Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution (review)

Paul Newman's Fries's Rebellion is a well-researched, well-written account of this often-misunderstood episode from the late 1790s. Newman starts with a detailed account of who the rebels were. Using depositions taken by a Pennsylvania common pleas judge and records of the United States Circuit Court for Pennsylvania, Newman was able to identify 211 people who were involved in the events from 1798 to 1799. Eighty-three had fought in the American Revolution and another seventy were related to a Revolutionary War veteran, and between 75 percent and 93 percent were property owners. Using a simple surname check, Newman concludes that 187 were German-Americans. This group of German Lutherans and German Reformed neighbors called themselves "Kirchenleute" (church people) to distinguish themselves from other German groups such as the Moravians and from the English-speaking Quakers. Twenty-eight of the group, including John Fries himself and most of the influential leaders, had been members of the military force sent by Washington to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The Federalists' "House Tax" and "Direct Tax" and Sedition Act sparked an organized, principally peaceful, and extra-legal resistance from this group. Adams and Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott appointed a mix of Anglo- and German-American Federalist assessors for the region. Newman speculates that if nonsectarian Federalists from the Kirchenleute had been selected, there might have been opposition, "but active resistance . . . would have been less likely" (88).

The resisters used a variety of techniques for protest hearkening back to the revolutionary period, such as raising liberty poles, forming associations to warn off assessors, and signing petitions to Congress to repeal the law—a right granted under the Bill of Rights. They believed they were opposing unconstitutional measures by using their First Amendment rights of assembly, speech, and petition. According to Newman, the resisters asserted the right of the people to have a role in determining the constitutionality of law, an expansion of popular democracy, "which they believed—as confirmed by their words and deeds—defined the American Revolution" (101).

When Jabon Eyerle, the Commissioner for Pennsylvania's Fifth District, could not complete the assessments and collection, he called upon Common Pleas Judge William Henry to take depositions to determine the cause of the resistance. Henry sent the depositions to U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Peters who made out federal warrants for a number of resisters, and Federal Marshal William Nichols began the process of making the arrests. After it was announced that the prisoners were to be sent to Philadelphia some fifty miles away, the resisters protested that this was a violation of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a trial by a jury of one's peers, and a group of almost four hundred men led by Fries entered the town of Bethlehem and forced the marshal to give up the prisoners. Fries's Rebellion "peacefully concluded without gunfire, fisticuffs, or bloodshed" (140).

Responding to this incident, President Adams quickly sent troops into the area to suppress the insurrection and arrest the dissidents. A variety of charges were brought against the accused, including treason, conspiracy, rescue and obstruction of process. The Sedition Act, which most earlier historians have argued was used primarily against Republican editors and politicians, was used massively to suppress the Fries rebels. The Federal District Attorney William Rawle sought eleven indictments for treason and secured ten. Seven were acquitted. The circuit court, however, tried John Fries for treason twice. In the first prosecution, the court declared a mistrial when a juror indicated before the trial that Fries ought to hang. The grand jury indicted Fries again for treason, and when one of the circuit judges, Samuel Chase, presented a legal brief to the defense, prosecution, and jury stating his opinion concerning the crime of treason and indicating that the defense could argue only the facts, not the law, Fries's attorneys walked out. When Fries refused to...