Alien Enemies Act (1798)

John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Heather Cox Richardson (again ... sigh ...)

This MAY be my last post through the lens of Heather Cox Richardson [hereinafter HCR]. Yes, I KNOW you love her … at least many of you do. But part of the reason that you love her is that she is “preaching to the choir.” She comforts you in a time of chaos and trouble. But again: history is NEVER comforting or simple. When it is, you should be on your guard.

The particular HCR post in question today is from March 16, the day after President Train-Wreck “disappeared” 200+ alleged Venezuelan “gang members” to an El Salvador mega-prison hell-hole. HCR thought it a good time to Heather-splain the Alien Enemies Act (1798) for you. That would be GREAT if she told you the whole story or even a reasonably balanced version of the story. But she doesn’t.

So … with an apology in advance, I will TRY to do this as briefly as possible. It is not easy. There are neither hours nor words enough to counter HCR’s barrage of history-for-the-blue-masses. There is even a fair question, or so it seems, whether the sheer volume of her material and the flat style suggest that her blog may make use of AI. Whatever. Here we go.

The approach here will be to take the text in question and break it down piece by piece. And in the process provide the background that she omits … to your detriment and to the benefit of her narrative. Her writing will be in italics - mine in plain text.

HCR: Yesterday, President Donald Trump reached back to 1798 for authority to expel five people he claims are members of a Venezuelan gang. Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act as the legal basis for the expulsion. The Alien Enemies Act was one of four laws from 1798 that make up the so-called Alien and Sedition Acts.

KWB: So far, so good.

HCR: Federalists in Congress passed the laws during what is known as the “Quasi-War” with France during the French Revolution, when it appeared that members of their political opposition in the U.S. were working to destabilize the U.S. government’s foreign policy of neutrality and overthrow the government so it would side with France in its struggles with Spain and Great Britain.

KWB: Here we have a problem. The French Revolution was basically over and France already in the control of a more conservative, elite Directory when this law was passed. All the beheadings and bloodshed carried out in the so-called “Terror” - when the French rid themselves of the parasite aristocracy that had starved and enslaved them for hundreds of years - were over; Marat assassinated in 1793; Robespierre himself already beheaded in 1794. She is talking 1798. The monarchies of Europe had tried to invade France and restore a god-fearing monarchy - something the Federalists loved - with the result that France rose en masse to successfully drive them back. 1798 was the year Napoleon invaded Egypt, NOT the year of the French Revolution. The following year Napoleon took control of France. And after controlling France as a republic for a brief time, he made himself emperor just four years later. There was in fact no effort by the French to “destabilize” and “overthrow” the U.S. government. The French were in no position to do any such thing in 1798 nor did they intend to do so. That is and was just fantasy and fear-mongering to justify consolidation of Federalist power. Did the aged and fevered brain of John Adams FEAR something like that? Very likely. He had a manic, if not paranoid side to him. But in reality, his actions were an effort to STIFLE American dissent and criticism of HIS administration; not French. Understand: criticism of Adams was HEATED. The Alien and Sedition Acts were a product of conservative Federalist PANIC over the thought that the ACTUAL American Revolution might yet succeed.

HCR: Their fears were not unfounded. In 1793, the year after French citizens overthrew the French monarchy, Edmond Charles Genêt arrived in the United States to serve as the French minister to the U.S. Immediately, Citizen Genêt ignored U.S. neutrality and began outfitting privateers to prey on British shipping. When the government told him to stop, he threatened to appeal to the American people. More radical French officials replaced Genêt in 1794, although he stayed in the U.S. out of concern for his safety under the new regime in France.

KWB: Let’s be clear: by “not unfounded” HCR means they were justified. Nope. She is jumping BACK in time from 1798 to the French Revolution and the founding of the French and American republics, roughly 1789-1792, the former short-lived and the latter arguably brief as well - a discussion for another day. Here we need to provide some context on the visit of the French Minister Edmond Charles Genet to the U.S.

