Ch. 4.2. Prosecuting the Sedition Act, 2

(Continued from Bird.)

Eleven Additional Cases under the Sedition Act for Spoken or Written Words

 In addition to the canon of seventeen familiar prosecutions, there were eleven additional cases prosecuting sixteen defendants, who were alleged, under the Sedition Act’s second section, to “write, print, utter or publish, …or knowingly and willingly assist or aid any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United  States, or … Congress … or the President … , with intent to defame” them.

Lespenard Colie: Seditious Words “Damning the President” and Supporting the French

When Luther Baldwin was charged under the Sedition Act for wishing that celebratory cannon fire had hit President Adams’ posterior, and Brown Clark was charged for joining in that wish, there was a third defendant who Smith said was “identified only as Lespenard.” He has now been identified as Lespenard Colie.

Hannah Cushing, the wife of Justice William Cushing, accompanied his circuit ride and sat in the New Jersey courtroom when the grand jury found a third indictment “for seditious words,” and when that third person pleaded guilty, as she told Abigail Adams 5 days later. That defendant, Lespenard Colie, said “somewhat like this—that if the French came he would join them and fight for a shilling a day, and would deliver up any that were inimical to them—and for D         g the P          etc.”

Justice Cushing had opened court with a rousing grand jury charge, warning that it is not “possible for any free government to stand the shock of such perpetual, inveterate, malicious, hostile attacks” as unceasing calumnies, and that seditious libel is “a dangerous offence in all societies” and is not allowed by liberty of the press “unless the liberty of the press comprehends a right to print and propagate scandalous and malicious falsehoods, to the injury of the public.” Under his charge, free government could not stand if people were “damning the President.”

The 1798 court records confirm that Colie initially pleaded not guilty, but immediately withdrew that plea and pleaded guilty. Cushing imposed a $40 fine, plus court costs, but did not impose a prison sentence, other than leaving Colie “committed until the fine and costs are paid.” That was one of the only three Sedition Act sentences that did not require imprisonment (along with those of Luther Baldwin and Brown Clark, in the same court), and the second-lightest fine after that of Benjamin Fairbanks, although it was the only Sedition Act prosecution of a French citizen or ex-citizen in an era of widespread Gallophobia [hatred of the French].

Judah P. Spooner, Printer of the Scourge of Aristocracy: Publishing the Barlow Letter Criticizing the Government

The twelve prosecutions of newspaper editors and printers, among the recognized seventeen prosecutions, were not the only such prosecutions. Prosecutions can also be confirmed of Judah P. Spooner, printer of the Scourge of Aristocracy and of Republican pamphlets; Alden Spooner of Spooner’s Vermont Journal; Benjamin Mayer and Conrad Fahnestock of Harrisburg Morgenröthe; and Matthew Lyon in an unrecognized second prosecution.

Judah P. Spooner was a printer who had established the first newspaper in Vermont, the Vermont Gazette, in 1778. In the mid-1790s, he moved to Fairhaven and printed the Farmer’s Library, until it ended in April 1798. His print shop also printed almanacs and pamphlets as he had opportunity, although on a very limited basis compared with his brother, Alden Spooner. In mid-1798, he began printing a new newspaper, Matthew Lyon’s colorfully named Scourge of Aristocracy. Period newspapers reported that its printers, Judah P. Spooner and also James Lyon, were arrested and indicted under the Sedition Act.

Judah P. Spooner was indicted in October 1798, although he was not arrested for trial until a year later, for violating the Sedition Act by printing a “seditious libel entitled Copy of a letter from an American diplomatic character in France to a member of Congress.” That was the letter from Joel Barlow in Paris that was the second ground for indicting Republican Congressman Matthew Lyon a day earlier. That letter was alleged to “defame the government of the United States, and John Adams, and … one house of the Congress” by calling Adams’ speech about France’s rejection of the new American ambassador a “bullying speech,” and the Senate’s response to him a “stupid” one with more “servility” than Parliament ever showed to George III. Barlow’s letter went on to say that the people of France instead expected the Senate’s response to be to send Adams “to a madhouse.” …

Jacob Greenawalt: Speaking against the Government by Speaking against Taxes

The Sedition Act prosecutions for seditious words, as contrasted with seditious publications, were not limited to Matthew Lyon (for reading the Barlow letter in a speech), David Brown (for itinerant speeches), Luther Baldwin and Brown Clark (for wishing a cannon salute had hit the posterior in chief), or liberty poles. They also included cases for seditious words against Lespenard Colie, Jacob Greenawalt, and, as will be discussed, Langford Herring and Rev. Jacob Eyerman.

When prosecution of Fries Rebellion participants began, Jacob Greenawalt of Greenwich Township, Pennsylvania was arrested under the Sedition Act and required to appear in federal circuit court in April 1799. Greenawalt appeared as required, and evidently pled guilty, because his next entry in the court records showed him posting a bond for good behavior, personally of $2,000 and by two friends each of $1,000, to last a year.

His offense was threatening to tie the tax assessor “fast to the liberty pole, and keep him there till he gave an account of the money or duties they had paid on stills,” and asserting that the assessor improperly “spent the excise money on drink, or on idle women.” Moreover, Greenawalt declaimed that there were “nothing but mean and dirty ragamuffins for officers in government,” presumably referring to tax assessors and excise officers. His outburst apparently occurred in January 1799. It was deemed to amount to speaking “against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress” in violation of the Sedition Act.

Morris Llewellyn, James Jackson, George Britson, Samuel Young, and Archibald Mengis: “Seditious Combinations” in Raising a Liberty Pole and Challenging the Constitutionality of the Sedition Act

The Sedition Act prosecution of Benjamin Fairbanks and David Brown for raising a liberty pole in June 1799 turns out not to be the only one for that “heinous an offense.” And the prosecution of Jedidiah Peck for petitioning against the constitutionality of the Sedition Act itself in September 1799 turns out not to be the only one based expressly on questioning its constitutionality.

Morris Llewellyn and four other individuals in Pennsylvania were presented (indicted) by a federal grand jury in late April 1799 for raising a liberty pole, with a “seditious label” on it saying, “the constitution sacred, no gag law, liberty or death.” That presentment alleged that erecting that liberty pole, and writing and publishing the “false, scandalous and malicious writing” on it, combined and conspired to stir up sedition and to impede the Sedition Act (the “gag law”).