Aurora Rising

Richard N. Rosenfeld's American Aurora is a book you should read, but if you want to take the easy way out, you can learn a little about Benjamin Franklin Bache and his anti-Federalist Philadelphia Aurora from David Talbot's recent "Documents of Freedom" essay comparing Bache with his grandfather Ben Franklin. It's worth sitting through the ad for Thirteen to get your Salon pass. Warning for conservatives: Talbot slags Drudge and Rush, but he makes a good case that Bache was a crucial figure in the early republic:

After Adams' election, Federalist animosity toward Bache grew into persecution. In the spring of 1797, he was physically attacked and badly injured by a young Federalist while touring a ship at the Philadelphia waterfront. The Adams administration awarded Bache's assailant with a diplomatic appointment to France. The following year, while Bache was away, a drunken Federalist mob surrounded his home and terrorized his wife and children before being driven off by neighbors. The attacks prompted the publisher to wonder whether it "might, indeed, be a gratification to some that I should have my throat cut."

Murder might not have been on the minds of Bache's enemies, but certainly imprisonment was. The following year, the Federalists in Congress pushed through the notorious Sedition Act -- a bill, commented Thomas Jefferson, that was aimed directly at his republican ally, Benjamin Franklin Bache. On June 26, 1798, Bache was arrested by a federal marshal and charged with "libeling the President & the Executive Government." Slapped with a crushing bail of $4,000, Bache was forced to appeal to his friends for help and the Aurora and his family teetered on the brink of ruin.

Comments

[Zathras]

It's worth remembering that Bache did in fact libel both Federalist Presidents and many others, very likely at the direction of Jefferson himself. The A&S Acts were an overreaction that fortunately fell in bad enough odor with the public that Jefferson was deterred from pressing for something similar to deal with his critics after he entered the White House in 1801. It's fair to say that Bache was a major figure in early United States history, but this guy was no hero.

[Mark Harden]

Bache was a purveyor of the most digusting and unfounded libels this side of Ann Coulter/Michael Moore/Rush Limbaugh/Al Franken/insert your most despised hack propagandist here.

Like Philip Freneau, he was on Jefferson's payroll.

The Sedition Act was custom made for Bache, it's just a shame he wasn't the only one prosecuted under it.

[Hamilton, better than Robespie]

"Or do you believe the Little Red Schoolhouse myth that the demigods known as Our Founding Fathers magnanimously handed down the Bill of Rights out of a sense of noblesse oblige?"

Nope, but neither do I swallow the Rothbardian Anti-Federalist "noble savage" horseshit you are slinging either.

Everyone had agendas, the genius of the Federalists is that they built a system from which liberty could be preserved without turning the nation into an armed camp. Except for the mid-1800s, they basically suceeded.

Demonizing the Federalists is stupid philsophically and stupid politically. But thanks for keeping that Rothbardian tradition alive.

[Plutarck]

I fail to see how anything Kevin Carson has said has anything to do with the myth of the "noble savage", nor even - to a lesser extent - how anything stated that the Federalists were demons of any sort, nor that they were not involved in building a reasonably good system of governance; however, to say that the Federalists "built a system", as if they somehow did it on their own in a vaccuum, rather than as a process of negotiation and political maneuvering seems to materially inaccurate. It's like saying "I built a house," and not mentioning all those contractors and workers that, you know, kinda helped.

[Kevin Carson]

Hamilton,

Of course, the fact that the Federalists went out of their way to sabotage the Confederation and render it unviable had nothing to do with their ability to create this "stable" successor government. And BTW, my take on the 1780s owes a lot more to Merrill Jensen than to Rothbard.

Plutarck,

Right. If you want to see a picture of the federal government as the Federalists really wanted it, take a look at the Virginia Plan, and then compare it to the draft that came out of the revision committee in early August. We only have the principle of delegated vs. reserved powers (even on paper) because they had to compromise with a minority of antifederalists and small state delegates. And to push the final draft through the state ratifying conventions, especially close states like New York and Virginia, the Federalists had to define the document largely in terms of the antifederalist value system, and hedge it in with all sorts of promises and stipulations (including the likelihood of a bill of rights in the first congress).

Even with all this, the actual development of the federal government's powers was a lot closer to the warnings of the antifederalists than to the guarantees of the federalists, because Washington's cabinet and the Supreme Court was packed with federalists.

[Hamilton, Worse than Hilter! A]

" considering the pseudo-monarchist coup the mercantile interests (aka Federalists) perpetrated on the country, they got off easy."

BAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! Ok then, I guess you can't bitch when they take away your pseudo-monarchist constitnutional rights and over step their pseudo-monarchist checks and balences.

(note: I am not in favor of Sedition Acts, but stupid comments like this make me cringe!)

[Kevin Carson]

Hamilton (as bad as Horace Walpole, maybe),

The Bill of Rights was implicitly promised in the ratification debates because of the popular fear of the prospective federal government's powers. So in a real sense, it was something imposed on the Federalist junta from below, by popular pressure.

My attitude is, the regime instituted in 1787 was illegitimate; but since their Constitution is something they claim to be bound by, I'll by God hold them to as absolutist construction of it and the reserved powers as is humanly possible. Any weapon that comes to hand for limiting the power of the federal government should be seized on (including the constitutional documents they claim to respect); but I'd much prefer to go back to the Articles of Confederation.

Or do you believe the Little Red Schoolhouse myth that the demigods known as Our Founding Fathers magnanimously handed down the Bill of Rights out of a sense of noblesse oblige?

[Kevin Carson]

Mark Harden,

If he scurrilously libelled anyone, they should have taken CIVIL action against him. Criminal libel of any kind, let alone seditious libel against the State, should be anathema to anyone who loves liberty.

Anyway, considering the pseudo-monarchist coup the mercantile interests (aka Federalists) perpetrated on the country, they got off easy.
As I recall, both the Federalist and Republican press had their share of libellous rhetoric. My favorite Sedition Act victim was the drunk who wandered out of a tavern early one morning to the sound of cannon firing. When told that they were in honor of President Adams' birthday, he replied "I wish they might be fired up his arse."

John Wilkes was no rose, either, but many of our American interpretations of common law liberties come from his struggles as publisher of the North Briton.

[Landolf Diane Wright]

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DATE: 01/20/2004 12:10:30
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