Disrepute Quotes
Arguing to impeach President Thomas Jefferson:
Introducing a resolution that was later adopted by the senate:
Most of the Republicans in the Senate, using the filibuster, blocked legislation making schools and streets safer by expanding the requirement for gun checking to keep mentally ill people and violent criminals from purchasing a gun. The legislation had been crafted by Republican and Democratic Senators and was supported by 90 percent of Americans including 80 percent of Republicans and the majority of hunters and gun owners. This was one of the rare instances where public opinion did not matter at all to the Congress, and while a majority of the Senators supported the legislation a significant minority was more in fear of the NRA and the Gun lobby than they were of the voters. To the Republican minority, the possibility of a mentally deranged, violent, convicted felon, should be allowed to buy a military style assault rifle or any other weapon at a gun show without anyone bothering to check his background was less desirable than requiring gun sellers to spend 3-5 minutes to check out the potential buyer.
Amazingly the newspaper castigated Cunningham for making obscene gestures and saying “Fuck You” to constituents who would tell the Congressman that there was too much Defense spending. The reason this was amazing is that the San Diego Union supported Cunningham every single time he ran for election and never wrote a word about his illegally swinging contracts to firms. He had been taking bribes all along and when the Federal judge sentenced him to jail called him the ‘most corrupt congressman in American History.’
Although it seems incredible to us today, thousands of people were arrested and prosecuted under the Espionage Act. The government particularly targeted leftists such as Eugene V. Debs, Bill Haywood, J. Philip Randolph, Victor Berger, John Reed, Max Eastman, and Emma Goldman. Debs was sentenced to 20 years in prison for criticizing the Act itself.
This law, passed by the President John Adams and the Federalists, became the political factor around which Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others were to create the Democratic Republicans who not only ousted the Federalists but beat them so badly that the party disappeared and the Whig Party evolved. Under this law a person who criticized any facet of the Government publicly could be fined and imprisoned. The Act was unconstitutional but at that early stage of America, there were no Supreme Court precedents to go by and the power of the courts to nullify a law of Congress was not even clear. So it was never tested in the courts but finally was repealed.
