The passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1799 was a decisive point in American history. Yet they sound as modern as today’s headlines out of Iraq.
No one recognized the existence of parties while Washington was president.
The Federalist Party became what Washington was identified with and his vice president John Adams who had become president in 1787 was later identified with.
Even thought they did not officially exist, there was the party of Jefferson and the party of Adams.
In 1796 John Adams barely beat Jefferson for the presidency, and only because Washington apparently supported Adams. Two parties, that of Jefferson and that of Washington-Adams, actually existed, but no one would say so until Washington died in 1799.
As soon as Washington died in December of 1799, the Jefferson party began to be referred to as the anti-Federalists. Before that it might have been called the anti-Washington Party, but respect forbade that.
Today we can say that the Federalists won in 1796. Adams and Jefferson were on increasingly oppsite sides and only the name of Washington prevented these two groups from being called political parties.
To an old politico like me, all this sounds very modern. The reality was that there were two parties by 1796 but nobody was allowed to state the basic political reality in plain English.
Meantime, back on planet earth, the Federalist not-yet-Party of Washington defeated the anti-Federalist not-yet-party of Jefferson in 1796.
In 1798, because the French Revolution had gone nuts and lost its popularity, the Jefferson group totally lost both Houseds of Congress to the Adams Party because Jefferson’s crowd was identified with the French.
Now comes the REALLY modern part.
By 1798 the United States was actually engaged in a shooting war with France, but no war was declared. The same people who had adopted the Constitution and given only congress the right to declare war were not declaring war, but acted as if there were a war declared.
An army was to be raised, congress had said so. Washington was made commander in chief again and he declared that Jefferson’s most vociferous political opponent, Alexander Hamilton, was to command it.
An army was being raised, money spent, but no declaration of war. Sound familiar?
It gets worse.
In 1798 the party which did ot support this undeclared war was labeled a bunch of traitors. So Jefferson’s party was totally defeated in 1798 over the undeclared war.
Does THAT sound familiar?
Well, here’s the clincher:
As soon as the new Federalist-dominated congress met in 1799, it passed the first Patriot Act.
It was called the Alien and Sedition Act. Since there was a state of emergency due to the undelcarefd war, criticism of the government was declared illegal, and many anti-Federalist editors and writers went to prison. Free speech, gyaranteed by the first amendment, openly went out the window because the Cosntitution didn’t apply in the emergency of an undeclared war.
Does any of htis sound familiar yet?
The Supreme Court had not yet declared that it alone had the power to interpret the Constitution.
According to modern doctrine, if the Supreme Court were not there to interpret the Constitution, there would be no Constitution.
So what happened?
The PEOPLE interpreted the Constitution. You know, “the people” as in “We the people of hte United States… and OUR posterity?”
That was before we had the Supreme Court to protect the Cosntitution from the people.
In 1800 the party which passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Federalist Party which had gotten all the electoral votes twice with Washington and won in 1796 and 1798, was crushed at the ballot box. The Federalist Party began a steady decline which led to its dissolution in the next decade.
The Alien and Sdition Acts did ot last as long as the Patriot Act has. If it had been left to the Supreme Court, the Alien and Sedition Acts wouls still be at the District Court level in 1800.
When the robed Guardians of the Constitution got around to it, parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts would have declared some parts legal and other parts illegal, as with the Patriot Act. Editors would STILL be facing prison for violating parts of it, and only lawyers could tell them WHICH parts of it, and that not for sure.
Hate Laws, anyone?
In 1800 the newly elected congress threw the whole damned thing out, lock, stock, and barrel.
It’s back.
#1 by Peter on 04/02/2006 - 6:41 pm
Sometime you should write on why the anti-federalists were called Federalists, the anti-whigs were called Whigs, the anti-republicans were called Republicans, and the anti-democrats are called Democrats.
#2 by kanefromsf on 04/02/2006 - 9:08 pm
Lincoln pulled a lot of that garbage too.
#3 by Tim on 04/03/2006 - 2:48 pm
Mr Whitaker,
Do you consider the Chinese to be a serious threat to our race? I keep reading reports about Isreal selling us out to the Chinese. We all know that Jews are not exactly pro-white allies. If they are partners —are they partners on more than just steeling technology? You have stated that the Chinese have a childs mind (or something like that). But led by a nest of Vipers they could be dangerous (especially since there are so many of them and they STEALING our technology). I know you have your eyes on everything. Sound off on this one.
#4 by Shari on 04/03/2006 - 3:17 pm
It doesn’t look as if any newly elected congress is going to throw anything out, lock, stock and barrel this time.
#5 by Peter on 04/03/2006 - 6:23 pm
I don’t think Washington believed there was a Washington-Adams. That was what Adams wanted people to believe to get elected. The Court party did the same sort of thing under George III. They were essentially thieves who endeared themselves to the monarch to get what they wanted. Adams may not have been exactly a thief, but associated with them, the Hamiltonians, and he used those connections to be elected.
It is a myth that there was a Washington party versus the Jeffersonians. People who steal for a living don’t find it hard to lie. Those same thieves who wanted others to believe they were Washingtonians managed to call themselves the Federalists, when everyone knew they were the unitary party, the anti-federalists.
When Adams started jailing VIPs for failing to bow to him when his carriage passed, people began to see through the silly lies. The anti-federalist Federalists changed their name to the Whigs to get votes. Of course they were anti-whigs, the people saw through it and the Hamiltonian thieves lost to the Jeffersonians, ie the true federalists and the true whigs.
Sadly, all this was forgotten fifty years later when the Rothschilds backed Daniel Webster and Clay in Congress and the tall ugly man for president. The thieves, backed by money that originated in state-stakes gambling over Napoleon’s defeat, started calling themselves the Republicans. Then they took that European blood-money to destroy the American republic by killing the naive and unready Southern heroes and murdering their women and children in their homes. A new world order was established. Some call it socialism. Some call it capitalism.
Europe failed to learn from what happened in America and the result was WWI and the Soviet murder machine.
The Germans did at last learn from experience and they saw the war coming. They knew it was inevitable as before. At first, their successes exceeded their expectations and the war to come was delayed. They built a wonderful alliance system, but the enemy, working out of England this time, assassinated their friends in England and Poland and bribed the now leaderless Poles and the evil-led Soviets with money and false promises. At last the war came too soon for the awakened Europeans, although they did give them a run for their money.
Oswald Spengler’s prophecy came true faster than thought and now we are left with only the hope to save our best things (like Gothic cathedrals, Shakespeare, J.S. Bach) — and save our race from extinction.
The new civilization is now already being built on race. We must find what deeds to do to assure that the human group of generra do not descend irreversibly into animal sewage, but instead rise to a new plateau of beauty, nobility, and spiritual loftiness. Since race is now the Law, let it be higher than before.
I have spoken. 😉