Editing Alien and Sedition Acts (section)

=== Sedition Act ===
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| shorttitle = Sedition Act
| longtitle = An Act in addition to the act, entitled "An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States"
| nickname = 
| enacted by = 5th
| announced in = <!--like "enacted by" but for proposed/unpassed legislation-->
| effective date = 
| cite public law = {{USPL|5|74}}
| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|1|596}}
| acts amended = 
| acts repealed = 
| title amended = <!--US code titles changed-->
| sections created = 
| sections amended = 
| leghisturl = 
| introducedin = 
| introducedbill = 
| introducedby = 
| introduceddate = 
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| passedbody1 = 
| signedpresident = John Adams
| signeddate = July 14, 1798
| amendments = 
| SCOTUS cases = 
| statsvol = 1
| passeddate1 = 
| passedvote1 = 
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}}
The Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Sedition Act<ref>{{cite web |date=14 July 1798 |title=An Act in addition to the act, entitled, "An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States" |url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=719 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190719162526/https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=719 |archive-date=July 19, 2019 |access-date=September 16, 2019 |website=memory.loc.gov |publisher=[[U.S. Library of Congress]] |id=Sess II, Chap. 74; 5th Congress}}</ref> by a vote of 44 to 41.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Sedition Act, 1798 {{!}} Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/sedition-act-1798 |website=www.gilderlehrman.org |access-date=25 October 2023 |archive-date=November 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231112201847/https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/sedition-act-1798 |url-status=live }}</ref> The legislation made it illegal to print “false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States.”<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Andonian |first=Raffi |title=The Adamant Patriot: Benjamin Franklin Bache as Leader of the Opposition Press {{!}} Penn State University Libraries |url=https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/unearthing-past-student-research-pennsylvania-history/adamant-patriot-benjamin#:~:text=One%20month%20later,%20in%20June,this%20point%20in%20June,%20it |access-date=2025-04-13 |website=libraries.psu.edu |language=en}}</ref>

The act was used to suppress speech critical of the Adams administration, including the prosecution and conviction of many [[Early American publishers and printers#Newspapers and the Alien and Sedition Acts|Jeffersonian newspaper owners]] who disagreed with the Federalist Party.<ref name="acons">{{cite book |last1=Gillman |first1=Howard |title=American Constitutionalism |last2=Graber |first2=Mark A. |last3=Whittington |first3=Keith E. |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-19-975135-8 |location=New York City |page=174 |author3-link=Keith Whittington}}</ref>
The Sedition Act did not extend enforcement to speech about the Vice President, as then-incumbent Thomas Jefferson was a political opponent of the Federalist-controlled Congress. The Sedition Act was allowed to expire in 1800, and its enactment is credited with helping Jefferson win the presidential election that year.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Lendler |first=Marc |date=2004 |title='Equally Proper at All Times and at All Times Necessary': Civility, Bad Tendency, and the Sedition Act |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=419–444 |jstor=4141440 |issn=0275-1275}}</ref>{{Sfn|Martin|2010|p=81}}

