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Explains how French immigration and Federalist fears of radicalism led to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Introduces the Alien Friends Act and its broad power to deport resident aliens.
atoms face many issues within the U.S and in domestic policy as well there was a lot of immigration in the 1790s particularly from France individuals fleeing the revolution people coming from France tend to decide which Jefferson the DemocraticRepublicans politically yeah and and there was also fears amongst the Federalists that these French immigrants were bringing over the radicalism of the French Revolution they weren't typically if you're fleeing something you're not you don't agree with those ideasthey're there's obviously areas in between that right you could agree but then maybe it gets too radical we talked about that with the loyalists but there was fear amongst the Federalists not only that they were giving too muchpower or support to the Democratic Republicans but they could be bringing over the the radicalism of the French Revolution and so the Federalists saw this as a potential threat to their government control and to the government itself so
the Federalists controlled Congress will pass and Adams will sign a series of laws called the Alien and Sedition Acts now there's four of them but we're only going to talk about the main three
these were a series of laws to limit the influence of new immigrants on the political process but also attacks the Democratic Republicans for criticizing the governmentnow stop and think answer to yourself based on that description do you think that these laws fit in with the Constitution or do you think that perhaps they're not so much constitutional make your guess we'll see here ina minute obviously I have no way of knowing you got that right but it's just to get you thinking you can think about these things as we go you start figuring them out as we go that means you'regetting the material and if you don't that's okay because I'll still tell you the alien friends Act this says the president has the power to deport any Resident alien considered quote dangerous to the peace and safety of theUnited States end quote that phrase dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States could mean a lot of things and was worded that way for a reason wanted it to be as broad as possible so the
president could use this power whenever they wanted right you can find a lot of ways to declare someone dangerous physically dangerous the words they say the ideas they have there's a lot of ways someone or something can bedangerous this was targeted at French and French French sympathizing immigrants a resident alien is an immigrant living in the country someone who has immigrated to the U.S legally but has not become a citizen or is is not acitizen yet so someone coming over to the U.S for work and living in the U.S or someone coming over to the U.S for school and living in the U.S a resident alien alien is just a legal term foran immigrant so resident alien so not immigrants in general but immigrants living here who aren't yet citizens
Covers the Alien Enemies Act, which allowed deportation of people from nations at war with the United States. Describes how it worked, when it was used, and why it still exists in modified form.
Federalists blamed these you know these French and French sympathizing immigrants retentions in the within the U.S and for preventing the war that the Federalists wanted with France now Adams never used the alien friends act and it expired in1800.so it went away without atoms having used it brings us to the second one the alien enemies Act immigrants from a nation at war with the U.S could be deported without cause basically any immigrant they don't have tohave done anything wrong they just have to be from a country the US is currently at war with that that without causes that that uh they don't have to do anything wrong we can own the U.S can onlyDeport people with cause right they can't just have people show up legally and then kick them back out according to U.S law international law you're not supposed to be able to do that you can only Deport someone under
U.S lawfor the most part if they've committed a crime or are here illegally or you know don't pay their taxes whatever it may be right there has to be a reason a a cause so this allowed them to doto deport people simply because they were from a country the US was fighting so if the US went to war with France then they could kick out all French immigrants without actually having a specific reason that specific personshould be kicked out just because of their nation of origin this was not used also not used by atoms but it's still in effect today under a different name it's part of the US code of laws so it'sstill the law technically the U.S still with certain restrictions more so than the alien enemies act originally us still has this power so it's not going to happen but say the US went to war with Russia the U.S
would have the ability to kick out any Russian immigrants living in the U.S because they're from a nation at war with the US U.S could have done this to any Afghani immigrant or Iraqi immigrant before that uh reallythe only time that that act has been used with any regularity or to any significant amount was in World War one and World War II and this is not quite what happened with Japanese internment because that wasn't thoseindividuals being deported and it also wasn't just immigrants alien enemies Act and the the current current version of the US code of laws still deals with immigrants and deportation but it's still around third and final the Sedition Act
Describes the Sedition Act’s ban on criticizing the federal government and president, along with examples of people arrested under it. Also notes its expiration and later revival during World War I.
