Lyon argued one charge was unconstitutional because his letter was written before the Sedition Act was passed. The district attorney charged Lyon with the “intent and design” to stir up sedition in the United States by defaming the federal government. Lyon faced three charges under the Sedition Act and he represented himself in front of Associate Justice William Paterson, a Federalist, in Rutland, Vermont.
Joel Barlow’s letter to his brother-in-law, Founder Abraham Baldwin, said President Adams should be sent to a “madhouse.”
A private letter written by Lyon before the Sedition Act passed played a part in his imprisonment after Spooner’s Vermont Journal published it. And soon Lyon would be on the attack in his newly titled newspaper, The Scourge of Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truth. The fight became a sensation in an era when newspapers openly supported political parties. Lyon grabbed a set of fireplace tongs, and lunged at Griswold. Despite Lyon’s apology, Griswold attacked Lyon shortly after on the House floor, striking Lyon repeatedly with a walking stick. Lyon responded by spitting tobacco juice on Griswold, forever gaining the nickname “the Spitting Lyon.” Roger Griswold of that state objected, pointing out Lyon’s dishonorable discharge from the Continental Army. The Vermonter started a fight in the House in January 1798 during the William Blount impeachment proceedings when he made light of Connecticut’s Federalists. Lyon’s prior behavior expressing his views didn’t help matters.
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Madison said the act “ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.” At the time, political speech like Lyon’s was not considered protected under the First Amendment by the Adams administration, and his newspaper did not enjoy similar protections if it criticized President Adams.Īmong the critics of the law were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions declaring the act as unconstitutional. The act punished the “writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings about the government of the United States” with fines and jail. The Sedition Act, passed a year before Lyons was jailed, specifically targeted Adams’ opponents, the Jeffersonian Republicans, to suppress dissent and criticism of the government at a time when war with France seemed possible and Adams’ re-election was unsure. To Adams’ supporters, Lyon committed a heinous crime: He wrote President Adams had “an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice.” Lyon also published a letter from poet Joel Barlow that criticized Adams, and Lyon read the letter aloud at his campaign rallies. The Adams administration charged Lyon under the 1798 Sedition Act, one of the most controversial laws in American history. Lyon also was a sitting member of the House of Representatives when put on trial. In October 1799, President John Adams and the Federalists jailed the Vermont publisher, Lyon, for criticizing Adams in print and in front of crowds. But in constitutional terms, these types of debates happened in the Founders’ time-and were epitomized in incidents such as one involving congressman and publisher Matthew Lyon. In today’s political climate, the words “sedition” and “censorship” are being tossed around in public discussions about the Capitol riot and reactions to it.
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