There are no certain ways to predict outcomes of policies or
trends in human society. No scientific tests. But one element we have to
instruct us is experience of the past. Undeniably, this is a flawed resource.
Interpretations differ, some information cannot be recovered and future human
behavior is unpredictable. But, if we witness incidents recurring, political
acts producing similar results, we at least have some minimal guidance.
In 1794, the major parties were the Federalists and the
Republicans. That year, the US signed
Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain. This treaty upset Britain’s chief enemy of the
time, revolutionary France, who “retaliated by withdrawing its minister from
Philadelphia…and seizing [US] shipping on the high seas.” When the Federalist
President, John Adams, sent a delegation to Paris, they were “approached by
agents (designated in the American minister’s dispatches as X, Y and Z) of
Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who demanded a bribe for the
Directory and a loan to France as prerequisites to negotiations…it was a fatal
miscalculation: the XYZ Correspondence was published by the United States
government; the country was swept by an unexampled wave of patriotic feeling.”
(Miller, p. 4).
Since Republicans had favored an alliance with France over
Great Britain, they found themselves in an unpopular position. Reading the
national sentiment, the Federalists decided to capitalize. They claimed that
there was a “French faction” in the US, and that the “political allegiance of
the Republican party and this French faction were identical.” All things French
became suspect. “Jacobins were everywhere…Even children’s books must be
scanned…Jacobins were seeking to corrupt the younger generation.” Republicans
were accused of taking “orders directly from the [French] Directory.” (Miller,
pp. 11-13).
Feeling their advantage, the Federalists proposed the Alien
and Sedition Acts. In brief, these acts permitted US officials to both eject
foreigners considered to be undermining the US, and suppress free speech by
citizens and newspapers thought to be critical of the federal government. These
acts were signed into law by President Adams in 1798.
This campaign to tar Republicans with the brush of
Jacobinism, along with a paranoiac fear of foreigners felt by the populace and
encouraged by the Federalists, will remind careful readers of other events in
US history. During the first Red Scare in 1919 (aka the Palmer Raids), union
and leftist offices were ransacked by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s
agents, as punishment for exercising their rights of free speech and assembly.
At that time, over 5,000 foreign-born citizens were deported from the US.
During the second Red Scare (aka the McCarthy Era), purges of US citizens from
institutions as broadly different as Hollywood and the US Army occurred. In
each of the two Red Scares, the label “Bolshevism” was applied to our country’s
alleged, foreign-allied enemies, in the same way that “Jacobinism” was applied
to Republicans in 1798. In each of the two Red Scares, the charge that
traitorous Americans were taking orders from Moscow, mirrored the 1798
accusation that Republicans were taking orders from Paris.
While repetition of occurrences in history does not guarantee identical recurrences in the
future, it does indicate behavior of which we
should observe with concern. It
is helpful to have a grasp of historical events. In this way, when a
demagogic individual or group arises again and asserts that we should persecute
foreign-born citizens, repress freedom
of speech or otherwise make decisions based upon fear, we will have the information
to resist infringements on Constitutional Rights. History is not a
science; it is only memory. Memory is an imperfect quality and predictor. But
if it is one of the faculties we possess
to examine societies, we should use it.
Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom. The Alien and Sedition
Acts. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.
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