The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were four U.S. statutes that restricted naturalization, empowered the president of the United States to detain and deport foreigners, and criminalized false or malicious statements against the federal government. The laws were endorsed by the Federalist Party, led by President John Adams, on national security grounds in response to the later stages of the French Revolution and ongoing disputes with the French revolutionary government which had culminated in naval skirmishes. The prosecution of American journalists under the Sedition Act rallied public support for the opposition, led by Thomas Jefferson, who defeated Adams in the presidential election of 1800.

Under the Jefferson administration, three of the four Acts were repealed. Only the Alien Enemies Act, granting the president powers of detention and deportation of foreigners in wartime or in face of a threatened invasion, remained in force. It was invoked by United States presidents during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. During both World Wars, it provided the legal authority for the internment of German Americans. During World War II, it also provided the legal authority for the internment of Japanese Americans and the internment of Italian Americans, which was authorized by an executive order on purely racial grounds. In March 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act as his authority for expediting deportation of foreigners; this invocation is subject to ongoing litigation.

Summary Act Purpose Status Naturalization Act of 1798 To increase the requirements to seek citizenship. Repealed in 1802. Alien Friends Act of 1798 To allow the president to imprison and deport foreigners. Expired in 1800. Alien Enemies Act of 1798 To give the president additional powers to detain foreigners during times of war, invasion, or predatory incursion. Amended in 1918 to have gender-neutral applicability, currently codified at sections 4067 through 4070 of the Revised Statutes (50 U.S.C. 21 et seq.). Sedition Act of 1798 To criminalize false and/or malicious statements about the federal government. Expired in 1800. History

After the American Revolutionary War concluded, France was unable to provide further loans; Congress could no longer pay its soldiers. Alt URL In 1793, Congress unilaterally suspended repayment of French loans from the war, and in 1794 signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. France, engaged in the 1792 to 1797 War of the First Coalition, retaliated by having French privateers seize U.S. ships on both the Eastern Seaboard and the Caribbean.

President John Adams sent envoys to Paris but was purportedly confronted with a demand by French foreign minister Talleyrand for a bribe as a condition for opening formal negotiations. The publication in the Philadelphia Aurora of Talleyrand's account of what became known as the XYZ Affair initiated the first attempted prosecution under the Sedition Act. Charged with seditious libel against Adams and his Federalist administration, the Aurora's publisher Benjamin Franklin Bache died in advance of his trial.

The unresolved dispute with France evolved into the Quasi-War (1798 to 1800) fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the Caribbean and off the East Coast of the United States. Believing that French military successes in Europe had been assisted by the broader appeal of French revolutionary ideals, the Adams administration proposed the Alien and Sedition acts as counter to what they presumed would be a French strategy of domestic subversion.

Protests occurred across the country, with critics denouncing the Acts as an encroachment of the federal executive upon the powers of Congress and the judiciary, and a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech, primarily intended to suppress the Democratic-Republican opposition As campaign material for his 1800 United States presidential bid, Vice President Thomas Jefferson secretly authored a Kentucky resolution, seconded by James Madison in the Virginia legislature, asserting the right of the states to nullify the Acts as unconstitutional.Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. 2004. p. 587. Penguin Press. (States north of Virginia passed counter-resolutions asserting that the courts alone had the right of interpretation). Unless repealed, Jefferson suggested the legislation might drive states "into revolution and blood".

Alarmed, the Federalists accused the Democratic-Republicans of shielding the subversive activities of French and French-sympathizing immigrants. The Federalist pamphleteer William Cobbett accused Bache's successor at the Aurora, William Duane, of orchestrating a conspiracy among United Irish émigrés. Convening in Philadelphia's African Free School, and admitting, together with "all those who have suffered in the cause of freedom", free blacks, the Irish republicans had formed a society dedicated to the proposition (to which each member attested) that "a free form of government, and uncontrouled [sic] opinion on all subjects, [are] the common rights of all the human species". Against the backdrop of the Quasi War and of the Haitian Revolution (then still under the flag of the French Republic), for Cobbett, this was sufficient proof of an intention to organise slave revolts and "thus involve the whole country in rebellion and bloodshed". In protesting the Acts, Duane had argued, in letter to George Washington, for an entirely civic concept of American citizenship, one that might encompass "the Jew, the savage, the Mahometan, the idolator, upon all of whom the sun shines equally".Duane, William (1797), Letter to George Washington President of the United States, Baltimore: Printed for George Keating's Bookstore. Cited MacGiollabhui (2019), p. 113.

