But Mr. Adams

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy David Post posts about the John Adams miniseries on HBO. He notes that Adams was no friend of free speech, having signed the Sedition Act, making criticism of the government a crime. (McCain's mouth must be watering.) But Post goes too far in his speculation:

It is simply impossible to imagine democratic government, or meaningful elections, where people are thrown in jail for criticizing the government, and it is therefore impossible to imagine the United States of the 19th and 20th centuries had the Sedition Act remained in place – which, thanks only to Jefferson’s election in 1800, it did not.

"Only" thanks to Jefferson? Perhaps. But I still like to think the law was so repulsive and against what most Americans wanted that, even if Jefferson had not replaced Adams, the law would have been repealed. (In fact, why is it that Adams was our first one-termer--and the only one-termer of our first five Presidents?)