WI/AHC: Thomas Jefferson Tried For Treason

Some background: during the Quasi-War with France, the Adams administration passed the Alien and Sedition acts, which severely restricted freedom of speech, press, etc. and many historians have concluded they were primarily an attempt to suppress voters who disagreed with the Federalist party.

Thomas Jefferson, who was the sitting Vice President at the time, secretly penned the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which argued that the states had the right and the duty to declare unconstitutional any acts of Congress that were not authorized by the Constitution (basically they were the prototypical documents for the nullification argument), and at one point secretly drafted a threat for Kentucky to secede from the Union. Some, among them Jefferson biographer Dumas Malone, have argued that Jefferson could theoretically impeached for treason for authoring the acts, and the threat to secede.

So, naturally, what if? What if, somehow, the Adams government had gotten wind that Jefferson was not only actively undermining the administration, but was secretly authoring arguments that essentially called for a rebellion? Would he have been impeached and/or tried? What would the knock on effects be?
 
Jefferson was probably too big of a star on a young team trying to establish itself in the league, They may sit him for a game or two but suspension for life or even a season, I can't see the coach doing that
 
The fallout would be massive.

Such as? While I doubt he'd be tried for treason (it'd be a big fucking deal if the author of the Declaration of Independence was tried for treason), I can see him being booted from the administration and spurring a Constitutional amendment to prevent that kind of undermining by the VP. Adams would most likely get a second term, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
 
If it actually gets as far as him being tried for treason the case ends up in the supreme court and the law is declared unconstitutional establishing the court's power to do so a few years early. I believe that Jefferson would probably be trusting enough to put his fate in the hands of the courts.

Adam's government is discredited and he's compared to the former king. Jefferson's legacy on the other hand is that much stronger. The Sedition Acts were already unpopular, I can't see the courts actually convicting Jefferson of all people on the basis of a political argument. Adams just didn't have that much command or authority.
 
Could this be a good POD for a Balkanized America? Earlier Civil War perhaps?

Maybe. I know that a lot of Jefferson's contemporaries were horrified at the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, and thought they were way more damaging than the Alien and Sedition acts. If they were passed, or if Jefferson gets caught, goes to trial, and then uses it as a way to evangelize for them, I could see it going down that road.
 
I agree that it would do far more damage to the Federalists under Adams than it would to the antiFederalists.

The SC might well rule that secession (if the question came up) was legal, or more particularly, that States had the right to ignore 'unconstitutional' laws until they were definitively ruled on.
 
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