The Importance Of The Sedition Act

To convince the states to accept the Constitution, a Bill of Rights was added at the beginning. The First Amendment was first worded as “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.” After some time, the First Amendment changed into a more accommodating version, allowing the government to regulate print and speech. The original draft protected the people more from government involvement and would find the Sedition Act of 1798 to be unreasonable.
Though the basic content is there, the newer version of the amendment allows the government to make laws that limit speech and press. It states that the government cannot make laws to reduce the freedom of speech and press. However, currently the government is able to apply consequences to certain cases such as the distribution of obscene material. One
The Sedition Act made it a crime to print or say false and scandalous statements about Congress or the president. Blackstone wrote that this limitation is important in keeping order and trust in the government among the people. He wrote that such language regardless of its correctness, would lead to the “…the breach of the public peace by stirring up the objects of them to revenge, and perhaps to bloodshed” (149). Contrary to Blackstone, Madison believed that the act was unconstitutional; he stated that in the Virginia Resolutions after the act was passed in 1798. In regard to the Sedition Act, he wrote “…which acts exercises in like manner a power not delegated by the Constitution, but on the contrary expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments…” (23). The act gives the government powers (the power to limit the freedom of speech and press) that the Constitution does not give the government to