Alien and Sedition Acts

A recent column in The Economist magazine asking if America is dictator-proof got me to thinking if our constitutional guarantees are secure. Stated differently: Can the custodians of our constitutional norms be trusted to restrain a deliberate attempt to ignore, diminish or evade the Constitution? The short answer is: NO.

            The history of what I will charitably call constitutional indifference is long and tortuous. It goes back to the earliest days of the republic when, in a period of eight years, Congress enacted and Presidents George Washington and. . .