Honors Group

Name:____________________________________________

AB

ISN pg____

Adams & Sedition NOTES

_____________ _______________ became president in __________.

TROUBLE
WITH
FRANCE

He did his best to __________ _________ of the growing tensions between

____________ and ______________. But he was a ___________________, and many
____________________-_____________________ wanted America to help France
instead.
Democratic-Republicans _____________ how Adams had handled issues with France,
sometimes calling him, the blasted _____________ of America.
All of this criticism made Adams ___________, and he ____________ the DemocraticRepublicans and new _______________________ for many problems in the country.

THE ALIEN
AND
SEDITION
ACTS

In 1798 he passed the _________ & ______________ __________ that did two things:
1. ________________ new immigrants, making it _____________ for them to come
to the United States and easier for them to get _____________________ during
wartime.
2. Outlawed Sedition, which effectively _____________ Freedom of _____________
& the _______________
As a result, at least 25 Democratic-Republican ____________________ were convicted of

PUNISHMENT
FOR
SEDITION

expressing ________________ damaging to the government and _________

___________. Individuals were also _________________ for criticizing the
_______________________.

Democratic-Republicans claimed that the Alien & Sedition acts were

END OF THE
ALIEN &
SEDITION
ACTS

________________________. Once enough Democratic-Republicans were

__________________ to Congress, they ___________________ the Alien & Sedition
Acts for good.

Response to the Alien & Sedition Acts BROADSIDE, 1798

To the Senate and Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled.
It is foreign from our wishes and intentions to criminate the motives of the National
Legislature. Composed, as we believe it to be, of honest men, we resist every rising
suspicion that they could have either wickedly, or wantonly [deliberately] pursued any
system of public policy which necessarily led to commit the dignity, hazard the peace, or
outrage the constitution of our common country. Nor is it without regret, that from
this public testimony of reliance on the integrity of their conduct, we feel ourselves
constrained to [hold back] an equal tribute of confidence in the wisdom of their measures.
To our minds, under the purest and most deliberate exercise, they present, instead of
objects of applause or [praise], a series of evils equally [widespread] and
[catastrophic], equally general and destructive--a violated constitution, and a divided people.
Under circumstances thus solemn to ourselves and awful to our country, silence would
be dissimulation [hiding true feelings], and dissimulation would be guilt. When it
becomes our duty to speak, it becomes yours to hear: Our language indeed shall be the
language of freemen, but of freemen who know how to respect themselves; and its
decorum [politeness], no less than its candor shall entitle it to your attention.
The parts of this system which most immediately engage our attention, and to which we
are most desirous of directing yours, are the two laws, passed at your last session, usually
denominated the alien and sedition laws
The genius of this law pervades all its details, the crime is so defined, that we know not
when we become guilty of it; for in the wide range of political opinion, how many things
may be innocently said, how many even usefully suggested, which may be so construed
as to incur [bring about] these penalties? To question the integrity, to doubt the
wisdom, to assert or even to insinuate [imply] the ignorance of a chief magistrate, leads
directly to ruin; and yet it will scarcely be deemed impossible that a president may be a
[reckless] man or vicious [leader]; that he may be weak in intellect, or wanting in
information; but, under the operation of this law, the most enlightened nation upon
earth, must not only bear these imperfections with patience, they must also conceal
them with care; to hint them to a neighbor, exposes you to fine; to breathe them to a
brother subjects you to imprisonment.
A law thus alarming & despotic [tyrannical] and offensive to the feelings of a free
people, cannot be bottomed on a constitution we love and admire. In this conclusion
we feel ourselves warranted [supported] no less by the spirit than the letter of that
instrument.