August 2, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the Alien and Sedition Acts are one of America's most controversial laws ever passed. Dr. Adam Carrington of Hillsdale College tells the story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. In seventeen ninety eight,
the Sedition Act was passed, part of the Alien and
Sedition Acts. Here's Monty Montgomery with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's the summer of seventeen ninety eight. Our nation is
brand new, and our second President, John Adams has just
signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Here's doctor Adam Carrington
of Hillsdale College with more on what that meant.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's plural because there were four of them. There were
two Alien Acts. One of them was called the Alien
Enemies Acts, which gave the president basically unilateral power to
remove adult males that were nationals of countries that we
were currently at war with. The other was known as
(01:04):
just the Alien Act, or sometimes the Alien Friends Act.
It said that even without war, a president could deport
immigrants from another country if he thought that they posed
some sort of threat or danger. The third was the
Naturalization Act, which just extended how long someone that immigrated
(01:26):
to the United States had to wait before applying for citizenship.
It had been five years. This made it fourteen. And
then finally, the Sedition Act, which is actually the most
famous of the group of acts, said that you could
be prosecuted for saying a malicious or slanderous things about
(01:47):
the Congress or the President of the United States, or
also if you were trying to go against the policy
and positions of the United States. Broadly understood.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
These acts passed. It turns out it had a little
bit to do with Adams himself and how our nation
felt about two countries across the Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
To really understand where he was coming from and doing so.
Some people will attribute it to his personality. He tended
to be a fairly prideful man, struggled with vanity, so
maybe he didn't want to be criticized. But it was
actually a lot more than that. Even though you can't
deny that that couldn't have played a part. You have
(02:31):
to understand the broader context in America, and you have
to understand the broader context in the world internationally. America
was caught in a kind of geopolitical conflict between the
two major powers of the time, and the two major
powers if you remember the Cold War, sort of everyone gravitated,
(02:54):
it seemed towards either the United States or Russia. The
equivalent or somewhat equivalent at that time time was France
and England. They were the two big geopolitical powers that
faced off, and American politics itself domestically in many ways.
Its first divide, the first formation of political parties was
(03:17):
based off of should our international policy be more friendly
to France or should it be a little more friendly
to Great Britain. And much of the policy that France
and Great Britain had toward us was depending upon whether
we were being friendly to them. And so what starts
to happen is the Federalist Party that John Adams was
(03:37):
a part of thought that England was a better idea.
The other party that was founded by Thomas Jefferson, who
had lost to Adams in seventeen ninety six, said that
we need to be more friendly to France because the
Federalists are in charge. When the French Revolution happens, they
go and start to make treaties with Great Britain. They
(03:59):
stop paying debts to the new French government, saying they
owed it to the old King of France, not this
new revolutionary government. And what they end up doing is
siting with England over France. This not only enrages the Jeffersonians,
it enrages France. When Adams takes over. Something that starts
(04:19):
up is what's called the Quasi War, where we got
into a conflict with France that was never declared but
involved a lot of French privateers taking out our shipping,
all in reaction to the fact that the France thought
we were not keeping up our obligations to them and
we're going too much for Great Britain. As tensions heat
(04:40):
up with France, the Federalists get more and more worried,
not only about immigrants that might be from France or
like minded countries, but they get really nervous about how
loyal and how on America's side are the Jeffersonians. Are
they going to be too pro French? Are they going
to subvert the American Republic? And so what they end
(05:03):
up doing is implementing first the immigration restrictions and then
the Sedition acts themselves, I think, partly out of fear
for the stability of government, fear of foreign influence, and
worry that the international scene and the power of France
in particular was going to undermine our own system and
our own politics.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The reaction to these laws was fast and negative, at
least on the opposite side of the political debate. And
two founding fathers won. The sitting vice president at the
time penned two political statements in response to it that
were so controversial. George Washington said, if systematically pursued, they
would dissolve the Union or produce coercion.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
The two most famous documents that come out of this
are the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. They were passed by
the state legislatures of those two commonwealths. Partly, they're famous
because Jefferson ghost wrote the Kentucky resil James Madison co
wrote the Virginia Resolution, and that's one of the arguments,
among several others, that they make that this violates the
(06:08):
right to free speech that basically would be used and
was used to punish dissenting opinion and freedom of the press.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
The reason Washington said these statements could potentially dissolve the Union, well,
that was because they also called for states to nullify
or not follow federal law that they saw as contrary
to the Constitution. But if you're wondering who some of
these people who were prosecuted under the Sedition Act were,
here's some examples of rather colorful commentary. They got politicians
(06:39):
and journalists alike arrested in the late seventeen hundreds. Matthew Lyon,
a sitting congressman from Vermont who would later become famous
for attacking another congressman with a fire poker on the
floor of the House, wrote that the Adams administration was
marred by ridiculous pomp and selfish Appa and Luther Baldwin
(07:02):
was indicted, convicted, and fined one hundred dollars for a
drunken incident that occurred during a visit by President Adams
to Newark, New Jersey, upon hearing a gun report during
a parade for Adams yield. I hope it hits Adams
in the butt.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
You know, you look at what was said, and it
really wouldn't strike us as anything that we wouldn't see
on Twitter or on a blog today, and really wouldn't
come to the level that even outrages us now. As
far as discourse, it really was fairly standard, even if
the trolic at times critiques of the President and Congress,
(07:41):
and they didn't make it very far in the courts.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
The Jeffersonian sat is because they didn't try to take
these laws down in them. Instead, they simply waited until
eighteen hundred, an election year.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
The main opponents to these laws really fought the battle
out in the court of public opinion and elections in
state legislatures. It ended up being pretty disastrous for the
Federalist Party as the reality of these acts settled in,
especially the Edition Act, I think it really undermined them.
