In January, U.S. District Court judge Roslyn Silver ruled in favor of the Goldwater Institute and struck down the matching funds portion of Clean Elections, calling it “unconstitutional under the First Amendment.” However, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit voted 2-1 to put Silver’s ruling on hold until it acts on the case.
As early as 1796, the year of the first contested Presidential election, the battle lines were drawn. Although there were no formal political parties, there were loose coalitions of political thought, and as is the nature of any war, it came down to two sides: The Federalists, who preferred a more powerful national government, and the early beginnings of the Republicans, who favored a less powerful national government. Both parties recognized the need for a national government, but as always, the devil is in the details.
James Madison once observed that “it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” Fear of foreign perils, Madison realized, can easily persuade a freedom-loving people to voluntarily part with liberties they would otherwise consider indispensable. In Thomas Jefferson’s words, the people are “made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves.”
In making such statements on the forfeiting of precious rights during times of foreign danger, Madison and Jefferson were speaking from experience. In the 1790s, a number of Americans feared that the democratic excesses of the French Revolution would be exported to the U.S.
They believed French agents were plotting to destroy the Constitution and overthrow the federal government. Wild rumors spread that Jefferson, Madison, and other members of their Republican Party planned to offer assistance to a French invasion force supposedly sailing across the Atlantic. To make matters worse, an undeclared naval war soon erupted between the U.S. and France.
This environment of fear and distrust led to the passage of the most illiberal legislation of the early national period: The Alien and Sedition Acts. Enacted by Congress in the summer of 1798, the Acts prohibited criticism of the federal government and gave President John Adams the power to deport any alien he viewed as suspicious. This legislation made a mockery of the First Amendment and deprived aliens of basic due process of law.
