“When your blood runs down the gutters, don’t say you were not forewarned of the danger.”
William Corbett, 1762-1835
Federalist Editor
Porcupine’s Gazette, May 9, 1798
Courtesy: Eigen’s Political & Historical Quotations
Red scares and other fears of foreign conspiracies are as old as our nation. In 1798 the Federalists accused Vice President Thomas Jefferson, among others, of being in contact with the foreign conspirators and printed details of a “manufactured” plot to massacre the citizens of Philadelphia in one of their controlled newspapers.The nation was so alarmed that the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by Congress a few months later. These were probably the greatest infringements on American civil liberties in our history.
I was reminded of this quote and its context whilst reading this exchange:
Jay P. Hailey wrote:
If government keeps gaining power in the United States, there won’t be a large, prosperous free area on the globe even *with* an America! This is not a trend that can credibly be blamed on immigrants — it was evident way back in 1798 with the Alien & Sedition Act, and has just gotten worse over the years,
[….]
The Aliens and Sedition Act was bad – however Thomas Jefferson was elected and quickly ditched it
Then he engaged the unconstitutional Louisiana purchase.
Rad Geek responded:
Well, who cares whether it was unconstitutional or not?
The primary problem with the Louisiana purchase wasn’t its relationship to the enumerated powers doctrine, but rather the fact that it was funded with stolen loot, that it was “bought” from a pirate-emperor who had no legitimate title to the land he was “selling” (at the expense of the real property rights of Indians and white homesteaders who had rightful claim to the land), and that it was the first of many expansionist land grabs with the more or less explicit purpose of expanding the slavocracy into new and fertile territory.
It would still have been wicked, even if the Constitution had explicitly provided for such “purchases.”
Pity Iraq, Palestine, etc….rights “belong” to those who control the guns and the printing presses.
Too bad politicians aren’t still settling their disagreements with duels to the death.