Definition
During the Quasi-War with France, the Federalist Congress passed four laws in June and July 1798. The Naturalization Act raised the wait for citizenship from five years to fourteen, and two Alien Acts let the president deport noncitizens he judged dangerous and detain enemy nationals in wartime. On July 14, President Adams signed the Sedition Act, which made it a crime to publish false, scandalous and malicious writing against the government, Congress or the president, but not the vice president, Thomas Jefferson. Nearly everyone charged under it was a Democratic-Republican editor, printer or supporter, and Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont received a four-month jail sentence and a fine of one thousand dollars, then won re-election while he was still in jail.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Federalists aimed the acts at immigrants, who mostly backed the Republicans, and at Republican critics, who said the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment. The acts are a main example of the 1790s struggle over the balance between liberty and order, and they prompted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, in which Jefferson and Madison argued that the acts were unconstitutional and that the Union was a compact among the states. Questions ask students what the acts were designed to do and how the Republicans responded. The backlash helped Jefferson win the election of 1800; the Sedition Act expired in 1801, Jefferson pardoned people convicted under it, and Congress restored the five-year wait for citizenship in 1802.
In the sources
“an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice.”
Connections
- XYZ Affair: the scandal whose war fever led Federalists to pass the acts
- Bill of Rights: Republicans said the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment
- Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions: the resolutions Jefferson and Madison drafted in secret, declaring the acts unconstitutional
- Election of 1800: the vote in which Republicans defeated the party that passed the acts