Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
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Source: National Archives
So, at the MSG rally TSF just said he’s going to bring this back if elected. So much wrong with this I don know where to start, so give it a read and let’s keep this monster out of the Whit House!!(as if we needed another reason!)
“As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, authorized the president to deport "aliens," and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime. The Sedition Act made it a crime for American citizens to "print, utter, or publish...any false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the government.
The laws were directed against Democratic-Republicans, the party typically favored by new citizens. The only journalists prosecuted under the Sedition Act were editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers.
Sedition Act trials, along with the Senate's use of its contempt powers to suppress dissent, set off a firestorm of criticism against the Federalists and contributed to their defeat in the election of 1800, after which the acts were repealed or allowed to expire. The controversies surrounding them, however, provided for some of the first tests of the limits of freedom of speech and press.”
Read more: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/alien-and-sedition-acts#:~:text=Passed%20in%20preparation%20for%20an,brink%20of%20war%20with%20France.
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