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Alien and sedition acts 1917
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Alien and sedition acts 1917
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Drew Stechschulte
Mrs. Davis
Historical Thinking and Writing
11 October 2017
The Unlawful Acts I believe that the Alien and Sedition Acts are violating the Constitution. The acts are taking away the rights of Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech. The act also gave more power to the federal government than the states. Any immigrant could be removed by the president at any time. When the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed, the country was not united in the decision. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people.” This act that was passed violated the principles of the Constitution. Therefore, the act could not be put into action. The aliens
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
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 exposed bitter controversies between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. The four bills placed extremely strict regulations on incoming immigrants and prohibited freedom of speech among the people. John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, the most notorious Federalists at the time, reasoned that the Alien and Sedition Acts were a necessity in order to keep America safe. However, disputes arose from this because they were many underlying possible true reasons as to why the acts were put into place. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the notorious Democratic-Republicans at the time, disliked what the Federalists stood for and knew that the bills violated the very foundation of basic American rights. The acts
The Patriot Act violates many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment, for example, gives American citizens freedom of speech, press, and religion. The Patriot Act allows the government to monitor the religious and political papers and institutions of citizens that are not even reasonable suspects for criminal activity. Church,
The Alien Act was a law that was signed by John Adams to weaken the Republican party. Because all the poor people and people from other country that moved here was a Republican and John Adams was with the Federalist party. Before the Alien Act was signed in to law, people from other country that live in the U.S, also called Foreigners, could became a citizen when they lived here for 5 years, but after the law was signed they had to want for 14 years till they can become a citizen(Welcome to Our Documents). This made the Republican party angry because you need to be a citizen of the U.S to vote and now they will have less people to vote because most of the Republican were Foreigners. The Alien Act also gave the President power to deport any Foreigner that if he thought they were being bad in this country. This also made the Republicans angry(Library of
...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.
Many violations have been made within the government. For example, the constitution only gives power to congress to to determine the requirements for citizenship. It doesn’t give congress the power to prohibit immigrants from travel, work, and proper pay. Just because a person is somewhere illegally it gives americans the right to pay poorly and mistreat employees? If work gets done properly at the end of the day why shouldn’t the pay be fair too? Immigrants affect the economy greatly in the United States. Whether people want to accept it or not immigrants are a huge factor in america 's economic growth as a country. If immigrants make the U.S. great productions and money why can’t they get compensated for their hard work? Instead of passing unconstitutional laws should we not pass at least one laws that would benefit immigrants perhaps like proper
The farmers of our Constitution recognized the need for separate powers as well as checks and balances among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. This in turn helps to "provide for the common defense". Separation of powers prevents one branch from becoming excessively dominant over the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.: In order to accede to the preamble and adhere in its goals, the Constitution ensures this is by clearly stating the authority of the Congress in Article I Section 8 and the authority of the President in Article II Section 2. These fixed powers in the Constitution clearly state that one cannot act without permission or authorization of another. It is designed to that one cannot take action without consent of the other branch. This is prevalent in Article I Section 7 that states the process of how a law is passed. The fact that there are clear steps to the initiation of a law states the importance of separation of powers so that a single dominant branch does not arise.
In the past, the U.S. Congress has passed acts in a time of crisis for the safety of our nation. With this information being acknowledged many ask, "If the government had previous powers to do so?" One act that was passed was the Sedition Act of 1798. This law was passed due to a threat of war with the French. This act basically stated that no person should conspire or scheme any plans against the government. This includes conspiracy by mouth, actions, or any other way possible. Even though the Bill of Rights state that the people have the right to freely express themselves through speech, the government revised or revoked that amendment during that particular time. This act became null and void on March 3, 1801 which was stated in Section 4 of the Sedition Act. Another act that was passed through Congress was the Espionage Act of 1918 during World War I. This act says that no one should slander the name of the U.S. government nor the naval forces and the military. It also states that no one should speak, print, or publish anything disloyal or scurrilous concerning the U.S. as a whole during the time of war. These rules are located in Section 3 of the Espionage Act. This goes against the 1st Amendment which allows the freedom of expression through speech and press, but as you can the government still passed the act. The act wasn't repealed until the year of 1921. Two more important cases where the government exemplified their power is in the Supreme Court: Hirabayashi v.
This theory stated that various individuals, in this case the states, joined together in a formal agreement of government. Since the states had drawn up the contract and given power to the federal government, it should be up to them to decide who received the power, not the body they created.This debate over interpretation thus sparked one of the first and major issues that eventually led to the Alien and Sedition Acts: should a strong central government be formed (federalist desire), or should the individual states have control. And wild attacks of the ensuing debate also ignited the second issue, public defamation, which led to the Sedition Act.
These acts were, of no questions asked, surly constitutional. The Federalist Party presented these acts, later consequently passed by Congress, because they were and fair and just laws in accordance to the nation at that time. For the sake of argument, the nation and government was very inexperienced, and did not know what to expect in their near future. John Adams became the second president of the United States of America, subsequently, having to accept many challenges and responsibilities to fulfill the job in office. He had the task of making sure that the newly founded nation kept running smooth. That is a big burden if there are activities going on in the country that one has no control, nor knowledge of (i.e. foreigners coming into the nation and starting trouble by disrupting the form of government, or having radicals trying to protest and perturb the running government in office-Federalists, at this time). John Adams was smart enough to realize the significance of these factors. Thus, taking his duty of President of USA seriously, he, along with the Federalist-controlled Congress, took action to protect the new country. Hence, were the creation and passing of the four, debate-causing laws (Naturalization, Alien, Alien Enemies, and Sedition Acts).
The extents of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has been long discussed since its adoption in mid-late 1800s. Deciding cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade has been possible due to mentioned amendment. These past cases not only show the progression of American society, but also highlights the degree of versatility that is contained within the amendment. Now, in 2015, the concerns are not of racial segregation or abortion, the extent of the amendment was brought to a new field: same-sex marriage. In Obergefell v Hodges, we can see the epitome of the Equal Protection Clause.
The document I chose to write about is the United States Constitution. When the thirteen British colonies in North America declared their independence in 1776, they laid down that “governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The “colonies” had to establish a government, which would be the framework for the United States. The purpose of a written constitution is to define and therefore more specifically limit government powers. After the Articles of Confederation failed to work in the 13 colonies, the U.S. Constitution was created in 1787.
While we have a constitution that lays out our clear cut civil liberties and all the rights we possess, other countries chose to restrict those freedoms. Due to the many advantages the Constitution gives each American citizen, the US has been able to keep this document intact as long as they have while other countries have to constantly restructure their government principles. This stability leads to greater efficiency in our legislative process and a strong sense of national pride. For a nation filled with differences and mixed opinions, the Constitution is a perfect fit. It was written as unbiased as possible to ensure that it was not limiting anyone or anything, instead, giving each citizen the ability to keep their government in check and grant freedom to everyone. During the time the document was written was when the Colonist knew exactly what it felt like to live in a world of oppression and unjust government. As a result, Madison and the other leaders at the time made it a goal to put the power in the hands of the people and make freedom an utmost priority. With an Unbiased approach to government that gives no advantage to one group or another, and with amendments that only help citizens take control, the Constitution is what the early colonist left Europe and died
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