When It Was Illegal To Criticize The President.

I’m reading “The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communication” by Paul Starr.

It’s an interesting story and Mr. Starr gives the reader a true perspective of the media story.

I’m only about 100 pages in to it because I have to put it down frequently to reflect on the many thought provoking tid bits.

One fascinating bit covers the early days after the American Revolution.
The short version is that the Federalist were in power and there was a new political party that didn’t like what they were doing. (Democratic- Republican, led by Jefferson and Madison. Usually referred to as Republicans.)

The majority of the newspapers were overwhelmingly pro-Federalist. As Mr. Starr writes, they were “unabashedly in favor of rule by the rich and the wise”.

However there were a few papers printing the Republican views of the Federalist government as being elite aristocrats.

The Federalists figured the best way to silence the new party was to hammer down on the small papers and put the editors in jail.

They pushed a law through Congress making it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish… any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings” against the Congress, or the President “with intent to defame”.

The Federalist had always held the position that the Constitution gave the government no power to regulate the press. Now they wanted to invent that power.

Here is the twist.
This portion of the new law was only to be in effect while Adams (Federalist, Mass.) was President.

And it did not cover the Vice President.

Why? The Veep was Jefferson, (Dem-Rep, Virginia.) Jefferson was part of the opposition. If attacking Jefferson was going to be a crime, then the Federalist editors would have ended up in jail.

Exit questions.
Does this sound a little bit like the Fairness Doctrine to you?
Isn’t this the type of thing that Ann Coulter talks about in her new book “Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America?”

I’m just saying.
Comments are welcome. Voice your opinion while it is still legal to be critical of the powers that be.