Alien Vs Sedition Act

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History Assignment # 5 The Sedition and the Alien act aimed to destroy free political exchange. During the late 1790s, the legislation aimed to punish the followers of Jefferson by aiming to silence the Republicans. Both acts were designed to suppress criticism of the federal government and to limit the liberties of foreigners who resided in the U.S. However, the enforcement of these acts did not silence any opposition and in return created greater political violence. Thomas Jefferson had protested against these new laws by defining them as unjust and atrocious. He opposed that both the Alien and Sedition act took away the rights of the people demanded by the Constitution and declared through his Kentucky Resolution that states void congressional acts they saw unconstitutional. Jefferson and his fellow followers expressed concern over the federal judiciary’s expanded rold in punished sedition. The Republicans during this timed feared that the Sedition Act would undermine the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Jefferson’s main argument on the unconstitutionality of the Alien and Sedition act were that they both violated the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people (document 31). Jefferson had proposed that through the Constitution, it expressly declared that congress shall make no law…of the press (document 31) stating that any law the Congress passes to abridge the freedom of speech and press could no be considered a forceful law and instead by voided. Jefferson opposed the Alien acts through his fifth resolution in the Kentucky Resolustion: he argues that any individual who migrates from any state shall have proper rights to admit and would not be prohibited by the Congress prior to year 1808.
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