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Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:00:55 -0500 From: "Nickolas J. Kyser" <kysernj@udmercy.edu> I don't think Jefferson pardoned anybody. I believe, though I don't have the book at hand, that James Morton Smith, in _Freedom's Fetters_, wrote that TJ "pardoned" those who were still in jail when he took office. But I think only Callender and Brown were. Smith cites Notes on Procedures on Prosecutions under Sedition Act, March 9, 1801. Jefferson Papers CX 18892 (Lib. Cong.). This document is an untitled sheet of notes, most of which concerns removal and appointments of officeholders. Only a couple of lines at the bottom deal with the Sedition Law: "remit the fines & enter nolle prosequi in the prosecutions depending under that law. [I've seen this only in microfilm but this word was illegible] Callender & Brown are in [illegible but it must refer to prison]." There is also a partly legible reference to Duane, but I can?t make sense of it. Duane was never convicted. Lyon, Cooper and Haswell didn't get their fines refunded until the 1840s, after many years of petitioning Congress. Defendants like Lyon who had long since completed their jail terms before TJ took office were never pardoned. When Jefferson wrote years later that he had "discharged every person under punishment or prosecution," he wasn't saying he pardoned them, at least not in the sense we mean it today. He ordered the pending prosecutions dropped; he apparently refused to collect any fines that hadn't been paid (this may apply to Callender, and maybe only to him); he may have ordered the 2 or 3 still in jail to be released. Nick Kyser School of Law, University of Detroit Mercy. ----- End forwarded message -----
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