The Crisis of 1798: Sedition

Republican newspaper editors criticized President John Adams with such venomous insults that civil war appeared possible. Federalists in Congress thus criminalized seditious words as a means to preserve the country. Republicans just redoubled their opposition.

DOCUMENT 1

Abigail Adams Complains of Sedition, 1798

A beleaguered Abigail Adams called repeatedly in letters to her sister for a sedition law to silence Benjamin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Aurora.

(April 26): . . . Yet dairingly do the vile incendaries keep up in Baches paper the most wicked and base, voilent & caluminiating abuse. . . . But nothing will have an Effect until congress pass a Sedition Bill. . . . (April 28): . . . We are now wonderfully popular except with Bache & Co who in his paper calls the President old, querilous, Bald, blind, cripled, Toothless Adams. . . . (May 10): . . . This Bache is cursing & abusing daily. If that fellow . . . is not surpressd, we shall come to a civil war. . . . (May 26): . . . I wish the Laws of our Country were competant to punish the stirer up of sedition, the writer and Printer of base and unfounded calumny. . . . (June 19): . . . In any other Country Bache & all his papers would have been seazd and ought to be here, but congress are dilly dallying about passing a Bill enabling the President to seize suspisious persons, and their papers.

Source: Excerpts from New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788–1801, edited by Stewart Mitchell. Copyright © 1947 by The American Antiquarian Society. Copyright © renewed 1974 by The American Antiquarian Society. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

DOCUMENT 2

The Sedition Act of 1798

On July 14, Congress made sedition with malicious intent a federal crime.

SECTION 1. . . . if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States . . . , or to intimidate or prevent any person holding . . . office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly. . . , he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and on conviction . . . shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term not less than six months nor exceeding five years. . . .

SEC. 2. . . . If any person shall write, print, utter or publish . . . , any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government . . . or to bring them . . . into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them . . . the hatred of the good people of the United States . . . , then such person, being thereof convicted . . . shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

Source: Excerpted text from congressional bill, July 14, 1798.

DOCUMENT 3

Matthew Lyon Criticizes John Adams, 1798

Matthew Lyon, congressman from Vermont, criticized Adams and was charged with sedition. Handed a four-month sentence and a fine of $1,000, Lyon ran for reelection from his cell—and won.

. . . Whenever I shall, on the part of the Executive, see every consideration of the public welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, or selfish avarice; when I shall behold men of real merit daily turned out of office for no other cause but independence of sentiment; when I shall see men of firmness, merit, years, abilities, and experience, discarded on their application for office, for fear they possess that independence; . . . when I shall see the sacred name of religion employed as a State engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another, I shall not be their humble advocate.

Source: Matthew Lyon, Letter in Spooner’s Vermont Journal, July 31, 1798, pp. 1–2. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.

DOCUMENT 4

The Virginia Resolution, December 24, 1798

James Madison drafted the Virginia Resolution and had a trusted ally present it to the Virginia legislature, dominated by Republicans. (Jefferson did the same for Kentucky.) The document denounces the Alien and Sedition Acts and declares that states have the right to “interpose” to stop unconstitutional actions by the federal government.

RESOLVED . . . That this assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the Union of the States, to maintain which it pledges all its powers; and that for this end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles which constitute the only basis of that Union, because a faithful observance of them, can alone secure its existence and the public happiness.

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; . . . and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them. . . .

That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts” . . . ; the first of which exercises a power no where delegated to the federal government . . . ; and the other . . . exercises in like manner, a power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.

Source: Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 1996. http://www.yale.edu. © 1996–2007 The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.

Questions for Analysis

ANALYZE THE EVIDENCE: Why did the Federalists believe that the Sedition Act was necessary? What exactly was the threat, according to Abigail Adams? What threat is implied by the wording of the act?

RECOGNIZE VIEWPOINTS: Does Matthew Lyon’s criticism of President Adams rise to the level of threat that the Federalists feared? How do you explain Lyon’s guilty verdict? His reelection to Congress?

ASK HISTORICAL QUESTIONS: What political or personal issues created the deep polarization between Federalists and Republicans that led to the Alien and Sedition Acts?