by Charles C. Jett

Courage and Consequence — A Woman Argued Doctrine to the Governor, and Won for Two Days

In November 1637, Anne Hutchinson stood alone before the governor of Massachusetts and argued Puritan theology on the record — without counsel, without allies, without precedent. For two days she out-reasoned the magistrates on Scripture and procedure, demanding named laws and precise charges. She lost not because she was outargued, but because she gave the court one theological opening and the court took it. The trial transcript, preserved and digitized at UMKC, remains one of the earliest documents in American history in which a woman confronts institutional power and compels it to answer her. This is entry 27 of Courage and Consequence, and the first in the new category Colonial Conscience.

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by Charles C. Jett

Courage and Consequence — Indicted to Intimidate

In May 1799, a troop of Philadelphia cavalry officers dragged William Duane from his home and beat him unconscious with horsewhips for refusing to reveal a source. Within the week, the Aurora — the leading opposition newspaper in the United States — was back on press. Duane was indicted three times for seditious libel. The Vice President of the United States signed a warrant for his arrest. He kept publishing from hiding, six days a week, until Congress adjourned and the Sedition Act expired. He did not win by being right. He won by not stopping. This is the story of the editor who carried the First Amendment from paper principle into living law, and who outlasted every administration that tried to silence him. William Duane needs to be remembered.

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by Charles C. Jett

A Confession: I Am the Real Jack Ryan

In this personal account, Cold War naval officer and USNA ’64 graduate Charles C. Jett sets the record straight on an untold chapter of submarine history: how his innovations developed aboard USS RAY (SSN 653) and later at the US Naval Submarine School where he taught tactics and Soviet Naval Ship Recognition to prospective nuclear submarine commanding officers— commended by Vice Admiral E. P. Wilkinson and the Secretary of the Navy, and endorsed by Admiral Bruce DeMars and Rear Admiral Albert Kelln — provided Tom Clancy with the foundation for both the character Jonesy and the original Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October. As shipmate Dennis Parker wrote: “A little bit of the Ray, and a little bit of Charlie Jett, lives on in every U.S. nuclear attack submarine since.” At 85, Jett finally places this story where it belongs: in the record.

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by Charles C. Jett

Courage and Consequence – The Trial Where the Judge Told the Jury: Law Is Not Yours

The Editor Who Learned Criticism Had a Price Tag. In 1799, Vermont editor Anthony Haswell reprinted an advertisement defending jailed Congressman Matthew Lyon — words he did not write. The federal government charged him with seditious libel, convicted him before a stacked jury, and imprisoned him while his daughter died. When he walked free, two thousand people delayed the Fourth of July to welcome him home. His trial was later cited by the Supreme Court in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
History remembers the congressman who spoke. This is the story of the editor who printed — and paid.

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by Charles C. Jett

Sixty Billion Dollars for a Ship No One Needed

In the third installment of this series, we deliver the verdict on the Littoral Combat Ship: a program whose total exposure approaches $95 billion for a platform that failed its own testing, retired hulls barely a decade old, and survived every cancellation attempt not because it worked but because the machine that built it was designed to protect itself. Drawing on GAO and DOT&E findings, congressional lobbying records, and Eisenhower’s 1961 warning, we trace the dual-vendor political architecture that locked two shipyard states into the program, the revolving door of lobbyists who protected it, and the quiet institutional cowardice that kept it alive long after the public record had established its failure. The verdict: $95 billion. The ship that wouldn’t die. And a Navy that deserved better than both.

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