![]() They were accompanied by a clumsy attempt to take control of the electoral college away from the states and put it into Federalist hands. ![]() The acts also put in place sweeping restrictions on immigrants. But they pointedly did not outlaw criticism of the vice president - who was Jefferson, the certain challenger to Adams in 1800. The acts didn’t aim at libels on the “federal government” - they made it a crime to criticize the president or Congress. Faced with almost certain defeat in 1800, the Federalists tried to shut down criticism of their leaders. They were, in fact, essentially part of an attempted coup by the Federalist Party. ![]() Adams’s Federalists, he writes, “struck at enemies at home with laws allowing the president to deport aliens he deemed dangerous and the federal courts to prosecute libels on the federal government.” This understates both the sweep and the aim of the acts. ![]() Consider Brookhiser’s brief summary of America’s first constitutional crisis, the Alien and Sedition Acts controversy. ![]()
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