Prominent prosecutions under the Sedition Act included:
* [[Benjamin Franklin Bache]], editor of the ''[[Philadelphia Aurora]]'', a Democratic-Republican newspaper, was the first to be arrested under the Sedition Act. In 1798, he was charged with libelling President Adams ("the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, querulous Adams") whom he had accused of nepotism and monarchical ambition<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gruberg |first=Matin |date=2009 |title=Benjamin Franklin Bache |url=https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/benjamin-franklin-bache/ |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=The Free Speech Center |language=en-US}}</ref> and against whom he had supported the French position in the [[XYZ Affair|XYZ affair]].<ref name=":12" /> Released on bail, he died of [[yellow fever]] before trial.{{r|miller|page1=27–29, 65, 96}}
* In 1799, [[William Duane (journalist)|William Duane]], Bache successor at the ''Aurora,'' twice faced charges under the Sedition Act: for his purported instigation of a "United Irish riot" in Philadelphia,<ref name=":822">{{Cite thesis |last=MacGiollabhui |first=Muiris |title=Sons of Exile: The United Irishmen in Transnational Perspective 1791-1827 |publisher=UC Santa Cruz (Thesis) |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75x28210 |pages=94–95, 198 |year=2019}}</ref>{{rp|107–111}} and for an editorial that intimated that [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] had used intrigue to exert its influence with the Adams administration. In both instances, the prosecution case collapsed.<ref>Smith, James Morton (1956), ''Freedom's Fetters'', Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, p. 287.</ref> 
* [[Matthew Lyon]], a Democratic-Republican congressman from [[Vermont]], was the first individual to contest charges under the Alien and Sedition Acts in court.<ref name=":0" /> He was indicted in 1800 for an essay he had written in the ''Vermont Journal,'' where he had accused the administration of "ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." While awaiting trial, Lyon commenced publication of ''Lyon's Republican Magazine'', subtitled "The Scourge of Aristocracy." At trial, he was fined $1,000, and sentenced to four months in jail. After his release, he returned to Congress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Give Me Liberty! |publisher=W.W. Norton and Company |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-393-93257-7 |pages=282–283}}</ref>{{r|miller|page1=102–108}} 
* [[James T. Callender]], a Scottish pamphleteer who had fled to the United States after becoming embroiled in controversy due to publishing an anti-war and anti-corruption tract. Living first in [[Philadelphia]], then seeking refuge close by in [[Virginia]], he wrote a book titled ''The Prospect Before Us'' (read and approved by Vice President Jefferson before publication), in which he called the Adams administration a "continual tempest of malignant passions," and referred to the President as a "repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite, and an unprincipled oppressor." Callender, already residing in Virginia and writing for the ''[[Richmond Examiner]]'', was indicted in mid-1800 under the Sedition Act, and was subsequently convicted, fined $200, and sentenced to nine months in jail.<ref name="miller">
{{cite book |last=Miller |first=John C. |url=https://archive.org/details/crisisinfreedoma0000mill |title=Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts |publisher=Little Brown and Company |year=1951 |location=New York |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|211–220}} 
* [[Anthony Haswell (printer)|Anthony Haswell]] was an English immigrant, and a printer of the Jeffersonian ''[[Vermont Gazette]]''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Tyler |first=Resch |title=Anthony Haswell |url=http://www.benningtonmuseum.org/anthony-haswell.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402201213/http://www.benningtonmuseum.org/anthony-haswell.html |archive-date=2 April 2016 |website=Bennington Museum}}</ref> Sourced from the ''Philadelphia Aurora'', Haswell had reprinted Bache's claim that the federal government employed [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Tories]]. Haswell also published an advertisement from Lyon's sons for a lottery to raise money for his fine that decried Lyon's oppression by jailers exercising "usurped powers".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wharton |first=Francis |url=https://archive.org/details/statetrialsunit00whargoog |title=State Trials of the United States during the administrations of Washington and Adams |publisher=Carey and Hart |year=1849 |location=Philadelphia |pages=[https://archive.org/details/statetrialsunit00whargoog/page/683/mode/2up 684]–685}}</ref> Haswell was found guilty of seditious libel by judge [[William Paterson (judge)|William Paterson]], and sentenced to a two-month imprisonment and a $200 fine.<ref name="Perilous">
{{cite book |last=Stone |first=Geoffrey R. |url=https://archive.org/details/periloustimesfre00ston |title=Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-393-05880-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/periloustimesfre00ston/page/63 63]–64 |url-access=registration}}</ref>
* Luther Baldwin was indicted, convicted, and fined $100 for a drunken incident that occurred during a visit by President Adams to Newark, New Jersey. Upon hearing a gun report during a parade, he yelled "I hope it hit Adams in the [backside]."<ref>
{{citation |last=Smith |first=James Morton |title=Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American civil liberties |pages=270–274 |year=1956 |location=Ithaca, NY |publisher=Cornell University Press}}
</ref>{{r|miller|page1=112–14}}
* In November 1798, [[David Brown (Massachusetts protester)|David Brown]] led a group in [[Dedham, Massachusetts]], including [[Benjamin Fairbanks]], in setting up a [[liberty pole]] with the words, "No [[Stamp Act 1765|Stamp Act]], No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President; Long Live the Vice President."<ref name="Perilous" /><ref name="American">
{{cite book |last=Tise |first=Larry E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T1F1H2KUj80C&pg=PA421 |title=The American Counterrevolution: a Retreat from Liberty, 1783–1800 |publisher=Stackpole Books |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-8117-0100-6 |pages=420–421}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Curtis |first=Michael Kent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_VOeQqUhTAsC&pg=PA88 |title=Free speech, "the people's darling privilege": Struggles for freedom of expression in American history |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8223-2529-1 |page=88}}</ref> Brown was arrested in Andover, Massachusetts, but because he could not afford the $4,000 bail, he was taken to Salem for trial.<ref name="American" /> Brown was tried in June 1799.<ref name="Perilous" /> Brown pleaded guilty, but Justice [[Samuel Chase]] asked him to name others who had assisted him.<ref name="Perilous" /> Brown refused, was fined $480 ({{Inflation|US|480|1800|r=-2|fmt=eq}}),<ref name="American" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Simon |first=James F. |url=https://archive.org/details/whatkindofnation00simo |title=What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-684-84871-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/whatkindofnation00simo/page/55 55] |url-access=registration}}
</ref> and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, the most severe sentence imposed under the Sedition Act.<ref name="Perilous" /><ref name="American" />
The Sedition Act, which was signed into law by Adams on July 14, 1798, had been passed by Federalist-controlled Congress only after multiple amendments including a provision that it automatically expire in March 1801.<ref name="Weisberger" />

The Alien and Sedition Acts were never appealed to the Supreme Court, whose power of [[judicial review]] was not established until ''[[Marbury v. Madison]]'' in 1803. Subsequent mentions in Supreme Court opinions beginning in the mid-20th century have assumed that the Sedition Act would today be found unconstitutional.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Alien and Seditions Act {{!}} American Experience |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-alien-and-seditions-act/ |access-date=2022-07-13 |website=PBS |language=en}}</ref>