John Adams Wanted to sign a law into the government that was called the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts gave the government the right to jail people for speaking against the government, or talking negatively about the United States. Along with being an immigrant from a country that supported terrorism. So if you were an immigrant who came from a terrorist approving county, the government will have the right to jail you even if you did nothing to harm or disobey the country’s laws and rights.This can only happen if the Alien and Sedition Acts were approved. This question is asking if accepting this will affect our way of living, and or the rights we gained through the constitution, so would it be helping the constitution or go against
So if I were an immigrant that has come from a country that supported terrorism, then the Alien and Sedition acts gave the right for me to be jailed because of where I came from, even though I did nothing wrong. “ No person shall be deprived of liberty without due process law.” Meaning no one can be jailed without a lawyer, public trial, or a jury but with the acts they can jail you or send you off back to your country. This gives another reason to why these acts go against our constitution and the people's rights. Since the Congress cannot make laws reducing the “ freedom of speech or of the press” these acts don't take away the rights they just limit them a lot. “Provided that the expiration of the act shall not prevent or defeat a prosecution and punishment of any offense against the law, during the time it shall be in force.” Even though the laws expired or became out of date you could be jailed if you didn't follow the rule anyway. This rebuttal is a pretty big eye opener for both sides argument, it shows that it's not taking the right away, but it's limiting it so much that it might as well not be a law. These are some reasons, facts, and proven points to help you choose the side of The Alien and Sedition Acts going against the Constitution. You should also agree with my perspective because I could point out some things that go against the acts in my
The Alien and Sedition acts hurt John Adams’ image of a patriot and his chances of a another presidency. The Alien and Sedition Acts were signed into law by John Adams in 1798. They, among other
...be added. They felt that if the rights of the people were not listed they would be infringed.Page 66R An example of a right they thought would be infringed upon was stated in Document 5 by Mercy Otis Warren, “There is no security in the system [under the proposed new U.S Constitution] either for the rights of [people with different ideas] or the liberty of the press”. This fear was directly addressed in the first amendment in which the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition are protected.Page 46R All these freedoms are used to express one’s self and express different ideas which means the first amendment prevents the government from suppressing ideas they do not agree with. The bill of right protects many basic rights and includes the 9th amendment in which it is stated that rights not listed in the Constitution are still retained by the people.
In 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts were created under President John Adams due to tensions with France. The Sedition Act made it illegal for anyone to publish anything that could defame or speak badly of the United States government. The Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed after President Adams’ presidential term was over. The Espionage and Sedition Acts, created from 1914 through 1921, made it illegal to cause disloyalty in the military forces and also prohibited any opposition to the government and their decisions in war. These acts were declared unconstitutional. Both were repealed after conflicts died down. The U.S. Patriot Act, created to investigate and protect against terrorism, made it legal for the United States’ government to search the records of citizens without their
The first Amendment of the United States Constitution says; “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”[1] Our fore fathers felt that this statement was plain enough for all to understand, however quite often the United States government deems it necessary to make laws to better define those rights that are stated in the Constitution. Today the framers would be both encouraged and discouraged by our modern interpretation the First Amendment the United States Constitution.
...Sedition Acts exercise a power nowhere delegated to the Federal government...this commonwealth does declare that the said Alien and Sedition Acts are violations of the said Constitution." The resolutions nullified the laws and contributed to the rise of Republicanism and the fall of Federalism.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were not merely intended for immigrants who spoke out against the government but more to detain the growth of the Democratic - Republican Party. These four Acts coercively lessoned the likelihood of the party mounting power by eliminating its majority group; soon to be citizens. Many issues led up to the creation of the Acts. This Cause and Effect can be traced all the way back to George Washington's Presidency; a few years after the creation of the Constitutional government after the Articles of Confederation were expulsed.
These all made sense to be in effect for the time and date because many of the immigrants coming to the USA were Irish exiles (for plotting against British rule), British radicals, and French people (wanting to rebel against Adams). On these grounds, and many more, President Adams and the Federalist-controlled Congress had reason to believe that they had to protect their country from stirring troubles. In view of that, the government was permitted to the authority of deporting or imprisoning any foreigner that he saw fit. This is a very sensible power that the president ought to have had back then, given the particular situation.
“Many people who were detained on suspicion of their connection to al Qaeda or other anti-American terrorists groups were innocent.” (Belanger, Newton 2). The patriot act weakens the right from protection of unreasonable searches the searches may be racist based on the person’s image. The people who were suspects of terrorism were accused of wrong doing. They had their civil rights taken away and they turned out to be innocent. It is not fair for people getting accused because they look a certain way....
In response to the World War I for the following years from the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Congress of United States passed a law to limit immigrations, which named Immigration Act of 1924 or the Johnson-Reed Act. The Immigration Act of 1924 was an Act use to limit the big number of immigration entry to the United States. The Immigration Act of 1924 only provided two percent immigration visas from 1980s national census. Asians were not allowed to immigrate to the United States.
The U.S. Patriot Act was set in place to better serve our country against terrorism. The U.S. Patriot Act is an Acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Acts (Lithwick). This act is to punish terrorist actions and improve law enforcement not only in the United States but also around the world. The United States Patriot Act consists of over 1,000 sections that describe the act in great detail. The sections include, but are not limited to, the power extended to the government by The U.S. Patriot Act to deport and incarcerate non citizens. With the U.S. Patriot Act a person’s phone line can be tapped, records of any and all purchases checked, and even library records searched. This Act also has sections to help money laundering, expand our country’s border protection, strengthening the extent of criminal laws and provide for people suffering from any type of terrorism acts (Huffman).
In an article by Macleod, she wrote a very important fact, “..a non-citizen is informed of her rights after the interrogation” (13). What does not make sense is the fact that non-citizens are interrogated and questioned like any other suspect would but without the rights. That is ridiculous. People may argue that terrorists who are sometimes non-citizens definately do not deserve these Miranda Rights, but what happened to the “innocent until proven guilty ” concept? In some cases, those so called “terrorists” are victims, just innocent people who were set up.
The United States has been shaped by immigration since the first new arrivals arrived over 400 years ago. Immigration has been a powerful force that is responsible for how the United Sates has become a powerful force they are today, it has contributed a lot to the many social, political and economic processes that have formed the United States as a nation.
What is Constitutionality? Well constitutionality is the quality of being in accordance with a political constitution. Every law passed should remain constitutional or everything we’ve worked for will have meant nothing. There are rights and such that we need to uphold and the constitution reminds us of what they are. The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. The Sedition Act of 1918 stated that people or countries cannot say negative things about the government or the war. It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or
Imagine you are supporting your family, you make $2000 a week, well over minimum wage. But someone approaches your boss and says “ I’ll work for $1000 a week for the same job.” You then lose your job to someone who doesn’t have to support a family, along with that, you have to find a new job, which none of them pay as well as your old job did. This is a similar situation many Americans went through before the Immigration Law of 1924 was passed. This law limited the amount of immigrants per country through quotas. If this law had not been passed, it may have been very hard for the United States to become as successful as we have. I believe that the Senate made the right decision in passing this because, it lowered unemployment of Americans,
The United States of America is governed by the people, and for the people. We elect, we chose, we decide, and we make our voices heard. The government cannot stop any citizen from exercising their rights. The Sedition Act was created to do just that. The government was created to serve the people, but in 1798 the government introduced a statute that would impact free speech about the government. John Nicholas (1799) was quoted saying, “The King is hereditary, and according to the theory of their government, can do no wrong. Public officers are his representatives, and derive some portion of his inviolability. [But in America] the officers of government are the servants of the people, are amenable to them, and liable to be turned out of office