Alien And Sedition Act Case Analysis

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The alien and sedition act were four bills passed by the federalist party to protect the United States from unstable aliens in an ongoing conspiracy that the United States was going to war with France. The four bills were: Alien Enemies Act, Alien Friends Act, Naturalization Act and Sedition Act. The Aliens Enemies Act states “If any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States…or intimidate any person holding a place or office…from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty… shall be deemed guilty of high misdemeanor and on conviction before any court of the United States… therefore shall be punished by fine and imprisonment.” This proves that anyone who is from other nation during this time that posed a threat to “national security” will be sent to prison before a hearing. The punishment was a fine and serving time in prison which were decided by the federalist party even though it was unconstitutional. The federalists not only passed the alien enemies act but it also approved of the alien friends act. …show more content…

(Brookhiser, 2013). This law gave the federalists the power to deport any foreigner that supported their opposition party, which was the Democratic-Republican. On the top of that, this gives the advantage to the federalist since this Act made it harder for the democratic-republic to gain more voters. Eventually this will upset the opposition party since they liked and supported French immigrants. What outraged the democratic-republican was the Naturalization Act, which made it tougher for the immigrants to get their citizenship. The citizenship process went from 5 years into 14 years due to this

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