The Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by President John Adams and the Federalist-controlled Congress in 1798 that restricted immigration and free speech in the United States. Framed by the Federalist Party as a necessary measure to protect national security during the Quasi-War (1798-1800), the acts were deeply controversial and were challenged as being unconstitutional.
The acts were passed in response to heightening tensions between the United States and Revolutionary France in the aftermath of the XYZ Affair. Concerned by the recent influx of French and Irish émigrés, whose loyalties were considered questionable, the Federalist Party enacted three 'alien' acts during the summer of 1798. The first was the Naturalization Act, which increased the amount of time an immigrant must live in the United States before being eligible for citizenship from 5 to 14 years. Next came the Alien Friends Act, which allowed the president to deport any non-citizen he deemed to be a threat to national security. This was supplemented by the Alien Enemies Act, in which non-citizens hailing from a country at war with the United States could arbitrarily be detained or deported; the Enemies Act remains in effect today and has been invoked several times, most notably during the world wars of the 20th century. Finally, the Sedition Act criminalized the printing of material considered to be "false, scandalous, or malicious" about the president or the US government.
The Alien and Sedition Acts caused a major uproar, with members of the Democratic-Republican Party (Jeffersonian Democrats) condemning them as unconstitutional. Although no one ended up being arrested or deported under the Alien Acts, several people were arrested, tried, and convicted under the Sedition Act, accused of printing material critical of the Federalist-controlled government. Vice President Thomas Jefferson, leader of the opposition, denounced this as a clear violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and press. The backlash against the Alien and Sedition Acts helped Jefferson win the presidency during the election of 1800 and forever stained the reputation of the Federalists, who would never again win the presidency or enjoy the heights of power they had achieved in 1798.
Background
By the late 1790s, the United States was experiencing a deep partisan rift. The nationalist Federalist Party championed a strong national government, big banks, and a build-up of the American military. In international affairs, Federalists tended to support Great Britain, which they regarded as a natural ally to the US and condemned the radicalism of the concurrent French Revolution (1789-1799). Their rival Democratic-Republican Party (Jeffersonian Democrats), by contrast, emerged in favor of decentralized government and republicanism and denounced the Federalists as too aristocratic. They supported the French Republic and rejected the influence of Britain, which they feared would only lead to a re-emergence of monarchism in the United States. Despite President George Washington's Farewell Address, in which he warned against such partisanship, the divide between the two factions had only widened since Washington left office in March 1797. By the start of John Adams' presidency, each party viewed the other as an existential threat to the country.
President Adams was a Federalist, the only member of that party to ever occupy the presidency. But he was not as radical as the Hamiltonian wing of the party and was not as averse to dealing with France as some of his party may have been. This was significant since, at the time Adams was inaugurated in March 1797, the United States and Revolutionary France were on the brink of war. The French Republic was already at war with Britain and had interpreted the signing of the Jay Treaty – a controversial commercial agreement between the US and Britain – as a British-American alliance. In retaliation, French privateers began attacking neutral American shipping in late 1796, arguing that any American ship carrying British cargo was liable to be seized as a valid prize. Within a year, French privateers had captured nearly 300 American ships and had mistreated their crews. While many Federalists clamored for war, President Adams preferred negotiation. In the autumn of 1797, he dispatched three envoys to Paris – John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney – to assert American neutrality in the ongoing French Revolutionary Wars and to hopefully restore relations between the US and France.
This diplomatic mission failed. In an incident known as the XYZ Affair, French agents refused to open negotiations unless the United States agreed to pay a large bribe, resorting to thinly veiled threats once the American envoys resisted the notion. On 5 March 1798, President Adams told Congress that negotiations had failed and, shortly thereafter, requested a build-up of the American army and navy. The aging former President Washington was pulled out of his retirement at Mount Vernon and named commander-in-chief of the American army, which was being organized by the Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton. American and French frigates clashed on the high seas; although this conflict, the Quasi-War, never wound up escalating beyond limited naval skirmishes, for a time it seemed as though France and the United States were on the brink of a major war.
In the months after the details of the XYZ Affair were published, the American public were firmly behind the Federalists; Adams reached the height of his popularity in mid-1798, allowing him and the Federalists to begin their military build-up program practically unimpeded. The blatant disrespectful behavior of the French agents left the Democratic-Republicans with little ammunition, giving them little recourse but to stand to the side and announce that the country was making a bad decision by going to war with France. This was the context – deep partisan rivalry and the looming threat of war – that led Adams and the Federalists to create the Alien and Sedition Acts, policies that ultimately helped lead to the decline of the Federalist Party itself.
