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Alien and Sedition Acts

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Text of the Aliens Act
Text of the Sedition Act

The Alien and Sedition Acts was passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams. Opposition to Federalists among Democratic-Republicans reached new heights at this time since the Democratic-Republicans had supported France. Some appeared to desire an event similar to the French Revolution to come to the United States to overthrow the government.[1] When Democratic-Republicans in some states refused to enforce federal laws, such as the Whiskey tax, and threatened to rebel, Federalists threatened to send the army to force them to capitulate.[2] As the unrest sweeping Europe was bleeding over into the United States, calls for secession reached unparalleled heights, and the fledgling nation seemed ready to rip itself apart.[2] Some of this was seen by Federalists as having been caused by French and French-sympathizing immigrants.[2] The acts were thus meant to guard against this real threat of anarchy. Democratic-Republicans denounced them, though they did use them after the 1800 election against Federalists.[3] They became a major political issue in the elections of 1798 and 1800. They were very controversial in their own day, as they remain to the present day. Opposition to them resulted in the highly controversial Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, authored by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

Twenty-five people were arrested, eleven were tried, and ten were convicted. James Thomson Callender, a Scottish citizen, had been expelled from Great Britain for his political writings. Living first in Philadelphia, then seeking refuge close in Virginia, he wrote a book entitled The Prospect Before Us (read and approved by Vice President Jefferson before publication) in which he called the Adams administration a "continual tempest of malignant passions" and the President a "repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite and an unprincipled oppressor". Callender, already residing in Virginia and writing for the Richmond Examiner, was indicted under the Sedition Act. Callender was convicted, fined $200 and sentenced to nine months in jail.[4] Matthew Lyon, born in Ireland, was a Democratic-Republican congressman from Vermont. He was indicted under the Sedition Act for an essay he had written in the Vermont Journal accusing the administration of "ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice". While awaiting trial, Lyon commenced publication of Lyon's Republican Magazine, subtitled "The Scourge of Aristocracy". At trial, he was fined $1,000 and sentenced to four months in prison. After his release, he returned to Congress.[5][6] Benjamin Franklin Bache was editor of the Aurora, a Republican newspaper. Bache had accused George Washington of incompetence and financial irregularities, and "the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, querulous ADAMS" of nepotism and monarchical ambition. He was arrested for his activities.[7] Anthony Haswell was an English immigrant and a printer in Vermont.[8] Among other activities, Haswell reprinted parts of the Aurora, including Bache's claim that the federal government had employed Tories.[9] Haswell was found guilty of seditious libel by judge William Paterson, and sentenced to a two-month imprisonment and a $200 fine.[10] Luther Baldwin was indicted, convicted, and fined $100 for an incident that occurred during a visit by President Adams to Newark, New Jersey.[11][12] In November 1798, David Brown led a group in Dedham, Massachusetts in setting up a liberty pole with the words, "No Stamp Act, No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President; Long Live the Vice President".[13][14][15] Brown was arrested in Andover, Massachusetts, but because he could not afford the $4,000 bail, he was taken to Salem for trial.[16] Brown was tried in June 1799.[13] Brown pled guilty but Justice Samuel Chase asked him to name others who had assisted him.[13] Brown refused, was fined $480,[16][17] and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, the most severe sentence ever imposed under the Sedition Act.[13][16]

