A Philadelphian Response to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

 Joe Pierzchajlo

The United States of the late 1790’s was a nation of uncertain policies and procedures.  Born out of a revolution with Great Britain the newly formed nation was soon beginning to experience its first political struggle.  The presidential election of 1796 brought forth the two leading political figures of the nation, John Adams, the former vice-president, and Thomas Jefferson, the former Secretary of State.  “In the close election of 1796, the final electoral vote was 71 for Adams and 68 for Jefferson.”  Adams became president, backed by the Federalist, and Jefferson became vice-president, who was backed by the Democratic-Republicans.  . Two years after Adams was elected Congress began to feel pressure following the XYZ affair and the Quasi War with France to “increase military preparations,” and to “enact a series of internal security measures.”  Congress responded by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.[i]  These acts were to “expire on March 3, 1801, the last day of President Adam’s term of office.”[ii]  Jefferson saw the Alien and Sedition Acts as “an experiment on the American mind to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution.”[iii]   The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, although controversial, helped the political system of the United States evolve into a two party system; the tenets of the acts brought the Federalist and the Democratic-Republicans head to head over party ideals and true Americans. 

Although the Alien and Sedition Acts affected the whole country one city was a particularly caustic battling ground between the acts friends and foes.  This place was Philadelphia, a bustling city filled with natives and immigrants and also the current capital of the country. By examining Philadelphian’s reactions to the Alien and Sedition Acts one can gain a sense of insight into the ever-changing political culture of the newly spawned nation.

In February of 1799 four men, William Duane, Dr. James Reynolds, Robert Moore, and Samuel Cuming were attempting to have Irish natives sign a petition protesting against the Alien bill.[iv] The Alien Bill said that if the U.S. is at war the President has the power to imprison or deport any person. U.S. citizenship was raised; immigrants had to wait fourteen years instead of five to become a U.S. citizen.  Along with the Alien Acts was the Sedition Act; this act gave the government power to arrest and imprison any individual that wrote anything that portrayed the government in a bad light.[v] The four men were arrested for disturbing the peace in the “graveyard of St. Mary’s Catholic Church after Sunday Mass, and as numerous members of the congregation began to sign the memorial, others who opposed the petition approached with threats and curses.”[vi]   This type of split reaction was common in the political culture of Philadelphia; for the nation’s hottest issues were debated over by Congress in the same city, the nation’s capital.  The prosecutor in charge of the case was Joseph Hopkinson; this case’s events were all too usual for Hopkinson and he believed that the recent events were due to how easily it was for aliens to gain citizenship.  Hopkinson “grounded his case against the petitioners in his disdain for the foreign-born.”[vii] His feelings towards the foreign born was adequately represented when he opened the trial by saying “I will say that the greatest evils this country has ever endured have arisen from the ready admission to foreigners to a participation in the government and internal arrangements of the country.”[viii]  The man in charge of defending the four Irish immigrants was Alexander J. Dallas.  Unlike Hopkinson, who was backed by the Federalist government, Dallas was the Republican Secretary of State of Pennsylvania. Dallas called the issue a “party case, a party question altogether,” and just because the defendants were Irish born didn’t mean they were going to destroy the Constitution and overthrow “the very principles of our government.”[ix]

The case against the four Irish immigrants is an example of the turbulent times of the 1790s, which gave way to the rise of the two party system. These men were calling out the Federalist government. Although the case is indicative of the diverging political parties it is also representative of the “fundamental contest over the nature of citizenship in the United States.”  Federalist and Democratic-Republicans alike heavily debated the issue of American citizenship.  The Alien Act:

was part of an aggressive legislative package the Federalists had pressed through Congress during the crisis of the quasi-war with France…  the Federalist crafted that legislation on the back of a broad popular mobilization that demanded a homogenous American nation against the threat of international revolution posed by French universalism.  With a flurry of memorials, orations and pamphlets, Federalist imagined a citizenship that assumed the United States would be a true nation-state, with citizens celebrating and defending a common and clear national good.  To accomplish this, they believed, the United States needed to purge itself of foreign ideas and elements including a swelling crowd of radical immigrants.  The Alien and Sedition Acts, along with the Naturalization Act of 1798, were designed to achieve those ends.[x]

