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Alien & Sedition

acts

The controversial foreign policy of the Federalists prompted domestic protest and governmental repression.

President John Adams

As the U.S. fought an undeclared maritime war against France, immigrants from Ireland attacked Adams’s pro-British foreign policy.

www.vallejogallery.com

To silence the critics, the Federalists controlled Congress enacted three coercive laws that threatened individual rights and the fledgling

party system.

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Justification for Alien & Sedition Acts

“The United States . . . were threatened with actual invasion . . . and had then, within the bosom of the country, thousands of aliens, who, we doubt not, were ready to cooperate in any external attack.”

The Naturalization Act lengthened the residency requirement for American citizenship – and so the right to vote – from five to fourteen years.

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The Alien Act authorized the deportation of foreigners.

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The Sedition Act prohibited the publication of insults or malicious attacks on the president or members of

Congress.

“He that is not for us is against us,” read the Federalist Gazette of the United States.

It was the Sedition Act that generated the most controversy. Prosecutors arrested more than twenty Republican newspaper editors and politicians, accused them of sedition, and convicted and jailed a

number of them.

Political cartoon of Congressman Lyon

(holding tongs), and later arrested

under the Sedition Acts,brawling

with Congressman Roger Griswold.

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What developed was a constitutional crisis. With justification, Republicans charged that the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment’s prohibition against “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Republicans did not appeal to the Supreme Court because most of the justices were Federalists.

Instead, Madison and Jefferson looked to state legislatures for a solution. At their urging, the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures issued resolutions in 1798 declaring the Alien and Seditions Acts to be “unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

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The resolution set forth an interpretation of the Constitution, asserting that the states had a “right to

judge” the legitimacy of national laws.

The debate over the Sedition Act set the stage for the presidential election of 1800.

www.encyclopedia.com

A N E X P L O R AT IO N O F C IV IL L IB E R T IE S IN

A M E R IC A N H IS TO R Y T H R O U G H T H E L E N S

O F T H E A L IE N A N D S E D IT IO N A C T S

SHOULD

CIVIL LIBERTIES BE LIMITED

IN A TIME OF

CRISIS?

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WHAT ARE CIVIL LIBERTIES?

• a “form of limitation on the power of a government over its citizens” (Nakaya 8)

• fundamental, inalienable rights of the people

• SOURCES? • state constitutions and bills of rights • federal Constitution and Bill of Rights

• EXAMPLES? • habeas corpus • free speech, press, religion, assembly • right to bear arms • protection against unreasonable searches, arrests,

and seizures • right to a fair, speedy jury trial • right to due process of law

HAVE CIVIL LIBERTIES

ALWAYS BEEN PROTECTED?

• Alien and Sedition Act

• Civil War

• Labor unrest (late 19th c.)

• World War I

• Red Scare

• World War II

• Cold War

• Vietnam War

• War on Terrorism

• Iraq War

FRAMING THE ISSUE: A VALUE LINE

“Those who would give up

essential Liberty, to

purchase a little

temporary Safety,

deserve neither Liberty

nor Safety.” --Benjamin Franklin

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FEDERALISTS VS. DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICANS (1798)

Issue Federalists Democratic-Republicans

Economy? Manufacturing Agrarian (farming)

National Bank? Bank (helps

manufacturing)

No Bank (too much federal

power)

Interpret

Constitution?

Broadly (is it

expressly forbidden?)

Strictly (is it expressly

permitted?)

Balance of

Power?

National States’

Foreign Policy? Pro-British Pro-French

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• Must civil liberties inevitably contract during a crisis? If so, what does it mean that they do?

• Is there any connection between dissent and “aiding the enemy?”

• What is the role of political dissent in the United States? In what ways is it protected? (Do you have a right to criticize the government? Are there limits to this right?)

• Can it be acceptable to act in a fundamentally undemocratic way in order to preserve democracy?