Effect of the acts

The Democratic-Republicans used the Alien and Sedition Acts as an important issue in the 1800 election. Thomas Jefferson, upon assuming the Presidency, pardoned those still serving sentences under the Sedition Act,[18] though he also used the acts to prosecute several of his own critics before the acts expired.[3][19] It has been said that the Alien Acts were aimed at Albert Gallatin; and the Sedition Act aimed at Benjamin Bache's Aurora.[20][21] While government authorities prepared lists of aliens for deportation, many aliens fled the country during the debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Adams never signed a deportation order.[22] The Alien and Sedition Acts were, however, never appealed to the Supreme Court, whose right of judicial review was not established until Marbury v. Madison in 1803. Subsequent mentions in Supreme Court opinions beginning in the mid-20th century have assumed that the Sedition Act would today be found unconstitutional.[23][24] Jefferson and James Madison also secretly drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions denouncing the federal legislation, though state legislatures rejected these resolutions.[25][26][27] Though the resolutions followed the "interposition" approach of James Madison, Jefferson advocated nullification and at one point drafted a threat for Kentucky to secede.[28] Jefferson's biographer Dumas Malone argued that this might have gotten Jefferson impeached for treason, had his actions become known at the time.[29] In writing the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold," the Alien and Sedition Acts would "necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood." Historian Ron Chernow says of this "he wasn't calling for peaceful protests or civil disobedience: he was calling for outright rebellion, if needed, against the federal government of which he was vice president." Jefferson "thus set forth a radical doctrine of states' rights that effectively undermined the constitution."[30] Chernow argues that neither Jefferson nor Madison sensed that they had sponsored measures as inimical as the Alien and Sedition Acts themselves.[30] Historian Garry Wills argued "Their nullification effort, if others had picked it up, would have been a greater threat to freedom than the misguided [alien and sedition] laws, which were soon rendered feckless by ridicule and electoral pressure"[31] The theoretical damage of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions was "deep and lasting, and was a recipe for disunion".[30] George Washington was so appalled by them that he told Patrick Henry that if "systematically and pertinaciously pursued", they would "dissolve the union or produce coercion".[30] The influence of Jefferson's doctrine of states' rights reverberated right up to the Civil War and beyond.[2] Future president James Garfield, at the close of the Civil War, said that Jefferson's Kentucky Resolution "contained the germ of nullification and secession, and we are today reaping the fruits".[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Letter to William Smith, November 13, 1787
  2. ^ a b c d e Knott. "Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth". p48
  3. ^ a b Chernow, Ron. "Alexander Hamilton". 2004. p668. Penguin Press.
  4. ^ Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (New York: Little Brown and Company 1951) pp. 211-220.
  5. ^ Foner, Eric (2008). Give Me Liberty!. W.W. Norton and Company. pp. 282–283. ISBN 978-0-393-93257-7.
  6. ^ Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (New York: Little Brown and Company 1951) pp. 102-108.
  7. ^ Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (New York: Little Brown and Company 1951) pp. 27–29, 65, 96.
  8. ^ Anthony Haswell, editor of the Vermont Gazette, jailed for violation of the Alien and Sedition Acts | Bennington Museum - Come and Explore
  9. ^ Francis Wharton, State Trials of the United States during the Administrations of Washington and Adams. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1849, pp. 684–687.
  10. ^ Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 63–64.
  11. ^ Smith, J. (1956), Freedom's Fetters, pp. 270–274
  12. ^ Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (New York: Little Brown and Company 1951) pp. 112-114.
  13. ^ a b c d Stone, Geoffrey R. (2004). Perilous times: free speech in wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the war on terrorism. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 64. ISBN 0-393-05880-8, ISBN 978-0-393-05880-2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  14. ^ Tise, Larry E. (1998). The American counterrevolution: a retreat from liberty, 1783-1800. Stackpole Books. p. 420. ISBN 0-8117-0100-X, ISBN 978-0-8117-0100-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  15. ^ Curtis, Michael Kent (2000). Free speech, "the people's darling privilege": struggles for freedom of expression in American history. Duke University Press. p. 88. ISBN 0-8223-2529-2, ISBN 978-0-8223-2529-1. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  16. ^ a b c Tise, Larry E. (1998). The American counterrevolution: a retreat from liberty, 1783-1800. Stackpole Books. p. 421. ISBN 0-8117-0100-X, ISBN 978-0-8117-0100-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  17. ^ Simon, James F. (2003). What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States. Simon and Schuster. p. 55. ISBN 0-684-84871-6, ISBN 978-0-684-84871-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  18. ^ Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (New York: Little Brown and Company 1951) p. 231.
  19. ^ Mott, Frank L., Jefferson and the Press (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 1943), p. 37.
  20. ^ What States Rights Really Mean by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. LewRockwell.com.
  21. ^ The Alien & Sedition Act Trials
  22. ^ Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (New York: Little Brown and Company 1951) p. 187-193.
  23. ^ In the seminal free speech case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Court declared, "Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history." 376 U.S. 254, 276 (1964). In a concurring opinion in Watts v. United States, which involved an alleged threat against President Lyndon Johnson, William O. Douglas noted, "The Alien and Sedition Laws constituted one of our sorriest chapters; and I had thought we had done with them forever ... Suppression of speech as an effective police measure is an old, old device, outlawed by our Constitution."
  24. ^ Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705
  25. ^ Portal:Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
  26. ^ "The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798".
  27. ^ Reed, Ishmael (Jul 05, 2004). "Thomas Jefferson: The Patriot Act of the 18th Century". Time. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Jefferson's draft said: "where powers are assumed [by the federal government] which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits." See Jefferson's draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.
  29. ^ Chernow, Ron. "Alexander Hamilton". 2004. p586. Penguin Press.
  30. ^ a b c d Chernow, Ron. "Alexander Hamilton". 2004. p587. Penguin Press.
  31. ^ Wills, Gary. "James Madison". p49

Bibliography

  • Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1995).
  • Bill Ong Hing, Anthony D. Romero, Defining America Through Immigration Policy (Temple University Press, 2004), 17-19
  • Jenkins, David. The Sedition Act of 1798 and the Incorporation of Seditious Libel into First Amendment Jurisprudence. The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 154–213.
  • Martin, James P. "When Repression Is Democratic and Constitutional: The Federalist Theory of Representation and the Sedition Act of 1798." University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Winter, 1999), pp. 117–182
  • Miller, John Chester. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (1951)
  • Rehnquist, William H. Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson (1994). Chase was impeached and acquitted for his conduct of a trial under the Sedition act.
  • Rosenfeld, Richard N. American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns: The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).
  • Smith, James Morton. Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (1967)
  • Stone, Geoffrey R.Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004)
  • Alan Taylor, "The Alien and Sedition Acts" in Julian E. Zelizer, ed., The American Congress (2004), 63–76
  • Wright, Barry. "Migration, Radicalism, and State Security: Legislative Initiatives in the Canada and the United States c. 1794–1804" in Studies in American Political Development, Volume 16, Issue 1, April 2002, 48–60

Primary sources

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