1798 - Alien and Sedition Acts
In 1798 the United States stood on the brink of war with France. The Federalists believed that Democratic-Republican criticism of Federalist policies was disloyal and feared that aliens living in the United States would sympathize with the French during a war. As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
In 1799, after a series of sea battles with the French, war seemed inevitable. In this crisis, Adams rejected the guidance of Hamilton, who wanted war, and reopened negotiations with France. Napoleon, who had just come to power, received them cordially. The danger of conflict subsided with the negotiation of the Convention of 1800, which formally released the United States from its 1778 defense alliance with France. However, reflecting American weakness, France refused to pay $20 million in compensation for American ships taken by the French Navy.
Hostility to France had led Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, which had severe repercussions for American civil liberties. The Naturalization Act, which changed the requirement for citizenship from five to 14 years, was targeted at Irish and French immigrants suspected of supporting the Republicans. The Alien Act, operative for two years only, gave the president the power to expel or imprison aliens in time of war. The Sedition Act proscribed writing, speaking, or publishing anything of “a false, scandalous, and malicious” nature against the president or Congress.
The only journalists prosecuted under the Sedition Act were editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers. The few convictions won under it created martyrs to the cause of civil liberties and aroused support for the Republicans.
Thomas Cooper, a lawyer and newspaper editor in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, was indicted, prosecuted, and convicted of violating the Sedition Act after he published a broadside that was sharply critical of President Adams. In part, Cooper was reacting to an article about himself that had appeared in the Reading (Pennsylvania) Advertiser. The case went to court in Philadelphia in April 1800. Cooper questioned how the people could rationally use their franchise if “perfect freedom of discussion of public characters be not allowed” [1800, 19]. He said he knew the king of England could do no wrong, “but I did not know till now that the President of the United States had the same attribute” [1800, 20]. At remarks such as these, vexation surely showed on the faces of the Federalists in the courtroom. Cooper was fined $400 and imprisoned for six months.
United States v. William Durell, involves the printing of such an essay. The defendant, who was a printer from Mount Pleasant, New York, printed an "Answer To The Youths of Philadelphia" comparing President John Adams to the traitor Benedict Arnold. Sedition Act trials, along with the Senate’s use of its contempt powers to suppress dissent, set off a firestorm of criticism against the Federalists and contributed to their defeat in the election of 1800, after which the acts were repealed or allowed to expire. The controversies surrounding them, however, provided for some of the first testings of the limits on freedom of speech and press.
Future iterations of similar legislation that restrained free speech would be struck down through the process of judicial review. Before this, however, speaking out in opposition to governmental policies could have serious legal repercussions.
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