Susannah Kopecky: The Character Assassination of John Adams

One would hope that a group called the John Adams Project would in some way seek to honor the legacy of its eponymous founding father. Unfortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)-sponsored John Adams Project represents a hideous slander of the diplomat and former President of the United States.

The ACLU so named its pet project to defend accused Guantanamo terrorists, offering the laughable explanation that the historical Adams performed a similar service by defending British soldiers before the Revolutionary War. This should be insulting to anyone who respects the military. There are enormous differences between those British soldiers – who were accused of shooting colonists in the Boston massacre – and terrorists who are accused of plotting against modern-day American citizens. The ACLU brass behind the project is either terribly ignorant of history or is well aware of its own malicious duplicity. But the bottom line is clear: ACLU leftists with a profoundly anti-American agenda are trying to hijack our nation’s heritage.

To start, Adams defended the British soldiers before the thirteen colonies had declared their independence; thus, the motherland and the colonies were not formally at war at the time of the trial. By contrast, we are currently at war with the jihadists who seek to destroy us.

Moreover, when Adams took on the job of defending the British soldiers, it was determined that the soldiers had likely been provoked by the aggressive Boston mob that was haranguing and attacking them, and that the soldiers likely feared for their lives. The rationale of self-preservation is much more acceptable to sensible people, than is the declaration of an all-out war on all citizens of the West. In addition, the soldiers were guarding what was technically part of their empire.

A man of passion and integrity, Adams represented the British soldiers because he was the best man suited to do so; those soldiers had not been running amok in the streets, shooting randomly at civilians, or calling for the death of Western civilization...