First, you must realize there is an argument to be made that … drum roll … in great part the colonies did not win their American Revolution; the French did. This is a long story — too long for our purposes today — but stay with me. Americans were beaten bloody and in full retreat, out-generaled and out-gunned by the mightiest nation in the world. Washington made a disastrous blunder by allowing himself and his troops to be trapped on the tip of Long Island. It’s an ISLAND and the British ruled the seas. It was a disaster, colonials were slaughtered, and they BARELY escaped entrapent and capture by a retreat over the bridge at Hackensack and into frozen New Jersy. They retreated sometimes shoeless to Pennsylvania. His. troops starved and FROZE to death in Valley Forge while Washington warmed his feet in a brick house that you can still visit today. It looked like it was “curtains.” But THE major turning point of the war occurred the same year; the battle of Saratoga, generaled NOT by George Washington and his troops, but won by Gen. Horatio Gates and the distinguised heroism of Benedict Arnold and the troops under his command. Defying all odds and predictions, the Americans routed the British.

Note: competing command issues and the failure of the Continental Congress to adequare promote and recognize Arnold for his heroism = and loss of a leg - at Saratoga was one of the reasons for his disgust and eventual defection to the British side. Another long and complex story. But to return to Francophobia and the Federalists:

At THIS point, seeing the colonists were deadly serious and credible, the French government recognized the new American nation and began to pump money and military support in the direction of the new nation. John Laurens and Thomas Paine PERSONALLY brought 2.5 million of a total 200 million to be loaned by France in August of 1791 and hauled it by oxen-cart to the Continental Congress. This French silver purchased guns and cannon, ammunition, food, mittens, clothing, tents, and uniforms for the ragtag colonials. The Compte de Rochambeau landed 7,000 uniformed French troops in Rhode Island and marched south to meet up with Washington. The French Naval fleet crippled and shamed the British navy offshore in the Battle of the Chesapeake and then sailed south to box in Lord Corwallis in Yorktown, Virginia. George Washington didn’t want to go. He preferred to take New York City and Long Island in revenge for the humiliation heaped on him by the British in 1776. His troops, moreover, were restive; they had not been paid. Lieutenant General Rochambeau produced 20,000 pounds (livres) of silver out of his own pocket to pay Washington’s soldiers and cajolled Washington to march south with him to Yorktown where Corwallis could be trapped by land and sea. Rochambeau was an expert in siege warfare. He designed and mounted the siege of Yorktown and the French fought side-by-side with Americans to win the victory and the surrender of British forces.

Americans who FOUGHT in these battles and lived through the revolution knew all of this. They were GRATEFUL to the French and felt betrayed when Federalists sold out to the British and betrayed our French allies with the Jay Treaty of 1794. Among other atrocities, that treaty made all ships bound for France - American ships, too - CONTRABAND and subject to siezure and impressment by our former enemies the British. That treaty, force-feb by Federalists with George Washington’s complicity, led to the War of 1812. Think about that a minute. We made a treaty with Britain that screwed our allies - the people who arguably saved the Revolution - and made our own ships lawful prizes for the British. How does that make sense? It only makes sense if you are trying to fall back into the armes of the British system of banking and commerce. The mostly wealthy, elite Federalists were Anglophile and Francophobe. The mostly middling and commoner Democratic-Republicans, arguably the most revolutionary with the support of some wealthy, enlightened radicals like Jefferson and Franklin - were more Anglophobe, HATED mad King George, grateful to the French, and in sympathy with their revolution. Who in the hell wanted to betray our French allies who arguably WON the revolution for us and jump into bed with the British who had burned our towns and farms, invaded and quartered in our homes, and killed approximately 25,000 to 50,000 Americans, perhaps 8,000 combatants among them? John Adams; that’s who. There was a great deal of anger and controvery in the early republic over the sell-out of the Revolution. This is the source of the famoou Boston graffiti that spread all over the country:

“Damn John Jay! Damn everyone who won’t damn John Jay!! Damn everyone that won’t put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!!!”

