Alien and Sedition Acts Main Idea

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. Except for the Native Americans, who said, "Hey, we actually lived here already, and...oh, you're not listening."

While diversity can bring out the best in us, it can also bring out the worst. Not because it's a bad thing…but because people can be sometimes be jerks.

The Alien and Sedition Acts were largely built on the back of xenophobia. For the most part, they restricted the rights of immigrants, making it harder for them to become citizens and easier to get rid of them.

The Sedition Act was a bit of an odd man out, but it comes from some of the same fear. In this case, it's curtailing rights to speak against the government, also known as what the First Amendment to the Constitution explicitly allows us to do.

Questions About Main Idea

1. Is there a situation where the Alien and Sedition Acts could be necessary? Would they have been helpful at any point in history?
2. When is it allowable for the government to restrict rights it previously guaranteed? Ever? If they can be restricted are they truly rights? Why or why not?
3. Is the American attitude toward immigration unrealistic? How about the First Amendment? Are the Alien and Sedition Acts the first attempt to bring the Founders' utopian ideals into the real world? Why or why not?
4. Should the Alien Enemies Act be repealed, or is it a valuable tool in modern warfare? Is it Constitutional and does that matter?

Chew on This

The Alien and Sedition Acts were a shocking power grab by the Federal Government and an object lesson in why we need a careful balance with states' rights.

The Sedition Act is clearly unconstitutional, but none of the others actually violate any precept of the Constitution. This is why we need a new amendment or another way to determine illegality.

The Set-Up

A brewing war with France makes Adams crack down on immigrants and his political enemies. They happened to be a lot of the same people.

The Text

We're dealing with four different texts, all aimed at cracking down on people Adams and the Federalists weren't fond of. Three of them, the Naturalization Act, the Alien Friends Act, and the Alien Enemies Act, go after immigrants. The Sedition Act goes after specific forms of protest that should be protected by the First Amendment.

The Naturalization Act makes it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens. The biggest change is that it would them a lot longer to go through the process—longer in fact, than the country had existed at that time.

The Alien Friends Act allowed the president to deport or imprison people from "friendly" foreign countries, as long as he had some proof they were up to something. The Alien Enemies Act took it a step further to let the president do that to people from countries that the U.S. was at war with. The president didn't even have to prove anything. He could just say, "I just sorta figured this person was trouble," and bam: deported.

The Sedition Act is the most problematic of all the four acts, seeing as it explicitly contradicts the First Amendment.

All that freedom of speech and assembly you thought you had? Well, if it goes against the government, you don't actually have it. Yeesh.

TL;DR

The four acts severely restricted the rights of immigrants and curtailed First Amendment rights for everyone. These bad boys don't exactly go down in history for being awesome texts

1. The Alien and Sedition Acts were a response to an internal immigrant threat that never materialized. Was there a period of history when they were needed?
2. The Alien Enemies Act is the only one of the four Alien and Sedition Acts to stay on the books. Is there any value in it? Should any of them have stayed on the books? If so, which and why?
3. When the Alien and Sedition Acts were enacted, the concept of judicial review (the Supreme Court determining if a law is Constitutional or not) had not really been established. So were the Alien and Sedition Acts Constitutional or not? Does that matter if they are needed?
4. The Naturalization Act increased the number of years for an immigrant to be naturalized. How long should it take? Why?
5. Should immigrants from friendly nations be treated differently than ones from unfriendly nations? What determines unfriendly? Do we have to be at war with them, or is any diplomatic tension enough?
6. Of all the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Sedition Act is the most blatantly unconstitutional. Yet we accept limitations on our First Amendment rights every day. What sort of limits should there be? Any? Why or why not?