“Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write!”
So reads the promo on the “John Adams” poster advertising the HBO mini-series starting on Sunday.
Give me a break! A better slogan for Adams would be:
“Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write — though nothing critical of the Government!”
Adams was a really interesting guy, and a giant figure in the early days of the Republic, fully deserving of all the public attention he is getting. But my guess is that the HBO Series (like the David McCullough book on which it is based) is not going to come to grips with the central fact of Adams’ legacy: that the Sedition Act, passed by the Federalist Congress and signed by President Adams, would have destroyed the United States before it had a chance to become the United States. Lest we forget, the Sedition Act, simply stated, made it a federal crime to