and the Federalists
pushed for legislation that would secure the home front in the face of
invasion and that would also, they hoped, secure Federalist political hegemony.

Fearing revolutionary France, many Americans at first supported the Alien
and Sedition Acts. In Thomas Jefferson’s words, the people were “made for a
moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves.” But the
Federalists attacks on civil liberties were soon met with opposition. Local
meetings were held throughout the union and the people affixed their
signatures to sundry petitions. These public meetings were well attended and
sparked much interest. In Lexington, Kentucky, for example, a meeting
scheduled at a local church to consider the Acts had to be moved to the
town square because 5,000 citizens—twice Lexington’s population—assembled.

To combat the Acts, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drafted the Kentucky
and Virginia Resolutions. In these Resolutions, Madison and Jefferson
accused Congress of exceeding its powers and declared the Alien and
Sedition Acts void. Times were so tense that Madison and Jefferson hid
their authorship because they feared prosecutions under the dreaded
Sedition Act. The Acts were seen as such a danger to liberty that there was
also some discussion of resisting the measures by force and secession.

Fortunately, drastic measures were not needed because the people had a very
powerful weapon at their disposal: the ballot box. In addition, Jefferson
and the Republican Party posed quite a contrast to Adams and the Federalist
Party. In the so-called “Revolution of 1800," the Republicans won a 24-seat
majority in the House of Representatives and Jefferson was elected to the
presidency. Upon taking office, Jefferson suspended all pending
prosecutions under the Sedition Act and pardoned those convicted under the
unconstitutional Act. Jefferson would later boast how this revolution was
brought about not by the sword, “but by the rational and peaceable
instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.”

Under today’s PATRIOT Act, government investigators can more easily
eavesdrop on Internet activity, FBI agents are charged with gathering
domestic intelligence, Treasury Department officials are charged with
creating a financial intelligence-gathering system for use by the CIA, and
the CIA, banished from the field of domestic intelligence because of abuses
in the Vietnam era, is permitted to resume domestic operations. Separate
from the PATRIOT Act, the Bush administration unsuccessfully argued to the
Supreme Court that it could detain American citizens and foreign nationals
on U.S. soil indefinitely and without access to legal counsel—all when the
writ of habeas corpus has not even been suspended. Even John Adams only
claimed such a power over aliens, not citizens.

Civil libertarians have been very critical of the PATRIOT Act, believing
that the balance between liberty and power has tipped too far toward the
latter. But, with an election around the corner, the American people can
have the final say on this question. Well, not quite.

Unlike 1800, the people are given no meaningful choice. Senator John Kerry,
the President’s only real challenger, voted in favor of the PATRIOT Act and
authored some of its provisions. According to the Kerry campaign, the
problem is not with the PATRIOT Act itself, but with those enforcing it,
i.e., Attorney General John Ashcroft. His message for Americans is to keep
the powers in place and to trust him with these powers that he admits have
been abused. The ballot box is a powerful weapon in the people’s hands when
they have real choices. With the franchise the people can defend their
liberties and reform the government. To paraphrase Jefferson, they can
effect a bloodless revolution. However, when both parties offer the people
candidates with indistinguishable views on issues relating to fundamental
liberties, the franchise is an impotent weapon. And if democracy so
falters, the people are left with few attractive options in defense of
their freedoms.
William J. Watkins, Jr., is an attorney practicing in Greenville, South
Carolina, research fellow at the Independent Institute, and the author of
the recently released
<http://www.independent.org/tii/catalog/cat_reclaiming.html>Reclaiming the
American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and their Legacy
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2004).


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The "Federalist" Plan for World Domination--NWO — blueridge, Sun Aug 8 15:20