Personal Liberty Quotes
Not the current Daily News. He was very critical of the NY State Legislature changing the laws affecting wills and inheritance in order to benefit some special interest when there was a profound effect on millions of other people that had not been considered by the legislature, the majority of which had never even read the legislation, but were following party leader’s instructions or that of powerful committee chairmen.
See also Gerald R. Ford for a later similar expression.
At that time, ideology was not a driving political force and individual politicians often were hard to classify. For example, Humphrey was at the far left—an ultra liberal. Yet he was a staunch advocate of the right to bear arms. 50 years later there were no liberals who did not want to restrict gun ownership, And at that time, many Republicans were advocates of gun control, an unheard of situation in the 21st century beginning.
The Adams administration had passed the Alien and Sedition Acts which severely curtailed freedom of speech and of the press despite the First Amendment which clearly prohibited that.
