g an enemy. Indeed, the Constitution makes it difficult for a person to be convicted of treason at all. It explains that “no person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or on confession in open court.” Because of this clause, individuals like Aaron Burr – a former vice-president involved in a conspiracy against the government – have been acquitted of treason charges. In light of this, Congress will typically charge would-be traitors of espionage because of the easier conviction. Dissent is specifically not mentioned in the Constitution because the founders themselves were committing high treason by breaking from England. They wanted to create a central government that could run the country but would not persecute its citizens when they protested.

Historical events like the so-called “Whiskey Rebellion” of 1794 explain why dissenters should not be treated as traitors. The Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2003 article, “Whiskey Rebellion,” describes the event as a “series of disturbances in 1794 aimed against the enforcement of a U.S. federal law of 1791 imposing an excise tax on whiskey” (1). Farmers who were affected by this tax felt that the law was an “an attack on their liberty and economic well-being,” (1) and so rose up against government officials in western Pennsylvania, even tarring and feathering some of them. The government attempted to negotiate with the dissenters, but eventually resorted to using state militias to quell the riot. While “two offenders were convicted of treason,” (2) the article notes that “they were pardoned by Washington” (2), who thought of them as simple people hurt by the tax, not traitors trying to hurt the country. In England, such dissent would have been met with swift executions, but in the case of the Whiskey Rebellion, few people were charged, and most were exonerated. This event would set a precedent for more serious protests that would occur later in American history.

In the case of the protests against the Vietnam War, the dissenters were not committing treason, but rather petitioning the government to stop the violence. At the time, Americans were sour at the government’s poor choices for entering Vietnam, but many felt that the protests were unpatriotic, even dangerous for the country. According to the Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2003 article, “Anti-Vietnam Movement,” “60 percent of all Americans surveyed felt that antiwar protests were counterproductive because they showed the Communists in Vietnam that the United States was divided over the war” (15). Giving comfort to Communist groups like the Viet Cong by protesting U.S. policy could certainly be considered a treasonous offense, or at least helpful to the enemy. In 1971 during one large protest, the Nixon administration “responded with mass arrests, incarcerating both peaceful marchers and more radical protesters” (18). President Nixon even branded the protestors as disloyal, according to the Encarta article, saying “North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that” (18). But despite this, the protestors’ purpose was not to give “comfort and aid” to the North Vietnamese. The people were angry over a war that seemed to have been concocted from the start, as the release of the Pentagon papers showed. Protestors were expressing their rights to free speech and assembly, not to help A