this made criticizing the federal government and the president a crime it noticed it did not include the vice president who was Jefferson you could criticize the Democratic Republican Jefferson all you wanted but you couldn't the president Adams orthe rest of the Federalists controlled national government particularly aimed at the presses controlled by Democratic Republicans the things that they were printing criticizing now Adams didn't use the last two but this is not necessarily an atoms thing it'sa congress law enforcement thing so I'll ask and obviously you can't answer but at least answer it to yourself do you think it was ever used it was many people over a dozen at least were arrested for sayinginane or harmless things or simply doing their job two examples a member of Congress was arrested a democratic Republican and jailed for speaking against Adams in a regular session of Congress was criticizing Adams and then was arrested and
put in jail and fined another person a man from New York New York State when Adams was traveling to his home in Massachusetts at one point the city the town fired some cannons in honor of the President comingthrough and the man joked that he hoped The Cannonball hit Adams in his ass on his way out of town uh and this was overheard by uh he was selling it to his his friend or or you knowsomebody somebody who knew near him it was overheard and that man was fined and went to jail this wasn't just a fine this was jail time it expired in 1800 and the next President Jefferson will undo all ofthose sentences and fines now the cartoon here before I get to the significance the the political cartoon here uh you may have noticed it doesn't look like a lot of the cartoons I've shown before it looks a lot
more modern and that's because that political cartoon is from the 19 teens late 19 teens from World War one that's because during World War One in 1917 I believe it was maybe 18.I don't remember the exact date of top my head uh the US brought back sedition laws made it illegal once again made it a crime to criticize the federal government and it was used and people were arrested andwent to jail so it came back but the original Sedition Act from the alien Sedition Acts went away in 1800 just like the alien friends Act the significance of these acts
Explains why the acts were seen as unconstitutional and how they conflicted with free speech protections. Concludes with Adams’s political legacy and a transition to the Democratic Republican response.
they gave the president Powers Beyond those expressed in the Constitution which means the alienist Edition x were a loose interpretation of the Constitution because the president doesn't have the power to deport immigrants like this in the Constitution andobviously the Sedition Act is unconstitutional right it's the government limiting someone's speech remember we talked about the Bill of Rights we talked about the First Amendment and and the freedom of speech your constitutional right to free speech onlyis only that the government cannot restrict your speech outside of harmful speech so if you criticize the government today as long as you're not making a direct threat you can say whatever you want and the government can't doanything about it you make threats obviously that's a different story right you can't cause harm with your with your direct harm you know you can't yell fire in a in a theater theater movie theater or or you can't
I mean you can but you're gonna get in deep trouble if you say like you know yell bomb on an airplane right those things are not protected speech because they cause harm they cause panic but anything else youcan you can say whatever you want the government can't do anything about it now however anybody else can you go on a racist rant on Twitter and you and your job finds out and they fire you your legalfreedom of speech is perfectly intact you that freedom of speech has not been violated you say horrible things you make bad jokes whatever it is and your family and friends don't want to deal with you or you getin trouble at work or you get in trouble at school your freedom of speech although school can sometimes be a little iffy because it's technically a government thing but it's a different government thing anyway your freedom of speech
is still intact it's just the government can't restrict it so this was unconstitutional the Sedition Act in particular and that's why all of that sort of fits under significance too they were extremely controversial then they're extremely controversial nowuh they that even some of his uh uh Adams Federalist supporters didn't like it in fact Adams didn't like these laws he only signed them because he didn't believe the President should go against his own party which isn'thow the system's supposed to work right there were no parties when this was created so that's not how this is supposed to go uh and obviously how the presidency Works worked has changed presidents have gone against their ownparty on certain issues before third this is the biggest negative on Adam's both Legacy and his presidency this is the biggest negative for his entire career honestly um I've talked with Adams before with the the Boston Massacre where
he defended the soldiers that he often made principled but unpopular decisions that was the same thing with the XYZ Affair and the convention of 1800 he made the principle the right decision not to go to war but itwas unpopular he defended the soldier at the Boston after the Boston Massacre because that was the right thing to do but it wasn't the popular thing to do the ancient Edition x or when he flipped on that hemade the popular but unprincipled decision and that's the biggest stain on his legacy both as president and otherwise now there's obviously going to be a response from Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans but that's a much we're gonna needa little more time with that so uh we're gonna talk about that in the next video so that's where we'll pick up with the Democratic Republican response to this and a couple of the biggest ideas we have to
cover this entire semester come from that