Lyon had the distinguished honor of having been elected as a representative from three states to congress,—Vermont, Kentucky and Arkansas. He learned the trade of a printer when a boy, ran away from the old country and settled in Vermont. Governor Chittenden took a great interest in the young Irish lad, and helped him in many ways. He married a daughter of the governor’s, and engaged in the manufacture of iron and paper. Becoming involved financially, in trying to build a flotilla of gunboats on the Delaware for the infant American navy, he moved to Kentucky, and there set up another printing office, the first in the state. He was elected to Congress in 1804, serving until 1810.
He was the first delegate to Congress from Arkansas, having taken up his residence in Little Rock, but he died before taking his seat. To Matthew Lyon also belongs the distinguished honor of having cast the vote of Vermont for Jefferson for president against Adams in that critical period of American history, when the choice of president was thrown into the house of representatives.
His son, Chittenden, was a prominent man of his day, a member of congress, and took an active part in public affairs. In 1840 congress refunded Matthew Lyon’s son the $1,000 fine imposed upon his father under the alien and sedition act.
In Massachusetts, Attorney-General James Sullivan, afterward congressman and governor, the son of Irish emigrants, wrote and published a most able paper entitled, “A Dissertation on the Constitutional Freedom of the Press,” severely arraigning the sedition law. After enumerating the power of congress, Mr. Sullivan said:
“It is very clear that, considering a libel as a private injury, the congress can have no authority to enact a law for its definition or punishment.... It went beyond what the constitution would warrant.” In his final summing up, Attorney-General Sullivan said, “that a reasonable, constitutional restraint, judicially exercised, is the only way in which the freedom of the press can be preserved as an invaluable privilege to the nation.”
The alien and sedition laws were soon effaced from the statute books when the Democratic party came into power under Jefferson. Inasmuch as these laws were aimed especially at the men of Irish blood, who sought freedom at home in vain and came here to enjoy it, it was especially fitting that an Irishman, Senator Smilie of South Carolina, should introduce the bill for their repeal. He was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs on the part of the senate.
John T. Morse, in his “American Statesmen” series, characterizes the alien and sedition laws as the “two great blunders of the Federal party,” and adds: “No one has ever been able heartily or successfully to defend these foolish outbursts of ill-considered legislation.”
Another Irishman, John Daly Burk of The Time-Piece published in New York city was arrested under the alien and sedition law. This John Daly Burk had a most interesting history. He published the first daily paper in Boston. Said to be of the same family as the great Edmund Burke, he was expelled from Trinity College, Dublin, for patriotic articles contributed to the Dublin Evening Post, a paper which advocated the cause of the people against the rule of England. The expulsion of young Burk from Trinity only rekindled his patriotism and he rallied around the young band of patriots who were getting ready for the uprising of ’98. A brother patriot was being led to the gallows one day. As the procession passed Trinity’s steps, where Burk, in company with about thirty young men, was standing, he called out that if there was an Irishman in the crowd, to follow him for the purpose of rescuing the prisoner. The attempt proved unsuccessful. Burk escaped to a house where lived a woman named Daly. She fitted him out in woman’s garb and in this disguise he escaped from Ireland, making his way to America, landing in Boston. Being without means and desiring to show his gratitude to his protectress, Burk assumed her name, and ever after he signed himself John Daly Burk.
Boston in those days was not a very hospitable town for an Irishman to settle in, but Burk fought against great odds and overcame what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles. On October 6, 1796, he issued the Polar Star and Daily Advertiser. It was the first daily paper published in the town. It was printed by Alexander Martin, at the corner of Water Street and Quaker Lane. Copies of the paper are extant, and are well worth perusal. It had considerable display advertising. It started out with a well written address to the public on the advantages of a daily paper. Speaking of the policy of the paper, the editor said: “It will have more frequent opportunities of defending the great principles of American Independence; encouraging the arts and chastising the enemies of the federal constitution whatever mask they may wear or whatever denomination they may assume.”
Further along in his address to the people, Burk apologized for calling the residents of Boston his fellow-citizens, but, he added, he was their fellow citizen, for the moment a stranger puts his foot on American soil “his fetters,” to use his own language, “are rent to pieces.”