So when Minister Edmund Genet came to America, he rightfully expected and received support for his efforts to fund and organize privateering vessels to attack the British and other European monarchies that threatened France. Many good Americans were in support of that effort and hated the Jay Treaty. Not the Anglophile Federalists. They were hell bent on making money QUICK, still a feature of American life, and wanted to make nice to the British banking system at the expense of the French.

HCR: But his threat to appeal to Americans highlighted the growing tension between the party of George Washington and John Adams—the Federalists—and the party of Thomas Jefferson: the Democratic-Republicans (or Jeffersonian Republicans). Democratic-Republicans thought that the Federalists were moving toward monarchy, and they worked to undermine that shift by building ties with the French government to put members of their own party into office.

KWB: . MANY Americans DID think that Adams was trying to make himself a monarch. Adams proposed the following title, believe it or not, for the president: "His Highness, the President of the United States of America, and Protector of the Rights of the Same." This was greeted by a loud “GUFFAW!” … and dumped. Whereas Jefferson the Democratic-Republican (or just Republican) would walk to his inauguration, John Adams the Federalist rode in an elegant, silver-gilt carriage drawn by a pair of fine horses. Nobody was fooled by the Federalist parade.

It was precisely the Alien Enemies Act — allowing him to expell any foreigner who dared speak against him — and the Sedition Act that made it a crime for ANYONE to criticize the President of the United States - that made Adams a hated laughingstock and created the massive political reaction that swept Thomas Jefferson into the presidency. The country was FINISHED with the Federalists.

So how much of this did HCR tell you? Zip. In fact, she excuses Adams, the Federalists with him, and provides her faithful, longsuffering readers with a comforting gloss of history once agsin.

And to off the performance, HCR witlessly quotes Thomas Paine who, she writes in her triiumphal style “warned his neighbors that without the rule of law, the country belongs to a king,” and “… urged them to turn away from a world that gave one man such absolute power.” Were she a careful, as opposed to polemic and popular historian, HCR would know that Paine detested John Adams, saw him as a closet monarchist, thought Adams postured as one, and was incompetent in the bartgain. Here is a sample of Paine on Adams:

”Your Executive, John Adams, can do nothing but harm. You see that France has made very power pay that insulted or injured her. Yet those powers had not received former favors from her as America had done. The ignorance in which your former executive '[Washington in relation to the Jay Treaty - KWB] has kept Congress and the country, with respect to their state of foreign affairs, is equal to the assumption of the same kind ever acted by any despot.”
Thomas Paine to Thomas Jefferson. April 1, 1797.

And,

”It requires only a prudent and honest administration to preserve America always at peace. Her distance from the European world frees her from its intrigues. But when men get into power, whose heads, like the head of John Adams, are filled with “strange notions” and counter revolutionary principles and projects, things will be sure to go wrong. John Adams, wo was more the dupe of a party than the leader of it, entered on the office of president with his head turned by the elevation he was lifted to; and his principles (if he ever had any), corrupted. He turned out to be a counter revolutionary; and if the concealed objects of his administration had succeeded, the federal constitut9ion would have been destroyed, and that by persons under the assumed and fraudulent name of federalists.”
Thomas Paine. “To the Citizens of the United States.” Letter VIII. 1805.

For his part, Adams both bitterly resented the affection in which Paine was held by many and enveyed his rhetocical brilliance:

“I am willing you should call this the Age of Frivolity, as you do, and would not object if you had named it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Brutality, Daemons, Bonaparte, Tom Paine, or the Age of the Burning Brand from the Bottomless Pit, or anything but the Age of Reason. I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs or the last thirty years than Tom Paine. There can no severer satyr [satire: KWB] on the age. For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine.”
John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse. October 29, 1805.