The Pros And Cons Of The Alien And Sedition Act

     The first and inargueably the most significant of the amendments to our Constitution is the First Amendment. The amendment that established our freedoms as citizens of our new confederation. The First Amendment insured, among other things, freedom of speech and of the press. Since the establishment of these rights, they have often been in question. People have debated over, "What is too much freedom?", and "When is this

Neil Gaiman once said, “The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed the freedom of speech. Other countries don’t have that.” At the time of the amendments’ creation, a vast majority of operating countries had not yet granted their people such freedoms. Granting every citizen of the United States this right seemed to have been an important landmark in this nation’s history. Along with others, this right is declared to the people in the first amendment of the constitution. The first amendment is the most important because it grants people freedom of speech, prohibits prior restraint, and declares the right to peaceable assembly.

George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of United States of America in 1789 and again in 1792. No political parties existed in America during that time. Founding Fathers including George Washington believed that political parties would be harmful for the young America. They envisioned the politics in the young nation to be cooperative and not competitive. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, political parties had become a reality in the form of Federalist Party and Democratic - Republican Party. The two parties differed in a variety of ways but they especially differed in terms of their foreign relations with European powers. Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton wanted to create a stable economy built on trade favoring the wealthy business owners. Democratic Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, had the interests of poor farmers, and immigrants in their mind. Federalists supported the British against the radical French whereas Republicans preferred to maintain friendly relations with the democratic French against the British. Earlier, in 1794, President George Washington had angered the French leaders when he signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794 settling the differences between the two countries. John Adams, a federalist, was elected the second President of the United States of America in 1797. After taking over as President, he sent American envoys to

Signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts consisted of four laws passed by the Federalist-controlled Congress as America prepared for war with France. These acts increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to fourteen years, authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" and restricted speech critical of the government. These laws were designed to silence and weaken the Democratic-Republican Party. Negative reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts helped contribute to the Democratic-Republican victory in the 1800 elections. Congress repealed the Naturalization Act in 1802, while the other acts were allowed to expire.

A very popular constitutional issue in America is the First Amendment. The First Amendment is meant to protect, but in today’s society it is being questioned that the argument is being overly used. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference (Esmaili). Freedom of religion created the separation of church and state. It prohibits the government from interfering with a person's practice of their religion. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without government interference or regulation. The right of freedom of expression gives the right to assemble and gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. It was adopted into the Bill of Rights in 1791. The Court later interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments. Putting this is layman’s term, you can pretty much say what you want without being penalized.

For example, in the case of Elonis v. United States, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to address this increasingly relevant issue in deciding whether an individual’s Facebook posts qualified as true threats. Elonis was charged in accordance to Section 875(c) of U.S. Law. Section 875(c) governs the class of statements that do not enjoy First Amendment protections because they constitute true threats. As aforementioned previously, while the Supreme Court has upheld the protections of free speech, this trial marks an instance where true threats were declared as a category of speech unprotected by the First Amendment. When analyzing statutory provisions that reference true threats, however, the Court has applied varying intent standards to the crimes, without referencing the First Amendment implications of these statements. (Best 1132) Even so, the significance of Elonis v. United States is unequivocal-the Court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect legitimate or “true” threats, and that any speech that targets or endangers the wellbeing of another is not free speech and can be

The states were in huge national debt to foreign nations and influential private citizens. Wealthy Americans and foreign nations loaned money to America for the Revolutionary War that summed up to about millions of dollars. Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of Treasury, was in charge of strengthening the national government. Hamilton introduced the idea assuming all debts. This caused the Southern States to be enraged because most of them had already paid off their debt, and did not want to pay taxes to pay off the debt of Northern States. The states did not pay the taxes because the Articles of Confederation could not tell the state what to do. Alexander Hamilton proposed a Bank of America that would collect taxes and would be funded by U.S.

