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Jan. 13, 2025 Editor, The News-Gazette: I am writing to recommend a book to the readers of The News-Gazette. It is “The Presidents and The People” by Corey Brettschneider. I t is about five presidents he argues threatened our democracy and the citizens who fought to defend it.
The first president is John Adams who succeeded George Washington. In his closing address, Washington stated that the president was accountable to the people. According to Brettschneider, Adams took great offense. He viewed the presidency as above the law.
In addition to the presidency, the Federalists had control of the Congress. Adams pushed through the Aliens and Seditions Acts. The Aliens Act gave the president the power to imprison or deport any resident “alien” and retract civil liberties for virtually all noncitizens. The Seditions Act made it a federal crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” that criticized the president. Anyone convicted faced up to two years in prison. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase supported Adams and helped prosecute offenders.
Under the Seditions Act, members of Congress and editors of major newspapers were imprisoned, something that worried the public at large. Future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison worked surreptitiously, to avoid imprisonment, to encourage public opinion and defeat Adams in the next election.
It is impossible to believe that this assault on Democracy could ever happen again in the United States. Congressman Bennie Thompson, former Congressmen Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger, and Sen. Adam Schiff, and many others might question that assumption. DON HASFURTHER Rockbridge County
