[Mb-civic] Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan

[Jef Bek]

Published on Monday, August 15, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan
by Thom Hartmann
 
Nationally, it was clearly a phenomenon when several truckers called into a
radio show on Sirius Satellite to say that they were interrupting trips
through central parts of the USA to head to Crawford, Texas. One even
reported live as he experienced a (friendly) reception by the local sheriff,
who helped him find a place to park his rig. Locally here in Oregon, it's
not unusual to see cars with signs taped to their rear windows - printed in
inch-high letters on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper - that say variations
on: "We're With Cindy!" or "Answer Her Questions!"
Ambassador Joe Wilson represented a political threat to Bush by credibly
exposing part of Bush's lie and its methodology, and so Wilson had to be
taken out by destroying his wife's career. Cindy Sheehan now represents a
similar political threat, and for this job right-wing hate radio, Drudge,
and extremist bloggers have zeroed in on her. Meanwhile, thousands of
patriotic Americans, tired of being lied to by the Bush regime, are heading
to Crawford, or visiting www.meetwithcindy.com or
www.crawfordpeacehouse.org.

Often history tells us how the future may turn out: Bush Junior isn't the
first president to have lied to us about foreign affairs and war, or to use
lies to justify eviscerating the Constitution. For example, Lyndon Johnson
lied about a non-existent attack on the US warship Maddox in the Vietnamese
Gulf of Tonkin. William McKinley (the presidency after which Karl Rove has
said he's modeling the Bush presidency) lied about an attack on the USS
Maine to get us into the Spanish-American war in The Philippines and Cuba.

But most relevant to today's situation were John Adams' version of Bush's
Saddam stories when Adams sent three emissaries to France and criminals
soliciting bribes approached them late one evening. Adams referred to these
three unidentified Frenchmen as "Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z," and made them out
to represent such an insult and a threat against America that it may presage
war. 

Adams' use of "The XYZ Affair" to gain political capital nearly led us to
war with France and helped him carve a large (although temporary) hole in
the Constitution. Similarly, much like Bush's corralling of protesters at
gunpoint into so-called "Free Speech Zones," and saying he has the power to
lock up Americans (like Jose Padilla) without charges and without access to
a lawyer, John Adams jailed newspaper editors and average citizens alike who
spoke out against him and his policies.

At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice
President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have
reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts by Republican
historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash Jefferson), and Jefferson
had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties - the Democrats and
the Republicans - into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today
they're known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party
in history. They dropped "Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era).

Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a wedge
issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through Congress, and even
threw into prison Democratic Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont for
speaking out against the Federalists on the floor of the House of
Representatives. Adams was leading the United States in the direction of a
fascistic state with a spectacularly successful strategy of vilifying
Jefferson and his Party as anti-American and pro-French. Adams rhetoric was
described as "manly" by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly
published dozens of his threatening rants against France, suggesting that
Jefferson's Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even
traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France that
Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was working to
avoid. 

On June 1, 1798 - two weeks before the Alien & Sedition Acts passed Congress
by a single vote - Jefferson wrote a thoughtful letter to his old friend
John Taylor. 

"This is not new," Jefferson said. "It is the old practice of despots; to
use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once
got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the
nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their
advantage. 

"But," he added, "our present situation is not a natural one." Jefferson
knew that Adams' Federalists did not represent the true heart and soul of
America, and commented to Taylor about how Adams had been using
divide-and-conquer politics, and fear-mongering about war with France (the
"XYZ Affair") with some success.

"But still I repeat it," he wrote again to Taylor, "this is not the natural
state." 

Jefferson did everything he could to stop that generation's version of the
PATRIOT Act, but Adams had the Federalists in control of both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, and pushed through the Alien and Sedition
Acts. Jefferson left town the day they were signed in protest.

Jefferson later wrote in his diary, "Their usurpations and violations of the
Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses of Congress,
were so great, so decided, and so daring, that after combating their
aggressions, inch by inch, without being able in the least to check their
career, the [Democratic] Republican leaders thought it would be best for
them to give up their useless efforts there, go home, get into their
respective legislatures, embody whatever of resistance they could be formed
into, and if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch."

Democratic Republican Congressman Albert Gallatin submitted legislation that
would repeal the Alien & Sedition Acts, and the Federalist majority in the
House refused to even consider the motion, while informing Gallatin that he
would be the next to be imprisoned if he kept speaking out against "the
national security."

But a new force arose.

When Adams shut down the Democratic Republican newspapers, pamphleteers -
like those who had helped stir up the American Revolution - went to work,
papering towns from New Hampshire to Georgia with posters and leaflets
decrying Adams' power grab and encouraging people to stand tall with Thomas
Jefferson. One of the best was a short screed by George Nicholas of
Kentucky, "Justifying the Kentucky Resolution against the Alien & Sedition
Laws" and " Correcting Certain False Statements, Which Have Been Made in the
Different States" by Adams' Federalists.

On February 13, 1799, then-Vice President Jefferson sent a copy of Nicholas'
pamphlet to his old friend Archibald Stuart (a Virginia legislator, fighter
in the War of Independence, and leader of Jefferson's Democratic
Republicans). 

"I avoid writing to my friends because the fidelity of the post office is
very much doubted," he opened his letter to Stuart, concerned that Adams was
having his mail inspected because of his anti-war activities. Jefferson
pointed out that "France is sincerely anxious for reconciliation, willing to
give us a liberal treaty," and that even with the Democratic newspapers shut
down by Adams and the Federalist-controlled media being unwilling to speak
of Adams' war lies, word was getting out to the people.

Jefferson noted, "All these things are working on the public mind. They are
getting back to the point where they were when the X. Y. Z. story was passed
off on them. A wonderful and rapid change is taking place in Pennsylvania,
Jersey, and New York. Congress is daily plied with petitions against the
alien and sedition laws and standing armies."

