A) had all the power needed to dispense with that decision, for as long as their laws were not repealed or changed by a later Congress, and B) knew better than the First Congress! First Congress would have implicitly understood and respected both of these points.

(1/2) Another obvious fact about the Decision of 1789 is the First Congress had no real historical guide and were feeling their way in the dark. Well, we have 235 years of experience to inform our choices! The people in Congress who decided to jettison the Decision of 1789 ...

The Alien Acts were also multiple and targeted at the French during that half-war. One of them was the Alien Enemies Act and yes Trump is now illegally trying to use it to deport Venezuelans. The Alien Acts were not used against a single person at the time.

An interesting point Gordon Wood makes in Empire of Liberty is that the Sedition Act actually liberalized sedition law at the time, because relevant common law in the states at the time did not recognize truth as a defense and did not grant trial by jury. The Sedition Act did both.

The "Alien & Sedition Acts" refers to multiple acts. The Sedition Act expired in 1801 and was a terribly misguided attempt to suppress French spying and dissent during the Quasi-War with France. It was used a few times to prosecute leaders of the press.

This is what the Federalists believed they were doing in 1801 when they passed power to the Republicans, who they believed were Jacobins destined to lead the country to ruin and despotism.

At minimum.

“Your Miss Kaitty said that I tried to steal you But I'll let her know that god never intended for man to steal his own flesh and blood.” - Rice in a separate letter to his enslaved daughters

You can read full transcriptions of both amazing letters here, via @fssp.bsky.social

Also discussed in Maldwyn Jones' "Immigration in America." Sure many didn't want multiple ethnicities coming, but it seems there were more who simply recognized the colonies-turned-states needed more people. They did want them to assimilate though, but more into the civic life than anything else.

Going after "proposition" is going directly after the Gettysburg Address, pretty grim stuff

“Proposition”

Many have pointed this out since Schmitt's absurd speech, but we'll keep adding to the pile and this will be a theme explored at exhaustive length in our podcast that someday we want to put out :)

Obviously this is contradicted by slavery, racism, misogyny (though possibly less than elsewhere on the globe), violence against natives, etc. The hypocrisy doesn't mean these people didn't sincerely hold the ideals. They genuinely believe America was defined by the "propositions" they professed.

Drawing heavily from the first chapter of Gordon Wood's "Empire of Liberty."

A French immigrant Hector St. John Crevecoeur wrote in America there are no "strangers." "A traveller in Europe becomes a stranger as soon as he quits his kingdom; but it is otherwise here. We know no strangers; this is every person's country."

South Carolinian David Ramsay said he was "a citizen of the world and therefore despise[d] national reflections."

To a French official observing in 1789, Americans were defined by being "more human, more generous, more tolerant."

American culture was primarily defined by dedication to republican virtues of equality, reason, liberty, and community.