Seditious Libel and the Sedition Act of 1798

The Federalists resorted to other forms of legal action to suppress political opposition. Even before Chase condemned Fries to death, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798. Historians have divided over the meaning of the measure, with some suggesting it was a blatant instrument of oppression and others arguing that it was a reasonable response by a government seriously concerned about the country's survival. ³⁶

It certainly contained enough political purpose to make moderate Federalists like John Adams hold their noses. The measure, which imposed a penalty for publishing material creating distrust of the federal government, did not apply to any statements made against Thomas Jefferson, Adams's vice-president. Moreover, it was timed to expire the day before Adams's term ended. But the measure was progressive in the sense that sedition was no longer a strict liability crime, as it had been in England. That is, merely printing seditious statements was not proof of sedition. The act allowed truth to be entered as an "affirmative defense." What was a breakthrough in the history of

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free speech was less significant than it might seem, because the defendant had the difficult task of proving that a public officer was corrupt, incompetent, or ineffective. In any case, open political discourse did not lend itself to a strict true-and-false test, and criticism of the people's representatives seemed vital in a republic.

Federalist prosecutors invoked the law with fervor and Federalist judges gave jury charges in seditious libel cases that made conviction practically inevitable. Thomas Cooper, for example, found himself on trial in 1800 before Justice Chase and District Judge Richard Peters for having published comments that accused President John Adams of borrowing money at too high a rate during peacetime, of keeping a standing army and navy, and of interfering with the judiciary. Justice Chase told the jury that the accused had to prove the truth of his charges against President Adams "beyond a marrow," rather than that the prosecution had to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (the emerging American standard). ³⁷ Cooper was convicted and sent off to jail, preferring martrydom to accepting a pardon.

The Sedition Act was the first national experiment in using legal authority to reap political benefit. John Adams's administration directed prosecutions against Cooper and other editors and political leaders. The owners of four leading opposition papers were indicted, and three were convicted of violating the Sedition Act. Matthew Lyon, a Republican congressman from Vermont, who was something of an excitable personality, was convicted of libeling President Adams and hustled off to jail for four months.

Judiciary Act of 1801

A decade in power made the Federalists acutely aware of the value of the federal courts to the political goals (and power) that they embraced. When the election of 1800 assured the ascendancy of the Jeffersonian Republicans, the Federalists responded with the Judiciary Act of 1801, a measure that combined political purpose with needed reform. Gouverneur Morris explained that the Federalists had found it necessary to reorganize the federal judiciary because they "are about to experience a heavy gale of adverse wind; can they be blamed for casting many anchors to hold their shipe through the storm?" ³⁸

The 1801 act had two key provisions. First, it created sixteen new circuit judgeships and ended the practice of circuit riding for Supreme Court justices. This provision was both a reasonable reform and a political gimmick that gave the outgoing Adams administration the opportunity to appoint several "midnight judges." Second, the Federalists sought to establish a genuinely national court system capable of bringing coherence to federal land policy and commercial relations. The Jeffersonians blasted the legislation and, once in power, they moved swiftly to repeal it.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 838