It helped Jefferson to eke out a fairly narrow victory
(08:17):
in eighteen hundred, but to gain a huge win in Congress. Congress,
the Federalist Party really got decimated in eighteen hundred, and
I think it's partly as a reaction to this, and
what then ended up happening was not only did the
Federalists lose the eighteen hundred election, they really ceased after
that election to be a viable national party. They limped
(08:39):
along for another twelve years or so, but they never
came close to winning the White House again. They never
really came close to winning the House or Senate. They
really became a regional party without much power.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And as expected, the Sedition Act was allowed to expire
when Jefferson took office, followed by the Alien Friends Act,
But that doesn't mean all of the acts were destroyed
by the Jeffersonians.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
The one that is still around that's interesting is a
version of the Alien Enemies Act remains, which again is
the law that says that if we are at war
with a country, nationals from that country can be deported
basically unilaterally. And this was even used by the FDR
(09:27):
administration during World War II. And this is distinct from
the internment camps that are infamous now in American history.
This was actually used on a variety of nationals to
deport them during World War II. So not only did
it that one remain on the book slightly modified, it
was actually used as late as the twentieth century.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But if there's one thing that the Alien and Sedition
Acts and their failure made clear, it's that our own
rights are important.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
The right to speak and write really is central to
a popular government's ability to peacefully adjudicate disputes between each
other rather than either having a tyranny or having a bloodshed.
That you protect speech to protect peace and to protect
the free flow of ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And great job is always to Monty and thanks as
always to Hillsdale College for all they do the story
of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Here on our American
story
And we returned to our American stories. In seventeen ninety eight,
the Sedition Act was passed, part of the Alien and
Sedition Acts. Here's Monty Montgomery with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's the summer of seventeen ninety eight. Our nation is
brand new, and our second President, John Adams has just
signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Here's doctor Adam Carrington
of Hillsdale College with more on what that meant.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's plural because there were four of them. There were
two Alien Acts. One of them was called the Alien
Enemies Acts, which gave the president basically unilateral power to
remove adult males that were nationals of countries that we
were currently at war with. The other was known as
(01:04):
just the Alien Act, or sometimes the Alien Friends Act.
It said that even without war, a president could deport
immigrants from another country if he thought that they posed
some sort of threat or danger. The third was the
Naturalization Act, which just extended how long someone that immigrated
(01:26):
to the United States had to wait before applying for citizenship.
It had been five years. This made it fourteen. And
then finally, the Sedition Act, which is actually the most
famous of the group of acts, said that you could
be prosecuted for saying a malicious or slanderous things about
(01:47):
the Congress or the President of the United States, or
also if you were trying to go against the policy
and positions of the United States. Broadly understood.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
These acts passed. It turns out it had a little
bit to do with Adams himself and how our nation
felt about two countries across the Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
To really understand where he was coming from and doing so.
Some people will attribute it to his personality. He tended
to be a fairly prideful man, struggled with vanity, so
maybe he didn't want to be criticized. But it was
actually a lot more than that. Even though you can't
deny that that couldn't have played a part. You have
(02:31):
to understand the broader context in America, and you have
to understand the broader context in the world internationally. America
was caught in a kind of geopolitical conflict between the
two major powers of the time, and the two major
powers if you remember the Cold War, sort of everyone gravitated,
(02:54):
it seemed towards either the United States or Russia. The
equivalent or somewhat equivalent at that time time was France
and England. They were the two big geopolitical powers that
faced off, and American politics itself domestically in many ways.
Its first divide, the first formation of political parties was
(03:17):
based off of should our international policy be more friendly
to France or should it be a little more friendly
to Great Britain. And much of the policy that France
and Great Britain had toward us was depending upon whether
we were being friendly to them. And so what starts
to happen is the Federalist Party that John Adams was
(03:37):
a part of thought that England was a better idea.
