Sedition Act Trials

American Eras

Sedition Act Trials

Sources

Political Parties. Despite the fears of James Madison and others that factional division would harm the nation, differences of opinion on many important issues—the federal assumption of state debts, the proper scope and use of federal power, the differences between mercantile and agrarian interests—led inevitably to separation along party lines. At the time of George Washington’s retirement those parties were represented by the new president, Federalist John Adams, and the new vice president,

Republican Thomas Jefferson. Although they would renew and maintain a close friendship in their retirement years, the 1797 inauguration of these two men from different regions and parties highlighted the deep divisions of the nation.

National Mood. The Federalists controlled both the presidency and the Congress. They had their fill of published attacks on President Adams, and they sought to control as best they could the political dialogue throughout the nation. Their efforts were aided by public fears aroused by the new French government. Flush with its own revolutionary spirit, France flexed its muscle on the high seas, seizing American ships in an effort to intimidate the new nation to support French interests in the Western Hemisphere. When Adams sent a delegation of ministers to France in 1797 to negotiate a resolution of these issues, they were met by demands for bribes. This crass attempt to extort bribes for peace was met in America with great public anger toward France. The American envoy Charles Pinckney was so appalled by the demand for money that he dismissed a corrupt French minister with the words “no, no, not a sixpence.” As the rally cry “millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute” went out across the nation, the time was ripe for strong measures. Anti-France feelings reached a fever pitch, and many Americans looked inward for protection. A general sense of insecurity, understandable for a young nation with no great navy or standing army, led to strong fears of, and feelings against, aliens.

Alien and Sedition Acts. The Federalists in Congress acted quickly. In 1798 Congress enacted four laws designed to protect the nation from foreign and domestic enemies. (The statutes also served the purpose of hurting membership in the Republican Party since many immigrants joined that group). The Naturalization Act raised the probationary period for immigrants from five years to fourteen, making immigration less appealing. The Alien Enemies Act empowered the president, in the event of war or threatened invasion, to seize, imprison, or deport all aliens who were citizens of the enemy nation. The Alien Friends Act gave the president vast powers over resident aliens, including the right to deport any alien suspected of being a threat to the United States. Finally, the Sedition Act was directed toward American citizens. It imposed penalties including fines and imprisonment on anyone who wrote, published, or spoke in a “false, scandalous, and malicious” way against “the government of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame … or to bring them into contempt or disrepute.” In some ways the Sedition Act was ahead of its time. An individual accused of sedition could use the truth of his remarks as a defense, anticipating the twentieth-century evolution of defamation law. In this sense the Sedition Act was a moderation of English common law, which did not recognize truth as a defense. Many Federalists believed that the act encouraged responsible free speech by specifically limiting its application to those cases where malicious intent could be shown.

Free Speech. While the Sedition Act may have been more liberal than the common law, it was nevertheless contrary to the near absolute freedom of speech which was guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Not every Federalist supported the Sedition Act. George Washington reported his misgivings, and John Marshall wrote that the act was “viewed by a great many well-meaning men as unwarranted by the Constitution.” It offended the uniquely American sense of liberty. The hard-fought battles of the Revolution, and the equally hard fought political battle to pass a Constitution tempered by a Bill of Rights, set the stage for a major confrontation on the Sedition Act’s limitations on speech.

The Trials. The Federalist administration brought fourteen indictments under the act, ten of which resulted in conviction and punishment. These trials of leading Republican newspaper editors, and one member of Congress, revealed a darker side of the effort to build a nation. Perhaps the most prominent case was that of the Vermont congressman Matthew Lyon, a controversial and combative figure. When Connecticut Federalist congressman Roger Griswold mocked Lyon’s military record, the Vermont congressman spat in Griswold’s face. Known as “the beast of Vermont” and the “spitting Lyon,” congressional Federalists sought to expel him from Congress but could not muster the necessary two-thirds vote to do so. Lyon responded with personal attacks on President Adams published in the Spooner’s Vermont Journal. He accused Adams of having “an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, or selfish avarice.” Lyon was tried and convicted of sedition by a federal jury in Rutland, Vermont, on 8 October 1798. He spent four months in prison and was required to pay a $1, 000 fine. Nevertheless, the Federalists had made a huge political error. They transformed a congressional renegade into a martyr for free speech. The conviction did not have a negative effect on Lyon’s political career; he was reelected to Congress from his jail cell and continued to be a scourge toward the Federalists.

Federalists Overreact. On some occasions ordinary citizens found themselves ensnared by the Sedition Act. Daniel Brown, an eccentric pamphleteer, erected a liberty pole in Dedham, Massachusetts, and posted a spirited challenge to the Sedition Act on the pole. Charged with sedition, Brown was tried before Justice Samuel Chase in June 1799. Chase announced that “There is nothing we should more dread than … licentiousness.” Brown pleaded guilty and received the heaviest penalty under the Sedition Act: a $450 fine and eighteen months in jail. Unable to pay his fine, Brown was kept in prison for two years before being released on the authority of President Thomas Jefferson. In Newark, New Jersey, a town drunk was charged with violating the Sedition Act for remarks made about the president while drinking in a local tavern.

Callender. The trial that ended up having the most long-lasting repercussions was that of James Thomson Callender, a Republican pamphleteer. A hard drinker, Callender hated the Federalist government and all its allies, mocking the social order with wild charges and character assassinations. Callender’s charges were hurled with reckless abandon. He called Alexander Hamilton “the Judas Iscariot of our country” and John Adams a “hoary-headed incendiary.” The last straw for the Federalists was Callender’s book The Prospect Before Us (1800), a political tract which heaped abuse on the Supreme Court and President Adams, at one point referring to him as “a repulsive pendant, a gross hypocrite, and an unprincipled oppressor.” It was no surprise when Callender was indicted for violating the Sedition Act. In Samuel Chase’s courtroom Callender’s fate was sealed. Chase refused to allow Callender to place the Sedition Act’s constitutionality before the jury and refused to hear testimony from a witness favorable to Callender. Chase allowed a juror who had already stated his belief in Callender’s guilt to sit on the jury, and Callender was found guilty of sedition, fined $200, and sentenced to nine months in prison. President Jefferson pardoned him in 1801, but Callender was a broken man, consumed by hate and an addiction to alcohol. He was found dead in the James River in Richmond, Virginia, in July 1803, an apparent suicide.

Return to Normalcy. The Sedition Act did not repress the natural inclination of most Americans to think and speak freely about their government. If anything, it portrayed President Adams and his fellow Federalists as enemies of liberty and the free and open dialogue that people expected to enjoy in their new nation. Adams was concerned that Federalist partisans may have gone too far, and he eventually stopped prosecuting citizens under the act. Jefferson, understanding the strength of the national animosity toward the Federalist laws, counseled a “little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true principles.” His prophecy proved true. Ill feelings lingered, and Adams and his party were not returned to office by the elections of 1800. The Sedition Act expired by its own terms on 3 March 1801.

Sources

John C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951);

Miller, The Federalist Era (New York: Harper & Row, 1960);

Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970);

William H. Rehnquist, Grand Inquests (New York: Morrow, 1992).

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