The Sedition Act allowed the government to fine or imprison someone based upon writings that have been against the government in a 'false, scandalous, and malicious' manner. Which is pretty broad. It also required that it be done with the intent of bringing the government into 'contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them ... the hatred of the ... people'.

It was intended as a war time act to protect the nation from internal sabotage but it was quickly used by the Federalists as a political weapon in an election year. Four of the five most prominent Republican newspapers were shut down and their main agitators tried and imprisoned.

Geoffrey R. Stone argues that to understand the Federalist and Republican arguments over the Sedition Act the English law construct of Seditious Libel has to be understood.

Federalist busts from loojie's photostream.

Seditious libel dates back to 1275 and English law. Originally it was intended to stop falsehoods against the King, but by the seventeenth century English judicial practice had extended that to truths about the King as well. Effectively it was illegal to criticize the King in a manner which would bring his rule into disrepute. Laws of this nature end up being enforced arbitrarily at best, selectively at worst and usually for political reasons.

English judicial practice extended the protections from criticism wider than just the King. Stone writes:

Seventeeth-century judges punished as seditious libel any criticism of 'any public man' or of any public 'law or institution whatever'.

This was exceptionally effective of restricting the presses and media of the day.

James Madison refuted this view of seditious libel; arguing that since Republican government was responsible to their constituents it is a right for individuals to be able to freely criticize their government and representatives in public.

Madison believed the sedition action, and seditious liberal, violated the First Amendment. Stone writes:

... because it [sedition act] undermined 'the responsibility of public servants and public measures to the people' and embraced the 'exploded doctrine that the administrators of the Government are masters, and not the servants, of the people'.

Where was the Australian James Madison in the 19thC? Madison would have to be the foremost political scientist of the enlightenment. I cannot think of any that have supplanted him since.
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • Mick Baggs . # . 1/1
    You seem to forget that official protest against the act was led by Jefferson and Madison, and it was the former, not the latter, who voided the law and pardoned everybody convicted of it.

    Madison, on the other hand, sold out nearly every principle he had once he became president. His sudden interest in a strong military and saber-rattling politics helped embroil the nation in the bloody and pointless War of 1812. I guess all good Enlightenment thinkers are for empire building expansionism (but, then, this is the guy who supervised the Louisiana Purchase, to proto-Manifest Destiny was nothing new to him).

    His fears of a National Bank system that would put economic power in the hands of Northern plutocrats vanished when he realized the bank could be a tool of personal power. He also became and economic protectionist, supporting high tariffs in support of factory owners.

    You should also point out that he was against internal improvements. Programs for the common good, such as road building and the creation of a canal system were best left in private or state hands. He was as good as his Republican name-sake there.

    • cam . # .
      Pretty selective telling of history. Jefferson and Madison wrote the Kentucky/Virginia resolutions. Pardoning those under the Sedition Act was a valid way of nullifying legislative tyranny from the executive.

      Madison placed economic embargoes on England in the hope they would be pressured to respect the freedom of the seas and the sovereignty of American shipping. They didn't. The outcome was war which Madison managed to get declared through the legislature. Something that doesn't happen today.

      His understanding of liberal constitutionalism or republicanism, whatever you want to call it, remains the best of any politician prior to, and since the enlightenment. He helped establish what a legislative in a three power system was as well as what as an independent executive should be. Madison's view of the executive is far smaller and inter-dependent than what Jefferson thought it should be under the doctrine of separation of powers [ie doctrine of higher obligation]; or the Federalists for that matter.
      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.