Yesterday we talked about President John Adams, Founding Father and Patriot. President Adams showed us that sometimes even the best leaders are tempted to interfere with the liberties the Constitution recognizes. President Adams signed laws called the Alien and Sedition Acts. He used them to try and have put people who criticized him in jail. It is easy to see now that this violated the people’s right to freedom of speech, part of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The good sense of the American people prevailed. You’ll remember that yesterday, we learned that Thomas Jefferson won the election of 1800 against President Adams, and Adams’ Federalist Party lost control of the Congress in that election, too. Adams’ support of the Alien and Sedition Acts was a big part of the reason why. This is one example of how our democracy works.
Thanks to Commenter Ken (a contributor to a spectacularly good blog) for the skeleton of this post.
The Sixty-Second Patriot series of posts is intended to provide teachers who are required to engage in patriotic exercises with truthful, age-appropriate, meaningful, educationally-rich, non-controversial, secular alternatives to rote recital of the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as brief meditations on American history, civics, and values accessible to all people. Suggestions and contributions to this series from Readers are welcome.
