It was an ordinary day. Reading a bit more about escaped slaves and several white people who aided their escape into Lancaster County, Pennsylvania back in the early 1850s. They were charged with treason in 1851 for resisting U.S. Marshals who were trying to capture the slaves. I have visited a few locations in the past where the events took place and written about them on this site. Those involved and charged received acquittals after lawyers argued the resistance was not the same as "levying war" which was synonymous with treason. I became interested in cases of sedition and treason after watching more and more stories about the storming of Capitol Hill on January 6 of this year. Seems like cases involving sedition and treason are very rare with fewer than a dozen Americans convicted for treason in our nation's history. The case I just listed, which took place in Christiana, Pennsylvania, a borough in Lancaster County, was one of a half-dozen or so that have occurred in American history. The earliest one I found took place in 1807 when former Vice-President Aaron Burr was tried for treason for allegedly plotting to urge some states into leaving the Union as part of military adventures to seize land from Spain and Mexico. To be tried for treason you have to levy war against the United States or give foreign enemies aid and comfort. Since Burr didn't actually go to war, he was acquitted. Other big names in U.S. history who have been charged with sedition and or treason are (1) Jefferson Davis who was the President of the Confederacy who was charged with treason.
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Jefferson Davis
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The charge was later dropped to help the North and South gain unity after the Civil War. (2) Iva Toguri D'Aquino, also known as Tokyo Rose, who broadcast anti-American programs. She was convicted in 1949 of giving aide and comfort to Japan and served 6 years of a 10 year sentence.  |
| Tokyo Rose |
She was eventually pardoned by President Ford after it was proven that US authorities pressured witnesses to lie at trial. She was also said to have smuggled food and medicine to our prisoners of war in Japan. There were a few other US citizens of Japanese and German descent who were convicted of treason for giving aide to Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. (3) Yet, another American charged with treason against the US was Adam Gadahn who was known as Azzam the American.  |
| Adam Gadahn |
He was said to have given al-Qaida aid and comfort, with intent to betray the United States. He was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan before being put on trial. (4) Sheikh Amar Abdel-Atman was charged with seditious conspiracy in the 1990s. He was an Egyptian cleric who plotted to bomb New York City landmarks. He and nine followers were convicted in 1995 for a plot to blow up the United Nations, the FBI building and two tunnels and a bridge linking New York and New Jersey. He died in federal prison in 2017. In 2010 the Hutaree militia was charged with inciting an uprising against the government. A judge ordered acquittals on the sedition charges in 2012 saying the hateful diatribes were protected by the First Amendment. Another case in 1954 saw seditious conspiracy charges successfully brought in the storming of the Capitol Building. Four Puerto Rican activists rushed the building and opened fire on the House floor, wounding several representatives. The four, and another dozen others, were convicted. Another leader of a Puerto Rican independence group, Oscar Lopez Rivera, initiated a bombing campaign that left dozens of people dead or maimed in the 1970's and 1980's. He spent 35 years in prison before having his sentence commuted in 2017. So, what will happen with our recent storming of the Capitol Building? Will anyone be charged with sedition or treason? Or...will it all be forgotten? Will anyone at all be charged in the disgraceful display of violence on our Nation's Capitol Building? If not...it will certainly encourage the same behavior in the future. Someone had to be responsible for the actions on January 6. Who were the guilty parties? I'm sure each and everyone of us has their own beliefs as to he guilty parties. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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