Liberty’s First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech, by Charles Slack. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2015, 34o pp, $26.00.
a review by Edd Doerr
Freedom
of speech, press, assembly and petition, like religious freedom and
church-state separation, were/are intended to be protected by the First
Amendment to our Constitution. However, in 1798, less than a decade
after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Federalist controlled Congress
and President John Adams enacted the Sedition Act,
which was immediately used to prosecute/persecute the slightest printed
or spoken utterance that annoyed the Federalist establishment. Even a
sitting member of Congress, gutsy Mathew Lyon of Vermont, was subjected
to a sort of Star Chamber trial and sent to prison while running for
re-election, which he won big while behind bars. Public reaction to
these alarming clampdowns on freedom of speech and press led to the
crushing of the Federalists and John Adams in the 1800 elections and the
rise of Jefferson and the “Republicans” ( or Democratic Republicans,
not to be confused with today’s Republicans).
The whole story is beautifully laid out in Charles Slack’s terrific new book, a “five star” opus that you just can’t put down.
Slack’s
final chapter fast-forwards to an overview of today’s situation, both
in the US and internationally. Even in the most advanced modern
democracies freedom of expression is being burdened with a newly
concocted “right not to be offended” that threatens the prior right.
Slack concludes that the US stands virtually alone with its “Parchment
Barrier” to safeguard the right to free expression, just short of
“yelling Fire! in a crowded theater”. He sums up: “The Bill of Rights’
first great accomplishment was to formally declare rights off-limits to
government meddling.” But, the author warns, there are still those in
our country, some liberals as well as conservatives, who would tighten
down on freedom of expression. It’s too bad that our federal and state
highest courts have of late shown inadequate devotion to the religious
liberty portion of the First Amendment, but that is beyond the scope of
this book.
Posted by Gary Berg-Cross
