Ed Collins is wrong in his letter ”Jefferson may have OK’d Jan. 6 insurrection” (July 31, TribLIVE). Thomas Jefferson would not have approved. That insurrection was neither good, nor brief. It is ongoing, and I predict it will end in a Trump dictatorship if not stopped.

Sure, Jefferson is famous for his quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Well, there is a lot of that bloody manure and natural manure being spread around, mostly by President Trump, the instigator of our Jan. 6 insurrection.

It was Jefferson who asked Congress for and signed the March 3, 1807 Insurrection Act in response to an alleged insurrection plot by Aaron Burr. Heretofore, on Nov. 27, 1806, Jefferson issued a proclamation to all state and federal military officers “to be vigilant … in searching out and bringing to condign punishment all persons engaged or concerned in such enterprise.”

In 1808, Jefferson invoked the Insurrection Act against Great Lakes merchant ships protesting his Embargo Act for “forming insurrections against the authority of the laws of the United States.”

But even before Jefferson, look no further than Western Pennsylvania’s 1794 Whiskey Rebellion Insurrection. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, acting on the 1792 Calling Forth Act, assembled a force of over 12,000 men to suppress said insurrection. Washington warned locals “not to abet, aid or comfort the insurgents aforesaid, as they will answer the contrary at their peril.”

Bruce Braden

Carmel, Ind.

The writer is a Mt. Pleasant native.

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