Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano
“The first serious federal attack on free speech came in the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which criminalized criticisms of the foreign policy of the federal government and the administration of President John Adams. The same generation – in some cases, the same human beings – that had ratified the First Amendment in 1791, a mere seven years later assaulted, defied and nullified it. In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the two most prominent thinkers in America – Thomas Jefferson, who had written the Declaration of Independence, and Madison – secretly authored the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, respectively. These state laws reflected the views of many ratifiers of the Constitution that the states that formed the federal government retained the power to correct it. All but one of the dreadful Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed by 1802.” (09/26/24)