Credit: Courtesy of the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia
While Thomas Mifflin served as governor of Pennsylvania (1790-1799), politics on the state and national level achieved an unprecedented level of division and meanness. On February 15, 1798 the animosities exploded into violence when Republican Congressman Matthew Lyon, "The Lion of Vermont" attacked Federalist Roger Griswold of Connecticut on the floor of Congress. Later that year Federalists would use the newly passed Sedition Act, which outlawed speaking or writing anything "false, scandalous or malicious" against the government to indict and jail Lyon on charges of sedition. As governor, Mifflin maintained an independence that served him and Pennsylvania well during this dangerous decade
