Thom Hartmann
Patriot Games (Then and Now!)
Thu Jun 19 14:53:18 2003
208.152.73.52

Patriot Games
Thom Hartmann, June 17, 2003

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
imprisonment and 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 acquiesce in 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
inebriated Luther 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 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 .

This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted
for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this
credit is attached.
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