"Unprecedented"

It must be some feature of human nature to want things to be 'the greatest' or 'the worst' ever. Perhaps that increases the sense of drama and thus the meaning of living through the particular challenges being faced at a given moment. Certainly the President loves to use these superlatives; so do his opponents, when discussing him. 

I notice, however, that the NYT piece I just linked has historians stating that there is 'no clear precedent' for the use of the 1798 law to remove immigrants, and then listing several precedents but giving exceptions for them ('there was a war on!'). The next entry is 'dismantling a Federal agency,' for which apparently none of the 35 historians could think of a precedent. Well, I can: the Department of Education was originally founded in 1867, but reorganized several times and eventually dissolved by Eisenhower. If it gets dissolved again by Trump, as USAID is being, it won't be unprecedented (but will be a step forward).

[UPDATE: What about going after universities? Nope.]

Similarly, an organization I have a great deal of support for is the Eternally Radical Idea, a group of free speech advocates. They're currently running a multi-part series called "Cancel culture is happening on a historic scale." We've just discussed how much worse things were under Woodrow Wilson. What do they have to say about that?

If you’re wondering why we haven’t discussed censorship during the time of the Civil War, World War I, or World War II, it’s because there is no real comparison. As bad as things have been for free speech since 2014, no one is arguing that America has been in a situation as big or as bad as it was during those major wars. 

So, 'a historic scale,' except for the periods of time when real history was happening. Here is what they do say about it:

Over the course of that year, there were 3,600 labor strikes involving a reported four million workers, including over 350,000 steel workers and 400,000 miners.... Riots broke out during Bolshevist protests in New York, Boston, and Cleveland (another great book on this topic is “Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism” by Geoffrey R. Stone). Through all of this, fear of Bolshevism was reaching a fever pitch. 

And then came the bombs.

Thirty-six mail bombs were delivered on May Day to the homes of American leaders, including Supreme Court justices, important businessmen, cabinet members, and politicians. Some of the bombs injured and even killed several people.* Then, eight additional, larger bombings occurred in cities across the country. 

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose D.C. home was destroyed** by one of the bombs, vowed revenge. With the help of up-and-coming FBI agent J. Edgar Hoover, Palmer orchestrated a series of raids against suspected Bolshevik sympathizers — launching what would later be called the Palmer Raids, wherein the government arrested 4,000 to 5,000 suspected political radicals and deported 800 to 900.***  In many cases, suspects were arrested for speech or association with communist or anarchist groups that would be fully protected under the First Amendment today, but it would not be until 1925, in Gitlow v. New York, that the First Amendment began having any teeth at all and decades before it would be strongly interpreted to protect membership in subversive organizations. 

They then go on to say, 'But you don't have to look at America, look at what the UK is up to; they're also arresting thousands in the present day over allegedly offensive speech.' And that's true, and it's a good point. However, it has definitely been worse at other historical periods; England used to hang men for speech that displeased the crown. 

* According to American Anarchy, which I have almost finished now, only two people were harmed by these bombs -- one of them badly maimed, however. 

** 'Damaged' more than 'destroyed.' It did mess up his library. 

*** The American Anarchy author states that the actual figure may have been as high as 10,000. A lot of the arrests were done by local police partners rather than Federal authorities themselves. They were arrested without warrants, and held without bail or access to counsel until an Assistant Secretary of Labor named Louis Freeland Post stood up for their due process rights -- immigration having been assigned to the Department of Labor at that time. This basically ended the whole campaign of the Palmer raids in a disgraceful Federal retreat and embarrassment, a risk the current administration is also running.