History Recap: The Alien and Sedition Acts

I've been doing some history reading recently. I've been learning about the American Revolution--the political atmosphere surrounding it, the men involved with it, and the construction of a country from the ground up that came afterward. It's all very fascinating stuff. And one of the most fascinating things that I've found is a little incident called the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

First, let me give you some background.

In 1798, a few things were going on at once. For one thing, John Adams, a member of the Federalist party, had been elected president and was doing his best, no doubt, to iron out the wrinkles in a government that hadn't quite figured out how to work smoothly yet. For another thing, across the Atlantic Ocean, French peasants were rising up and slaughtering every member of the upper class they could get their hands on, and England was making a stand against the country that killed its own king. The fledgling United States had already made a statement of their neutrality in this conflict under Washington, but the prominent politicians of the day had still taken sides. The Federalist party (Adams's party, if you'll remember), led by Alexander Hamilton, was squarely on the side of the English. The Jeffersonian Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, supported the French.

All this was tumultuous enough for a new country with a new president. But this wasn't all that was going on. You see, because of the aforementioned slaughtering of French aristocracy, many French noblemen and Catholic priests (who were also targeted by the revolutionaries) were fleeing to America. This sudden influx of French refugees/immigrants, combined with statements by the French revolutionaries that they would spread their brand of "freedom" to the rest of the world, made the American government--particularly the Federalists--very nervous.

(Is any of this starting to sound familiar?)

This is the political climate that President John Adams found himself in. And this is the political climate that eventually motivated Mr. Adams to sign four Congressional laws collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.

The Alien Acts encompassed three laws. To summarize, these laws basically stated that the President had the power to deport any foreign immigrant, for any reason. They also made it much harder for foreigners to become American citizens. The Sedition Act was the fourth law, and it made it illegal to publish anything "false, scandalous, or malicious" about the government.

As the Jeffersonian Republicans were quick to point out, these Acts ran roughshod over the First Amendment. Adams & co. ignored these protests; they felt that, given what was going on with the French, these acts were the only way to keep their new country safe. Also, given the amount of muckraking, slander, and attacks the newspapers of the day published against their politicians, the Federalists felt perfectly justified in restricting what could be said about the government.

In the end, no immigrants were deported because of the Alien Acts. Only twenty-five people were arrested for Sedition, and of those people, only eleven were tried and only ten were convicted. (And those ten were pardoned by Jefferson at the start of his presidency.)

However, the fact that these acts were passed at all cast enough of a shadow on the Federalist party to eventually cause their demise. Adams wasn't re-elected after his first term. The Alien and Sedition Acts expired in 1800 and 1801, and Congress didn't try to renew them. The only man who might have rescued the Federalists--Alexander Hamilton--was killed in a duel in 1804. The Federalists faded into obscurity, the Alien and Sedition Acts being their only lasting legacy.

Now, all this makes for a very interesting and even entertaining story, but what's the moral behind it all? What are we to learn?

Well, first of all, the situation with the French revolution has, I would say, several fascinating parallels with our current problem of ISIS and the Syrian refugees. We today also have a problem: evil, bloodthirsty "revolutionaries" are tearing a country apart. Refugees are flooding from that country, trying to find safety in Europe and America. And all those refugees are making our politicians nervous, because what if some terrorists sneak in with all the innocents?

Of course, our government hasn't yet gone as far as the Federalists did in 1798. We haven't totally destroyed our credibility with immigrants and refugees. (Although it's happening. Our immigration system is pretty much shot to hell, and we do already have a strenuous system for vetting refugees.) And we haven't made it illegal to speak against the government.

But I think the Alien and Sedition Acts are something of a cautionary tale, particularly in what they have to say about refugees and immigrants. After all, we're in the midst of a presidential campaign right now, and the Republican candidates seem to enjoy nothing more than promising to deport great swathes of people, or cut off immigration altogether. (You could also argue that the Sedition Acts mirror the current railing against "PC culture", but that's a whole other blog post.) I think these candidates would do well to remember that such actions were what heavily contributed to the destruction of the Federalist party. And I think these candidates would do well to remember that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Thank you.