If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life....
Beveridge warns of the potential consequences if the Alien and Sedition Laws are upheld, suggesting a slippery slope towards authoritarianism.
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The dreams he had dreamed, the visions he had seen back in his Virginia mountains were clad in glories as enchanting as the splendors of their tree-clad summits at break of day--dreams and visions for which strong men should be glad of the…
Is not liberty secure with us, where the people hold all powers in their own hands, and delegate them cautiously, for short periods, to their servants, who are accountable for the smallest mal-administration?...
The Alien and Sedition Laws were, they asserted, the beginning of monarchy, the foundation of absolutism.
Thus were the ideas of Nationality and localism in America brought into sharper conflict by the mob and guillotine in France.
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