In 1798 the United States stood on the brink of war with France. The Federalists believed that Democratic-Republican criticism of Federalist policies was disloyal and feared that aliens living in the United States would sympathize with the French during a war. As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, authorized the President to deport aliens, and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime. The Sedition Act made it a crime for American citizens to "print, utter, or publish . . . any false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the Government.
The laws were directed against Democratic-Republicans, the party typically favored by new citizens, and the only journalists prosecuted under the Sedition Act were editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers. Sedition Act trials, along with the Senate’s use of its contempt powers to suppress dissent, set off a firestorm of criticism against the Federalists and contributed to their defeat in the election of 1800, after which the acts were repealed or allowed to expire. The controversies surrounding them, however, provided for some of the first testings of the limits of freedom of speech and press.
The unique New England way of life was centered on
family, town, and the church. And the corresponding changes that affected this
comfortable social order in the late seventeenth century were:
Family: did everything they could to defend marriage and
family values
Church: jeremiad preaching and half-way covenant
<span>Town: Salem witch trials</span>
Do you want me to define it?
What do you mean?
I think he is reminding the American people that our
ancestors fought hard to establish this country. He tells that we should proud of who we are
and where we come from and we should always defend the ideals of democracy both
here and abroad.
