Alien and Sedition Acts

The Alien and Sedition acts of 1798 were a consequence of many troubles the United States was having at the time. Just emerging into the world under President George Washington, their foreign policy was not enough to support themselves yet. The United States needed to make sure that there would be no foreign threat to them and to do so, they made a strict isolationist policy that was almost broken by the French call for aid during the French Revolution and later by the French reprisal for not answering their demands. The United States pulled through but with difficulty and in order to make sure that they stayed isolated from the rest of the world, they had to make sure that no immigrants would become powerful enough to change their views and go into politics and that the media would not interfere with government affairs by slandering them and writing anything against the government. This brought about the Alien and Sedition Acts which were criticized from the moment they were passed in the summer of 1798 to the moment

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Adams had to do something and what he chose to do was pass the four acts known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. When Adam's became president Americans started to get angry by reports that US merchant ships were being seized by French warships. One the Federalists were pro-British, they disliked the French and wanted to aid Britain against the French, people like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. They made it 14 years required for immigrants to qualify for US citizenship, they authorized the president to deport any aliens considered dangerous and made it illegal for newspaper editors to criticize either the president or Congress. Even though Washington opposed political parties in his farewell address (Doc H) they still formed and they fought each other for power. Unfortunately, the US and the French monarchy had an alliance, not the US and the French people so helping the French people was breaking the alliance with France, also the British were taking American ships that were sailing to France, so helping France would cause Britain and the US to be enemies. The US gained much power through