The idea of “purging” the United States of aliens was a fairly new concept for politicians of Philadelphia.  In the early 1790’s Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, encouraged immigrants to come the United States.  Hamilton and his followers believed that immigrants would help “fuel the economy,” which was an important factor for a newly formed indebt nation.[xi]  The Hamiltonian view of immigration was backed by a belief that these immigrants would eventually become “true Americans’ and assimilate into the newly formed American culture.  These ideas of immigration soon passed, as did Hamilton’s job as Secretary of the Treasury.  No longer did Federalist believe in open immigration, as Hopkinson’s words above adequately represent.  The times of Washington’s stance on neutrality were growing thinner and thinner, for the late 1790’s was a time of uncertainty with the horrifically bloody and brutal French Revolution.  By passing the Alien Acts and almost tripling the time it took to become an American citizen the Adam’s administration and the Federalist Congress hopped to limit the amount of immigrants.  These new immigrants that were coming into the U.S. were more and more “politically radical.”[xii] 

Despite the Alien’s Act to deter immigration a horde of emigrants from war torn Europe were coming to the U.S. as fast as the wind would blow them.  The new immigrants were a threat to the Federalist powers, for the new immigrants were often leaders for the Democratic-Republicans.  During this time period the Federalist thought limiting citizenship, thereby creating a “homogenous population,” was the only sure way to avoid the “threat of a world revolution.”[xiii]  Despite the best efforts by the Federalist government to limit immigration to the United States by limiting citizenship the emigrants kept on coming; even with the Alien and Sedition Acts the prospects of the New World were much more inviting than current savagery of western Europe.

The Federalist government thought that defining “true Americans” was the only was to insure a national character that was not infected with the views of France.  The prosecutor from the Duane case, Joseph Hopkinson, said “those among us who are stirring up sedition and strife, who plant after confusion, tumult and national ruin.”  Hopkinson was referring to the new emigrant, who he believed was ruining the country.[xiv]  Despite views like Hopkinson’s emigrants such as the Irish didn’t let this deter them from their hopes and aspirations of becoming American citizens and a part of the new American culture.  People such as Duane and his cohorts embraced American ideals and culture but also hung onto their traditions as Irish men.  This mind thought and action created the hyphenated American. 

The Kentucky and Virginia resolutions were southern and western states trying to show the importance of state citizenship. These resolutions came to represent a Jeffersonian ideal of states rights and were the most obvious opposition to the Federalist view of government and citizenship.  On the other edge of the sword were immigrant groups who fought for their rights to become “legitimate American citizens.”[xv]  The Irish of Philadelphia were the leaders of the movement against the Alien Acts, while Jefferson and Madison and their Kentucky and Virginia resolutions fought against the Sedition Act. 

William Duane, who was arrested in the churchyard for trying to gain signatures to petition the government, was the chief editor of the Aurora.  Duane published much of the anti-Federalist literature that was making its way to the homes of Philadelphians.  Many of the works published by the Aurora talked of how the Irish emigrants went through the same experiences as the early American revolutionaries.  The Irish were under the control of Britain, and just like the Americans, sought to break free from the grasp of English nation.[xvi]  Even before the Alien and Sedition Acts became law the Irish of Philadelphia had a sense of urgency and drive to organize efforts to thwart the efforts of anti-immigrant laws and sentiment.  One such society that tried to do just this was the “Hibernian Society for the Relief of the Emigrants from Ireland.”  The societies main efforts were charitable but they were supplemented by political efforts to organize the Republican Irish.”[xvii]  The Hibernian Society was not the only group that supported the immigrant cause.  Robert Gough said that about one-third of Philadelphia’s elite were members of societies that embraced European ancestry.

The late 1790’s was a time of changing policy and politics for the United States.  The U.S. was founded on the idea that all men are created equal and the U.S. was a country that was settled and tamed by a legion of immigrants. By 1798 the international scene was unsettling, much in part due to the horrific nature of the French Revolution.  The Federalist backed government sought to ward off any shock waves and repercussions of the Revolution by creating a “homogenous population.”  A native population was supposed to help purge American of these radical French ideals by simply keeping its citizens out of the U.S. In hopes of reaching their goal the Federalist Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.  These acts had a two fold meaning though.  The acts were meant to purge the nation of immigrants but by doing so the Federalist would rid themselves of a growing opposition, the Democratic-Republicans.  Immigrants made up a large number of emerging Democratic-Republicans; such immigrants and William Duane, with his Aurora, stood up and took action, bringing together a body of supporters that challenged the traditional Federalist government.  These efforts helped to create a two party system, much like the one American enjoy today.  The people of Philadelphia, especially the Irish immigrants, played a key role in lying shaping the newly born nation’s politics.

This link will lead you to The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.  The site provides full text documents dealing with Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

 http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/alsedact.htm

The link to the following web page provide a brief synopsis of the Alien and Sedition Acts and provides versions of the original text of the Acts.

http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/sedition/

The following link provides information on individuals arrested under the Alien and Sedition Acts, such as William Duane.  The web page also provides the text of the Acts.

http://www.napoleonseries.org/reference/political/legislation/alien.cfm