John Adams Sedition Dbq Essay

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In 1798 John Adams, the president at the time, passed two laws called the alien, and the sedition act. The alien act made it nearly triple the time before becoming an American citizen. As well any non-American citizen could be removed by the president at any time. Another thing the act did was make it so that if you are over the age of 14 and America goes to war with your home country you would be deported. Now onto the sedition act. The sedition act made it so that ay reporter or news source reporting on “fake” news would be imprisoned without trial. Also, the government was the ones to decide if it was fake or not. For some reason believe what John Adams did was necessary. I am not one of those people. These acts violated the constitution. …show more content…

The aliens act completely demolishes what the constitution stands for, freedom. “No person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of the law”. What this means is that you cannot imprison someone without some kind of trial, however, the alien act goes completely against this. Especially when you think about them deporting innocent children just because they were born in France. When people believe that this was constitutional they say what John Adams did was necessary. From Massachusetts’ response “We consider the alien sedition act constitutional” as well when regarding the alien act, “Aliens have temporary rights, which should be taken away whenever they become dangerous to the public safety or are found guilty of treason against the government.”. While I agree with this statement completely, this was not all it was used for. Along with this ability, there was also the part where anyone above the age of 14 who was still considered a citizen of a country that we were at war with would be deported. As well even with that quote, the way those things were implemented was not a good job. They would not need to prove any treason had happened or even if they were a