The other party that was founded by Thomas Jefferson, who
had lost to Adams in seventeen ninety six, said that
we need to be more friendly to France because the
Federalists are in charge. When the French Revolution happens, they
go and start to make treaties with Great Britain. They
(03:59):
stop paying debts to the new French government, saying they
owed it to the old King of France, not this
new revolutionary government. And what they end up doing is
siting with England over France. This not only enrages the Jeffersonians,
it enrages France. When Adams takes over. Something that starts
(04:19):
up is what's called the Quasi War, where we got
into a conflict with France that was never declared but
involved a lot of French privateers taking out our shipping,
all in reaction to the fact that the France thought
we were not keeping up our obligations to them and
we're going too much for Great Britain. As tensions heat
(04:40):
up with France, the Federalists get more and more worried,
not only about immigrants that might be from France or
like minded countries, but they get really nervous about how
loyal and how on America's side are the Jeffersonians. Are
they going to be too pro French? Are they going
to subvert the American Republic? And so what they end
(05:03):
up doing is implementing first the immigration restrictions and then
the Sedition acts themselves, I think, partly out of fear
for the stability of government, fear of foreign influence, and
worry that the international scene and the power of France
in particular was going to undermine our own system and
our own politics.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The reaction to these laws was fast and negative, at
least on the opposite side of the political debate. And
two founding fathers won. The sitting vice president at the
time penned two political statements in response to it that
were so controversial. George Washington said, if systematically pursued, they
would dissolve the Union or produce coercion.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
The two most famous documents that come out of this
are the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. They were passed by
the state legislatures of those two commonwealths. Partly, they're famous
because Jefferson ghost wrote the Kentucky resil James Madison co
wrote the Virginia Resolution, and that's one of the arguments,
among several others, that they make that this violates the
(06:08):
right to free speech that basically would be used and
was used to punish dissenting opinion and freedom of the press.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
The reason Washington said these statements could potentially dissolve the Union, well,
that was because they also called for states to nullify
or not follow federal law that they saw as contrary
to the Constitution. But if you're wondering who some of
these people who were prosecuted under the Sedition Act were,
here's some examples of rather colorful commentary. They got politicians
(06:39):
and journalists alike arrested in the late seventeen hundreds. Matthew Lyon,
a sitting congressman from Vermont who would later become famous
for attacking another congressman with a fire poker on the
floor of the House, wrote that the Adams administration was
marred by ridiculous pomp and selfish Appa and Luther Baldwin
(07:02):
was indicted, convicted, and fined one hundred dollars for a
drunken incident that occurred during a visit by President Adams
to Newark, New Jersey, upon hearing a gun report during
a parade for Adams yield. I hope it hits Adams
in the butt.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
You know, you look at what was said, and it
really wouldn't strike us as anything that we wouldn't see
on Twitter or on a blog today, and really wouldn't
come to the level that even outrages us now. As
far as discourse, it really was fairly standard, even if
the trolic at times critiques of the President and Congress,
(07:41):
and they didn't make it very far in the courts.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
The Jeffersonian sat is because they didn't try to take
these laws down in them. Instead, they simply waited until
eighteen hundred, an election year.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
The main opponents to these laws really fought the battle
out in the court of public opinion and elections in
state legislatures. It ended up being pretty disastrous for the
Federalist Party as the reality of these acts settled in,
especially the Edition Act, I think it really undermined them.
It helped Jefferson to eke out a fairly narrow victory
(08:17):
in eighteen hundred, but to gain a huge win in Congress. Congress,
the Federalist Party really got decimated in eighteen hundred, and
I think it's partly as a reaction to this, and
what then ended up happening was not only did the
Federalists lose the eighteen hundred election, they really ceased after
that election to be a viable national party. They limped
(08:39):
along for another twelve years or so, but they never
came close to winning the White House again. They never
really came close to winning the House or Senate. They
really became a regional party without much power.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And as expected, the Sedition Act was allowed to expire
when Jefferson took office, followed by the Alien Friends Act,
But that doesn't mean all of the acts were destroyed
by the Jeffersonians.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
The one that is still around that's interesting is a
version of the Alien Enemies Act remains, which again is
the law that says that if we are at war
with a country, nationals from that country can be deported
basically unilaterally. And this was even used by the FDR
(09:27):
administration during World War II. And this is distinct from
the internment camps that are infamous now in American history.
This was actually used on a variety of nationals to
deport them during World War II. So not only did
it that one remain on the book slightly modified, it
was actually used as late as the twentieth century.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But if there's one thing that the Alien and Sedition
Acts and their failure made clear, it's that our own
rights are important.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
The right to speak and write really is central to
a popular government's ability to peacefully adjudicate disputes between each
other rather than either having a tyranny or having a bloodshed.
That you protect speech to protect peace and to protect
the free flow of ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And great job is always to Monty and thanks as
always to Hillsdale College for all they do the story
of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Here on our American
story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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