Alien and Sedition Acts

In March 1797, John Adams (1735–1826; served 1797–1801) entered office as the second president of the United States. His term was marked by challenges both internationally, with a war between France and Great Britain, and domestically as political differences grew between members of the Federalist Party and Democratic-Republican Party , the country's two main political parties. In 1798, both tensions culminated in the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts by the Federalist-controlled Congress.

Conflict on the high seas

Great Britain and France were at war over issues related to colonization and commerce. The United States was officially neutral in the war. In 1795, however, the United States had signed a commerce and alliance treaty with Britain called Jay's Treaty . France believed Jay's Treaty was a breach, or violation, of treaties of commerce and alliance that America had signed with France during the American Revolution (1775–83).

In angry response, France began seizing American merchant ships bound for British ports. France forced the sailors on those ships to serve France in its war with Great Britain. American attempts to negotiate peace with France in 1797 resulted in the XYZ Affair . Diplomatic dispatches revealed that three French agents, referred to as X, Y, and Z in the reports, had demanded bribes from the American peace envoy before opening negotiations.

Party politics

Domestic reaction to these foreign affairs emphasized growing philosophical differences between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. While the actions of the French were not popular, many Democratic-Republican Americans still distrusted England and sympathized with the ideals of the French Revolution, by which the people of France overthrew its monarchy in 1789.

Federalists, maintaining their history of antiforeign sentiment, became suspicious of the loyalty of the thousands of French West Indian refugees who flocked into the United States in an effort to escape revolutionary terror. The refugees often aligned themselves with the Democratic-Republicans.

Congress acts

Rallying behind the anti-French sentiment in the wake of the XYZ Affair, in June and July 1798 the Federalists of Congress passed four acts of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. The laws were intended to suppress both alien and domestic subversives, people who opposed the federal government. The Alien and Sedition Acts proved to be convenient tools for undermining the strength of the Democratic-Republican Party as well.

The first of the four laws, called the Naturalization Act, increased the length of residency required before an alien, or foreigner, could apply for American citizenship. Previously the probationary period had been five years. By increasing the period to fourteen years, the Federalists successfully suppressed immigrant citizenship and hence immigrant votes in America, which hurt mostly the Democratic-Republican Party.

Two of the acts were specifically aimed at removing aliens from America. The Alien Friends Act allowed the president to deport any alien suspected of threatening the peace and safety of the United States. The Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to seize, imprison, or deport any aliens, dangerous or not, who were citizens of a country at war with the United States. Neither act was ever enforced, and both expired in 1800.

The Sedition Act proved to be the most controversial and powerful of the acts. Aimed at citizens and aliens alike, the act made it illegal to write, publish, or speak anything of “a false, scandalous, and malicious nature” against the government or the president “with intent to defame … or to bring them into contempt or disrepute.” Acting on behalf of the Adams administration, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (1745–1829) brought more than a dozen indictments, or formal accusations, under the Sedition Act. Ten resulted in convictions, including those against Matthew Lyon (1749–1822), a Democratic-Republican congressman from Vermont , and the editors of eight major Democratic-Republican newspapers.

Backlash

With no public way to criticize the administration or to challenge the Sedition Act, its opponents turned to state legislatures for relief. Thomas Jefferson (1751–1836), who was then vice president, anonymously penned the Kentucky Resolutions as James Madison (1751–1836) drafted the Virginia Resolutions. Both documents emphasized the rights of the states to declare federal laws unconstitutional and to decide when the federal government had overstepped its proper bounds.

While no other states passed official statements of opposition, public support for the Sedition Act eventually began to wane. The trials under the Sedition Act marked an early American confrontation between the power of the federal government and the liberties and free speech that people expected to enjoy in their new nation.

Recognizing that the Federalists may have gone too far, President Adams fired Pickering by May 1800 and no longer urged prosecutions under the Sedition Act. Although he managed to secure peace with France by October 1800, the effects of the Alien and Sedition Acts were profound enough to affect public opinion of the Federalist Party. Vice President Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican candidate for president in the election of 1800, won and was inaugurated the day after the Sedition Act expired by its own terms, on March 3, 1801.