(Source: HUP)
Harvard University Press has published a book
on the history of the US 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the first complete account of prosecutions
under the Alien and Sedition Acts, dozens of previously unknown cases come to
light, revealing the lengths to which the John Adams administration went in
order to criminalize dissent.
The campaign to prosecute dissenting Americans
under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 ignited the first battle over the
Bill of Rights. Fearing destructive criticism and “domestic treachery” by
Republicans, the administration of John Adams led a determined effort to
safeguard the young republic by suppressing the opposition.
The acts gave the president unlimited discretion
to deport noncitizens and made it a crime to criticize the president, Congress,
or the federal government. In this definitive account, Wendell Bird goes
back to the original federal court records and the papers of Secretary of State
Timothy Pickering and finds that the administration’s zeal was far greater than
historians have recognized. Indeed, there were twice as many prosecutions and
planned deportations as previously believed. The government went after local
politicians, raisers of liberty poles, and even tavern drunks but most often
targeted Republican newspaper editors, including Benjamin Franklin’s grandson.
Those found guilty were sent to prison or fined and sometimes forced to sell
their property to survive.
The Alien and Sedition Acts launched a
foundational debate on press freedom, freedom of speech, and the legitimacy of
opposition politics. The result was widespread revulsion over the government’s
attempt to deprive Americans of their hard-won liberties. Criminal
Dissent is a potent reminder of just how fundamental those rights are
to a stable democracy.
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Wendell Bird is
a visiting scholar at Emory University
School of Law and the author of Press and Speech under
Assault: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the
Campaign against Dissent. He holds a D.Phil. in legal history from the
University of Oxford and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
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