The Alien Acts
President Adams and his Federalist supporters considered the Alien and Sedition Acts to be war measures, necessary for the security of the country. By 1798, there were an estimated 25,000 French émigrés in the United States. Many of them were aristocrats who had fled from the Reign of Terror, others were refugees from the slave uprisings of the ongoing Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). This influx of French-speaking people had led to an increase in the visibility of the French language and culture. In Philadelphia, there was a growing number of French newspapers, bookstores, schools, and restaurants. At the same time, there were growing waves of Irish immigrants, who were fleeing from the carnage of the British repression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Neither the French nor the Irish immigrants were too fond of the British, which meant, by extension, they were not too supportive of the Federalists and their pro-British policies either. With war brewing on the horizon, any of these immigrants could potentially lend support to France as agents.
President Adams decided to respond to this threat – be it real or only imagined – first with the Naturalization Act of 18 June 1798. This increased the period of time that a foreigner had to reside in the US before qualifying for citizenship, from five years to fourteen years. Additionally, all foreigners who entered the US were now required to register with a district court within 48 hours of arrival in the country. The Naturalization Act was quickly followed by the 'Act Concerning Aliens', better known as the Alien Friends Act, which was passed on 25 June 1798. This act allowed the president to deport any non-citizen whom he judged to be "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" (quoted in Wood, 249). Any foreigner who refused to leave the country would face imprisonment of up to three years and would be permanently banned from achieving citizenship. The Alien Friends Act was widely opposed by the Democratic-Republicans, with Vice President Thomas Jefferson denouncing it as "a most detestable thing…worthy of the 8th or 9th century" (ibid).
The Alien Friends Act was supplemented by the Alien Enemies Act, passed on 6 July 1798. This act differed from the Friends Act by targeting non-citizens who came from nations actively at war with the United States; according to this policy, the president could detain or deport any male non-citizens who came from a hostile nation. Unlike the other Alien and Sedition Acts, the Alien Enemies Act enjoyed bipartisan support and is the only one of the four acts to remain in effect today. It was invoked during periods of war in the 19th and 20th centuries, most notably during the Second World War, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese Americans.
Sedition Act
Having dealt with potential spies and agents amongst the immigrant population, the Federalists could next turn toward their American-born foes. During the previous decade, newspapers had become vital instruments of democracy; Americans were the largest newspaper-reading populace in the world, meaning that partisan papers had the potential to greatly impact public opinion and elections. Benjamin Franklin Bache, Benjamin Franklin's grandson and one of the most influential printers of his time, believed that the press provided a "constitutional check upon the conduct of public servants" (Wood, 253); because elected officials were not always transparent with their constituents, many Americans relied on papers like Bache's Philadelphia Aurora to fill them in on what was going on. As a result, American citizens often built their political identities off the kinds of papers they were consuming, leading many to identify even closer with one party over the other.
The Federalists had already been wary of this arrangement. It was too reminiscent of the inflammatory newspapers of the French Jacobins and kindled fears that the United States was becoming too democratic. Some Democratic-Republican papers, including Bache's Aurora, often printed material critical of the Federalist-dominated government that certainly would have been considered seditious in the days of British rule. Many Democratic-Republican papers did not hesitate to compare the haughty Federalists to the aristocrats of the French Revolution, accusing them of looking down upon "the honest laborer as a distinct animal of an inferior species" (Wood, 254). Adams was mocked as 'His Rotundity' and accused of being a war hawk, with other prominent Federalists similarly derided. At a time when politics was closely linked to personal honor, the Federalists found this behavior abhorrent. Additionally, they viewed the Democratic-Republican papers as a rabble-rousing challenge to authority, particularly dangerous during a time of war.
This was the reasoning behind the Sedition Act, passed by the Federalist-dominated Congress on 14 July 1798 by a narrow margin of 44 to 41. The Sedition Act made it a crime to "write, publish, or print…any false, scandalous, and malicious writings" about the government, Congress, or president of the United States. Any such attempt to "excite against them…the hatred of the good people of the United States" would result in a fine of up to $2,000 and a prison sentence of up to two years (Wood, 259). Notably, the Sedition Act did not protect the vice president from criticism – at the time, the vice president was Thomas Jefferson, leader of the Democratic-Republicans and one of the most outspoken opponents of Federalist policy. The Sedition Act may not have been extreme compared to similar policies in effect in other countries – in Britain, for example, citizens were being exiled to Australia for 14 years for having spoken out against the war with France (ibid). The Sedition Act was also not intended to be permanent and was set to expire in 1801. However, the act nevertheless blatantly disregarded the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protected freedom of speech and press.
