David Brown was imprisoned for 18 months because he demonstrated against rising taxes. Author James Callendar spent nine months in jail for writing a book critical of the government. Newspaper editor Benjamin Franklin Bache was arrested for criticizing the president but died before his trial, while printer Anthony Haswell spent two months in jail for republishing passages from Bache’s writings.

These men did not live in some Third World dictatorship. They lived in the United States during one of the darkest periods of our history; a time in which freedom of speech was restricted by the federal government following passage of the Sedition Act of 1798. Given recent events, it appears Democrats are keen on recreating some of that oppression. In an accelerating campaign to silence the voices of those with whom they disagree, the administration of President Obama and members of his party in Congress have undertaken the most audacious effort in more than 200 years to squelch those who dare to disagree.