America’s bloodiest war fought was on its own soil, and it is known as the Civil War. The road to the Civil War will begin in 1798 with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The Resolutions were drafted as an opposition of the Alien and Sedition Acts signed in by President Adams. These Acts were passed due to a foreseen war with France. The Naturalization Act made it more difficult for an immigrant to become a citizen of the United States by increasing the amount of time it takes to complete citizenship from five years to fourteen years. The Sedition Act forbid public opposition towards the government, which goes against the first amendment in the constitution which states that “Congress shall not prohibit freedom of speech and of the press.” The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed through Congress in 1798 which prompted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions published by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. According to Britannica the Kentucky Resolutions written by Thomas Jefferson declared that the national government did not hold supreme authority and that states would get to decide what is passed within the state and were voted to be invalid while the Virginia Resolutions published by James Madison proclaimed the acts to be unconstitutional because the states have supreme authority over what is occurring in the state.

In 1798 the United States was involved in an undeclared war with France. “The United States again stood on the brink of war with a major European power, only this time instead of Great Britain the hostile nation was France.”(Hay 141) Later on the Federalist Party passed a series of four laws which were called the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Federalists saw foreigners as a deep threat to American security. There were a series of four acts that were adopted to alienate aliens. The first of these acts was the Naturalization Act which was passed by Congress on June 18. This act required that aliens be residents for 14 years instead of 5 years

In 1798, the Federal Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts and presented them as laws meaning to protect the United States from dangerous foreigners during the seemingly imminent war with France but the acts really intended to weaken the Jeffersonian Republicans. These acts also violated the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, making them unconstitutional and unnecessary. The Alien Laws allowed the president to deport anyone he considered to be a dangerous foreigner during peacetime and deport or imprison them during wartime. Additionally, the Sedition Act stated that anyone who hindered the policies of the government or falsely criticized government officials would be fined or imprisoned. Jeffersonians detested these acts because

In 1798, John Adams and many other Federalists alongside him help create an idea that changed the way many Americans viewed the U.S. government. Adams and his group of Federalist introduced the Alien and Sedition Acts to Congress during his first term as President. The ideas of these Acts from Adam’s point of view were to be simple; “the first being an Alien Act, which focused on making the United States more secure from alien (foreign) spies and domestic traitors” . Alongside the Alien Act is the Sedition Act, which would make it illegal for anyone to express any false scandals at or against the United States government. Overall, these Acts had a great impact on not only the citizens of the U.S. but also Congress itself. These Acts greatly

The XYZ affair was basically an incident that almost led to a full out war occurring between France and the United States. This scandal affected the opinion of many U.S citizens and led to the creation of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1789. Ultimately, this affair caused a small naval war between the two countries, but eventually they negotiated and officially ended their conflict in 1800. To begin with, the affair took place during the war between England and France. The French thought of the U.S to be hostile after they signed the Jay’s Treaty of 1794, which basically ended the friction between the U.S and England.

Freedom of expression has always been a heated and heavily debated topic throughout our society, more so in recent times due to the increasing amount of freedoms that we gain. However, it is only natural that free speech be something of extreme amounts of conflict since this right is expressed in the very first amendment of the Constitution. But, how loosely should such an important document within our history be interpreted? This has been a question for years, and it is obvious that this particular amendment presents itself through our day-to-day activities. The real issue with freedom of speech is that, even though it is presented to us, there are obviously people who would abuse it to invoke emotional distress, or even to invoke acts of

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits Congress from passing a law which violates one freedom of speech (Williams and Arrigo, 2012). In 1970, the federal and state courts extended this right of freedom of speech and expression to individuals incarcerated (Mauer, 2016). This required correctional administrators to justify restrictions placed on these rights. In the case of Procunier versus Martinez, prisoners challenged the constitutionality of state regulations covering censorship of prisoner mail (Mauer, 2016). It was on the grounds of free speech which their rights were violated. However, the ruling banned letters containing inmates' criticisms of prison conditions. It proclaimed that the state regulations were unconstitutional.

The next issue is abusive speech and when it is or is not protected by the first amendment. Abusive speech, also known as hate speech, has become more of an issue in the recent years. Hate speech is when speech that is target towards a certain audience, which can racist, sexist, homophobic, and ext. (pg. 196). Because hate speech does not fall under tort law, the court had to create new restrictions of speech. One of the first restrictions the court created was intent to intimidate. Which was created based on the R.A.V v. St. Paul (1992) case where a group of white students had burned a cross onto a black family’s yard (pg. 197). The court first ruled that to file this case under the first amendment was overbroad and did not apply to the first