Reactions & Arrests
Although the Federalists claimed the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary for national security during a time of war, the Democratic-Republicans were horrified by what they saw as an unconstitutional power grab. They insisted that a free press was necessary for a healthy democracy and called on all good Americans to resist the "reign of witches", as Jefferson called the Federalist government. The Democratic-Republicans feared that the Alien and Sedition Acts were the first step of a Federalist coup – next, they would make the office of the presidency hereditary and then allow senators to serve for life. Some even feared that the Federalists meant to restore George III of Great Britain, or that Hamilton, who was still outfitting the US Army for war with France, might turn that army around on them. The Federalists, for their part, brushed off these concerns and accused the Jeffersonian Democrats of fearmongering, seeing this as proof that the Democratic-Republicans had become infected by "the contagion of the French mania" (ibid).
Prior to the enactment of the Alien Friends Act, some nervous French émigrés began leaving the country, sailing back to France or Saint-Domingue (Haiti). Many of those who stayed were kept under surveillance, on the orders of Secretary of State Timothy Pickering. But no arrests or deportations were ultimately made under the Alien Friends Act. The same could not be said for the Sedition Act; in all, 25 people were arrested and 17 were indicted on charges of 'seditious libel'. Benjamin Franklin Bache was among the first to be arrested; his attorneys were still challenging the legality of the arrest when Bache died of yellow fever in September 1798. Another Democratic-Republican printer, James Callendar, was also arrested; the Scottish-born Callendar had done much to stir up outrage around the Reynolds Affair, a damaging sex scandal involving the Federalists' darling, Alexander Hamilton. Callendar was brought to trial before Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, who hounded his defense attorneys and forbade them from calling witnesses. It was unsurprising, then, that Callendar was found guilty and was sentenced to nine months imprisonment and a $200 fine.
In November 1798, a man named David Brown was arrested for having set up a liberty pole denouncing the Federalists. Condemned as a "wandering apostle of sedition", Brown was hauled before Justice Chase, who demanded he name those who assisted him; when Brown refused, he was fined $480 and handed an 18-month prison sentence, the most severe sentence to be given under the Sedition Act. Even members of Congress were not safe from the Federalists' wrath; Matthew Lyon, a Democratic-Republican congressman from Vermont, was arrested for writing an essay condemning the Alien and Sedition Acts. Sentenced to four months imprisonment, Lyon continued to critique the Federalists from his jail cell, turning him into a sort of martyr for the Democratic-Republican cause.
As the most vocal Democratic-Republican writers were facing jail time, Vice President Jefferson refused to remain silent. Along with his ally James Madison, he authored resolutions that were eventually adopted by the state legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. Both resolutions condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts as unjust and unconstitutional and urged American citizens to fight against them through elections. However, the Kentucky Resolution took things a step further; in it, Jefferson asserted that states have the right to nullify a federal law. This assertion itself was unconstitutional and was viewed as too radical by the other states, ten of which denounced the Kentucky Resolution. However, the fact that Jefferson – himself a part of the Adams Administration, however loosely involved – so openly opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts gave the Federalists' enemies a clear leader to rally around as the US Presidential Election of 1800 drew near.
Effect on the 1800 Election
In 1800, the crisis that had precipitated the Alien and Sedition Acts – the Quasi-War – was over. An agreement was reached between the Adams Administration and the new French government headed by Napoleon Bonaparte, and tensions between France and the US quickly de-escalated. By then, Adams' first presidential term was coming to an end, and the backlash to the Alien and Sedition Acts had left him, and the Federalists in general, unpopular. Indeed, Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans turned the acts and their unconstitutionality into a key issue of the election, which likely helped Jefferson win the presidency.
Three of the Alien and Sedition Acts – all but the Alien Enemies Act – expired before Adams left office, but they nevertheless remained a dark stain on the Federalists' reputation; even to this day, the Federalist Party is mainly remembered for these controversial policies. The Federalists would never again win the presidency, and their influence would steadily decay over the next decades until the 1820s, when the last remnants of the party would dissolve. While the decline of the Federalist Party cannot be attributed wholly to the unpopularity of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the controversy still played a large part in their subsequent fall from grace.
