Alien and Seditions Acts DBQ
"The debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 revealed bitter controversies on a number of issues. Discuss the issues and explain why these controversies developed."Under the threat of war with France, Congress in 1798 passed four laws in an effort to strengthen the Federal government, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. It produced a way for the Federalists to revolt against Democratic-Republican opposition and to increase power for themselves. These acts did not permit anyone to criticize the government at all, through writing, or any other shape, form, or fashion. It also extended the time to become an American citizen, since the Federalists believed that most of the foreigners would become Democratic-Republicans. These two political parties centered around domestic and foreign policy differences, reached their highest point of disagreement upon the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1978, in purpose that one party would remain in control by limiting the power and growth of the other party.In 1789, the Minister to France, Thomas Jefferson, to Francis Hopkinson of Pennsylvania, protested that "I am not of the party of the Federalists. But I am much farther from that of the Anti-federalists" (
A man was always answerable for the malicious publication of falsehood. The Democratic- Republicans viewed this bill as nothing but an attempt to strengthen the federal government and to overthrow the power of the States. Immigrants leaving nations where such governments existed, would bring to the United States those very ideals. Politics has so divided men and so far do they carry it that it seldom happens that a person of one way of thinking visits any body in the opposite" (Document S). Adams stated, "The speech of the President [ of the French Directory]. Alexander Hamilton in a letter to Colonel Edward Carrigton of Virginia in 1792, described the Democratic-Republican by stating, "They have a womanish attachment to France and a womanish resentment against Great Britain. The Alien act required a fourteen year residency period for aliens prior to naturalization as a citizen, allowed the restraint and removal in time of war of resident adult aliens of the hostile nations, and gave the President the power to deport "all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United Sates" [DBQ pg. They argued that the federal government had stepped beyond its powers, powers delegated to it by the states through the Constitution. The Sedition Act was a direct violation of the first amendment, but a federalist Congress, a federalist president John Adams, and a federalist appointed panel of chief justices approved it. Hamilton continued to attack Jefferson's favor of France, when he wrote in 1797 that "the man who. The choice for him lies in being deemed a fool, a madman, or a traitor" (Document I). Thus, the debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 revealed bitter controversies on a number of issues that had been developing since the penning of the Constitution. Albert Gallatin, a republican congressman from Pennsylvania, in a speech before the House of Representatives in 1798, concluded, ".
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