With President John Adams naming Duane as one of the three or four men most responsible for his defeat, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans ticket triumphed in the elections of 1800. Upon assuming the presidency, Jefferson pardoned those still serving sentences under the Sedition Act, and the new Congress repaid their fines.

Alien Friends Act

The Alien Friends Act (officially "An Act Concerning Aliens") authorized the president to deport any foreigner determined to be "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States." Once a foreigner was determined to be dangerous or was suspected of conspiring against the government, the president had the power to set a reasonable amount of time for departure, and remaining after the time limit could result to up to three years in prison. The law was never directly enforced, but it was often used in conjunction with the Sedition Act to suppress criticism of the Adams administration. Upon enactment, the Alien Friends Act was authorized for two years, and sunsetted thereafter. Democratic-Republicans opposed the law, with Thomas Jefferson referring to it as "a most detestable thing... worthy of the 8th or 9th century."

While the law was not directly enforced, it resulted in the voluntary departure of foreigners who feared that they would be charged under the act. The Adams administration encouraged these departures, and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering ensured that the ships were granted passage. Though Adams did not delegate the final decision-making power, Secretary Pickering was responsible for overseeing enforcement of the Alien Friends Act. Both Adams and Pickering considered the law too weak to be effective; Pickering expressed his desire for the law to require sureties and authorize detainment prior to deportation.

Many French nationals were considered for deportation but were allowed to leave willingly, or Adams declined to take action against them. These figures included philosopher Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, General Victor Collot, scholar Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, and diplomat Victor Marie du Pont. Secretary Pickering also proposed applying the act against the French diplomatic delegation to the United States, but Adams refused to do so. Journalist John Daly Burk agreed to leave under the act informally to avoid being tried for sedition, but he went into hiding in Virginia until the act's expiration. Adams never signed a deportation order.

Alien Enemies Act

The Alien Enemies Act (officially "An Act Respecting Alien Enemies") was passed to supplement the Alien Friends Act, granting the government additional powers to regulate the activity of foreigners in times of war or invasion. Under this law, the president could authorize the arrest, relocation, or deportation of any male over the age of 14 who hailed from a foreign enemy country. It also provided some legal protections for those subject to the law. Unlike the other acts, this act was largely unopposed by the Democratic-Republicans.

The Alien Enemies Act did not contain a sunset clause and has sustained force and effect, codified as sections 4067 to 4070 of the Revised Statutes (50 U.S.C. 21–24).

Invocations of the Alien Enemies Act Following the resolution of the Quasi War in 1800, and up until the second administration of President Trump in 2025, the Alien Enemies Act was invoked by the United States executive on three occasions.

War of 1812 President James Madison invoked the act against British nationals during the War of 1812, and ordered them to report to local authorities in order to undertake additional duties.

World War I

President Woodrow Wilson invoked the act against nationals of the Central Powers during World War I. In 1918, an amendment to the act struck the provision restricting the law to males.

World War II

On December 7, 1941, in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the authority of the revised Alien Enemies Act to make presidential proclamations #2525 (Alien Enemies – Japanese), #2526 (Alien Enemies – German), and #2527 (Alien Enemies – Italian), in order to apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove Japanese, German, and Italian foreigners. However, most of the 120,000 persons of Japanese descent incarcerated in U.S. internment camps were U.S. citizens detained solely on the basis of their Japanese ancestry, under the authority of Executive Order 9066 issued by Roosevelt early in 1942. The order was issued on the basis of wartime and national defense statutes unrelated to the Alien Enemies Act, and while deployed primarily against Japanese Americans did lead to the detention of smaller numbers of U.S. citizens of German and Italian descent.Semiannual Report of the War Relocation Authority, for the period January 1 to June 30, 1946, not dated. Papers of Dillon S. Myer. Scanned Image trumanlibrary.gov. Retrieved March 18, 2025.Semiannual Report of the War Relocation Authority, for the period January 1 to June 30, 1946, not dated. Papers of Dillon S. Myer. Scanned image at trumanlibrary.org. Retrieved September 18, 2006.The War Relocation Authority & the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II, not dated. Timeline. trumanlibrary.gov. Retrieved March 18, 2025."The War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II: 1948 Chronology", Web page at www.trumanlibrary.org. Retrieved September 11, 2006.