{{short description|American farmer convicted of sedition}} '''Benjamin Fairbanks''' was an 18th-century farmer and selectmen from Dedham, Massachusetts who received the lightest sentence of anyone ever convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=179}}<ref name=Blumberg/>
Fairbanks was charged with having a role in erecting the liberty pole in Dedham, along with David Brown. Brown held the ladder while another, presumably Fairbanks, put up a seditious sign on it.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=140}}
When it appeared, Fisher Ames and the rest of Dedham's Federalist community were enraged.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=138}} The pole was taken down{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=141}} and the culprits were sought. Fairbanks, a prosperous farmer and former Selectman but also an "impressionable, rather excitable man," was quickly arrested{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=138}} on November 6, 1798.<ref name=Blumberg/> He was brought to Boston by the United States Marshal for the district, and accompanied by men from a neighboring community.<ref name=Aurora/> He was questioned the same evening by Judge John Lowell.<ref name=Aurora/>
He posted bond and was scheduled for trial the following June at the Federal Circuit Court in Boston.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=138}}<ref name=Aurora/><ref name=Blumberg/> When the trial came, Fairbanks requested the legal aid of Ames. While Ames declined to serve as the defendant's attorney, he did appear as a character witness.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=179}} Fairbanks, facing the "powerful forces" arrayed against him, confessed on June 8.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=178}}
Fairbanks said that "it was not then known by me, nor perhaps by others concerned, how heinous an offense it was."{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=178}}<ref name=first/> He then added that he was a patriotic citizen, and would attempt to live his life accordingly in the future.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=178}} Justice Samuel Chase sentenced Fairbanks to six hours in prison and a fine of five dollars, plus court costs, the lightest sentence ever given for any of the Sedition Act defendants.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=179}}<ref name=first/> When Thomas Jefferson became president, one of his first acts was to issue a general pardon for any person convicted under the Sedition Act.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=232}}
==Personal life== He was a descendant of Jonathan Fairebanke, builder of the Fairbanks House.{{sfn|Slack|2015|p=138}} He was also related to Jason Fairbanks, the murderer, and Vice President Charles Fairbanks.
He served one term as a selectman in 1785.<ref name=worthington/>
==See also== *List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States
==References== {{reflist|colwidth=30em|refs=
<ref name=Aurora>{{cite book|author1=Richard N. Rosenfeld|author2=Edmund S. Morgan|title=American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns: The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lTNiy8L52TMC&pg=PA541|date=15 September 1998|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=978-0-312-19437-6|page=541}}</ref>
<ref name=Blumberg>{{cite book|author=Phillip I. Blumberg|title=Repressive Jurisprudence in the Early American Republic: The First Amendment and the Legacy of English Law|url=https://archive.org/details/repressivejurisp00blum|url-access=registration|date=30 September 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-49002-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/repressivejurisp00blum/page/134 134]}}</ref>
<ref name=first>{{cite web | url = http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/madison/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Sedition_Act_cases.pdf | title = Sedition Act of 1798 – a brief history of arrests, indictments, mistreatment & abuse | first = Gordon T. | last = Belt | publisher = First Amendment Center | access-date = October 25, 2016 }}</ref>
<ref name=worthington>{{cite book|last=Worthington|first=Erastus |title=The history of Dedham: from the beginning of its settlement, in September 1635, to May 1827|url=https://archive.org/details/historydedhamfr00wortgoog|access-date=November 8, 2019|year=1827|publisher=Dutton and Wentworth|page=[https://archive.org/details/historydedhamfr00wortgoog/page/n87 79]-81}}</ref>
}}
==Works cited== *{{cite book| title = Liberty's First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech | first = Charles | last = Slack | year = 2015 | publisher = Atlantic Monthly Press | isbn = 978-0802123428 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fairbanks, Benjamin}} Category:People from Dedham, Massachusetts Category:People pardoned by Thomas Jefferson Category:Dedham, Massachusetts select board members