Jefferson then turned to the need for the pamphleteers' materials to be
widely distributed. "The materials now bearing on the public mind will
infallibly restore it to its republican soundness in the course of the
present summer," he wrote, "if the knowledge of facts can only be
disseminated among the people. Under separate cover you will receive some
pamphlets written by George Nicholas on the acts of the last session. These
I would wish you to distribute...."

The pamphleteer - today he would have been called a blogger - was James
Bradford, and he reprinted tens of thousands of copies of Nicholas' pamphlet
and distributed it far and wide. Hand to hand, as Jefferson did with his
by-courier letter to Stuart - was how what would be today's postings to
progressive websites were distributed.

In the face of the pamphleteering and protests, the Federalists fought back
with startling venom. Vicious personal attacks were launched in the
Federalist press against Jefferson, Madison, and others, and President Adams
and Vice President Jefferson were scarcely on speaking terms. Adams' goal
was nothing short of the complete destruction of Jefferson's Democratic
Party, and he had scared many of them into silence or submission.

"All [Democratic Republicans], therefore, retired," Jefferson wrote in his
diary, "leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, and
myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President. Remaining at
our posts, and bidding defiance to the brow-beatings and insults by which
they endeavored to drive us off also, we kept the mass of [Democratic]
Republicans in phalanx together, until the legislature could be brought up
to the charge; and nothing on earth is more certain, than that if myself
particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President at the head of the
[Democratic] Republicans, had given way and withdrawn from my post, the
[Democratic] Republicans throughout the Union would have given up in
despair; and the cause would have been lost forever."

But Jefferson and Gallatin held their posts, and fought back fiercely
against Adams, thus saving - quite literally - American democracy. Jefferson
and Madison also secretly helped legislators in Virginia and Kentucky submit
resolutions in those states' legislatures decrying the Alien & Sedition
Acts. The bill in Virginia, in particular, gained traction.

As Jefferson noted in his diary, "By holding on, we obtained time for the
legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and
Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their celebrated
resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. No person who was not
a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can form any idea of the
afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved
our country however. The spirits of the people were so much subdued and
reduced to despair by the X Y Z imposture, and other stratagems and
machinations, that they would have sunk into apathy and monarchy, as the
only form of government which could maintain itself."

The efforts of average people like that century's Cindy Sheehans, and
fearless politicians like today's Howard Dean, John Conyers, and Bernie
Sanders, made great gains. As Jefferson noted in a February 14, 1799 letter
to Virginia's Edmund Pendleton, "The violations of the Constitution,
propensities to war, to expense, and to a particular foreign connection,
which we have lately seen, are becoming evident to the people, and are
dispelling that mist which X. Y. Z. had spread before their eyes. This State
is coming forward with a boldness not yet seen. Even the German counties of
York and Lancaster, hitherto the most devoted [to Adams], have come about,
and by petitions with four thousand signers remonstrate against the alien
and sedition laws, standing armies, and discretionary powers in the
President." 

Americans were so angry with Adams, Jefferson noted, that the challenge was
to prevent people from taking up arms against Adams' Federalists.

"New York and Jersey are also getting into great agitation. In this State
[of Pennsylvania], we fear that the ill-designing may produce insurrection.
Nothing could be so fatal. Anything like force would check the progress of
the public opinion and rally them round the government. This is not the kind
of opposition the American people will permit."

Like Cindy Sheehan, Jefferson knew that peaceful protests had greater power
than violence or threats.

"But keep away all show of force," he wrote to Pendleton, "and they will
bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the constitutional
means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide
now turning will take a steady and proper direction."

A week later, February 21, 1799, Jefferson wrote to the great Polish general
who had fought in the American Revolution, Thaddeus Kosciusko, a close
friend who was then living in Russia. War was the great enemy of democracy,
Jefferson noted, and peace was its champion. And the American people were
increasingly siding with peace and rejecting Adams' call for war.

"The wonderful irritation produced in the minds of our citizens by the X. Y.
Z. story, has in a great measure subsided," he noted. "They begin to suspect
and to see it coolly in its true light."

But Adams was still President, and for him and his Federalist Party war
would have helped tremendously with the upcoming election of 1800. In France
some leaders wanted war with America for similar reasons.

Jefferson continued, "What course the government will pursue, I know not.
But if we are left in peace, I have no doubt the wonderful turn in the
public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, will, in
the course of this' summer, become so universal and so weighty, that
friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly established by the
influence and constitutional powers of the people at large."

And if Adams' rhetoric led to an attack on America by France? "If we are
forced into war," Jefferson noted, "we must give up political differences of
opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the
close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows."

The tide was turned, to use Jefferson's phrase, by the election of 1800. The
abuses of the Federalists were so burned into the people's minds when
Jefferson's party came to power, and he freed the imprisoned newspaper
editors so reform-minded newspapers were started back up again, that the
Federalists disintegrated altogether as a party over the next two decades.

All because average citizens and pamphleteers stood up and challenged the
lies of a war-mongering president, and politicians of principle were willing
to lead. Cindy Sheehan is the George Nicholas or Rusticus of our age.
Jefferson would have stood with her.

America has been burdened by lying presidents before, and even one who tried
to destroy our Constitution. But in our era - like in Jefferson's - we are
fortunate to have radical truth-tellers like Cindy Sheehan and Joseph Wilson
to warn us of treasonous acts for political gain, and bloggers and
progressive websites to carry the truth.

If we stand in solidarity with today's truth-tellers, and politicians step
forward to take a leadership role, then its entirely possible that with the
elections of 2006 and 2008 American democracy can once again prevail.