Scandalous Quotes
The Church exercised the law enforcement and censorship authority in all Catholic countries. Note the offense of saying anything which is “offensive to pious ears”. The particular example that “offended” the pious was that a heretic should not be executed. These were the cultural values of the day.
Chil y Marango had studied the Spanish controlled Canary Islands showing some of the primitive behavior of early man there which did injury to the Church’s view of Adam and Eve and denial of any evolution. Ironically, today the Catholic Church accepts evolution as valid science and religion while some other churches do not.
This law, passed by the President John Adams and the Federalists, became the political factor around which Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others were to create the Democratic Republicans who not only ousted the Federalists but beat them so badly that the party disappeared and the Whig Party evolved. Under this law a person who criticized any facet of the Government publicly could be fined and imprisoned. The Act was unconstitutional but at that early stage of America, there were no Supreme Court precedents to go by and the power of the courts to nullify a law of Congress was not even clear. So it was never tested in the courts but finally was repealed.
