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That
if any person shall write, utter or publish... any false, scandalous
and malicious writing or writings against the government of the
United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States,
or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the
said government, or either house of the said congress, or the said
President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or
disrepute; or to excite against them,or either or any of
them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir
up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful
combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the
United States, or any act of the President of the United
States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him
vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist,
oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet
any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States,
their people or government, then such person, being thereof
convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction
thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand
dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two
years.
Scary, isn't
it? Footnote says 1 Stat. 596 (1798) (expired 1801).
Section 1 proscribes combinations or conspiracies with intent to
oppose, prevent, or intimidate government laws or operations and
that "counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot,
unlawful assembly, or combina- tion." Section 3 establishes
that defendants can give the truth of the allegedly libelous
material as evidence in their defense. In addition, the act
gave the jury "a right to determine the law and the fact."
Section 4 makes the Act law through March 3, 1801. Libel
defendants and freedom of speech advocates had sought the two
Section 3 reforms for many years. Under traditional seditious
libel laws, courts would not allow the truth of the libel to be
proved in court because a true libel was considered more dangerous
than a false one. Further-more, the jury had previously been allowed
to decide only the question of whether the defendant had in fact
published the libelous material. Judges decided the questions
of law: whether the defendant made the remarks with malice and
whether they were "of a bad tendency" to
sedition.
Many
perceived the Sedition Act of 1798 as a Federalist measure to
silence the opposition and keep themselves in power. Indeed,
federal prosecutors were vigorous in using the Act against critics
of the government. As Professor Powe notes, "the Federalists
identified opposition to their policies with support for France, and
their name for the Republicans - the 'internal foe' - expressed
their view that the Republican party was a threat to the
republic. The leading Republican papers were the targets of
the prosecutions, and three were forced to cease publication, two
permanently. The passage of the Act, and its implementation,
sparked fiery debates over the scope of the First Amendment and the
proper realms of state and federal power.
SOURCE:
Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking, Cases and
Materials, Third Edition, Aspen Law &
Business
To further
explore, see The Sedition Act:
WORKING TOGETHER TO ATTAIN
FAIRNESS
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