Convicted of violating the unconstitutional Sedition Act of 1798, Congressman Lyon was seen by his constituents as a martyr for free speech - and a hero. And he won his reelection bid - while in jail - by a landslide.
The post Elected from Prison: Matthew Lyon first appeared on Tenth Amendment Center.
In response to the hated Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson drafted resolutions passed by the Kentucky legislature that included three foundational principles of the American Revolution.
The post Thomas Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: An Introduction first appeared on Tenth Amendment Center.In 1798, President John Adams signed a bill into law criminalizing speech critical of the federal government. Today, the feds take a more subtle approach to controlling speech, but the spirit of the Sedition Act lives on. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts.…
No protesting the government? No freedom of the press? Lawmakers jailed? Is this the story of the Soviet Union during the Cold War? No. It describes the United States in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act. The History Channel describes it as one of the “most egregious breaches of the U.S. Constitution in…