From "Huh?" To "Whoa, That's Wrong"

It's easy to pretend that modern controversies over immigration are just that: a problem of the modern era. The Founding Fathers were such high-minded sorts. They didn't bother themselves about that kind of stuff.

…except they totally did.

The Acts were popular with the Federalists in all three branches of government. Reaction on the ground was mixed. In Pennsylvania, farmers of German descent started the John Fries Rebellion. That was more about taxation being raised in anticipation for war with France, but these guys, being of German extraction, were going to feel the Alien and Sedition Acts more than English-descended folks. Also, "rebellion" is like the most extreme form of sedition. (Source)

Virginia's reaction was slightly more ominous. They bought a ton of muskets for the state militia and Jefferson started dropping hints about seceding. In addition, twenty people, mostly newspaper publishers, were arrested under the Sedition Act. The Acts were clearly not popular there. (Source)

Yet it's hard to see this as a conventional story with good guys and bad guys. Even the hero of the story (Thomas Jefferson) didn't do his whole job and repeal the Alien Enemies Act, leaving it to mess up the lives of Japanese Americans a century and a half after the fact. And as of 2016, it's still out there.

That's the most concrete effect of the Alien and Sedition Acts as a whole: that the Alien Enemies Act is still a law. It created Executive Order 9066, which imprisoned Japanese Americans (and was such a terrible idea that the United States formally apologized for it).

It has even been used as a potential precedent to keep Muslims out of the United States, despite the fact that "Muslim" isn't a country or even an ethnicity.

The Alien and Sedition Acts are pretty much considered to be a series of mistakes of varying degrees. The Naturalization Act is the least of these, as a waiting period for citizenship is thought to be a good idea, but this act slapped an unreasonable amount of time on it. The Alien Friends was allowed to expire.

But the Sedition Act...there's just no justification there. It is quite literally contrary to the First Amendment, which states "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of people to peaceably assemble." And this was Congress literally making a law to do just that.

Civilization is always a tightrope walk between giving up some rights in exchange for safety. Some rights everyone is fine giving up. No one defends the right to murder people. But the more rights go, the more people begin to see them as too high a price for safety.

The Bill of Rights is intended to be a catalogue of those rights that are too important to ever give up. And the ability to criticize the government verbally or in print, or to assemble to peacefully protest an action the government takes that you don't like, are bedrock principles of the culture of America. No matter where you end up on the political spectrum, everyone agrees these are good things to have.