Sedition law

“ The latter species of law, comprises the whole scope of legislation, which a free nation can part with; the former, it must forever retain and pronounce, or cease to be free. The treacherous art of blending these objects is exercised by sedition laws. They profess to regulate individuals, but design to regulate the form of government. They are nominally municipal, and operatively political law. The dictator over discussion, is a dictator over decision. ”

“ Congress has not, in any of its statutes relating to sedition, specifically barred the exercise of state power to punish the same Acts under state law. And, we read the majority opinion to assume for this case that, absent federal legislation, there is no constitutional bar to punishment of sedition against the United States by both a State and the Nation. [1] The majority limits to the federal courts the power to try charges of sedition against the Federal Government. ”

“ Legal truth, by the sedition law policy, is moral falsehood; the alternative lies between betraying the principles of a good government, or submitting to be considered as libellous, seditious and traitorous. It proposes to us to wound our consciences, by becoming traitors to our constitutions ”

“ The sedition law authorized the punishment, by fine and imprisonment, of persons who should unlawfully oppose or stir up sedition against the Federal government or its officials. The Republicans resented the law, because it restricted the liberty of speech and of the press.
The naturalization law, with other requirements, provided that an alien must reside in the United States fourteen years before he could become a citizen. ”

“ There is no power which this Government shall ever wish to usurp, which cannot, by ingenuity, be found lurking in some of the express powers granted by the Constitution. In my humble judgment, the argument in favor of the constructive power to pass the sedition law is much more plausible than any that can be urged by the advocates of this bill, in favor of its passage. I beg gentlemen to reflect, before they vote in its favor. ”

“ For if an unconstitutional law be once passed, the Sedition law for example, it can never be repealed without the concurrence of both Houses of Congress, that is to say, without the concurrence of a majority of the States in the Senate, and of a majority of the People in the House of Representatives. ”

“ Old sedition law federalism is against them: the cormorants who are whetting their bills for the prey which the acts of this session are to give them, are against them: and the advocates of these acts, who cannot answer these arguments, and who shelter weakness under dignified silence, they are all weary, sick and tired of a contest which rages on one side only, and which exposes at once the badness of their cause and the defeat of its defenders. ”

“ If on the contrary these prejudices are confined to the state judiciaries, neither will the federal judges be exempt from their prejudices. Their prejudices will be on the side of power and of “the government which feeds them.” Let FACTS speak upon this subject. Did not the federal judges lend themselves as willing instruments, to a corrupt congress to enforce the infamous sedition law? Did not they, under that law, and in the very teeth of the first amendment to the constitution, incarcerate several of our citizens and break down entirely the freedom of the press? ”

“ And as they declare they had formed the determination, on the first instance of an indictment under the sedition law, to come forward and volunteer their services for the sake not of the man, but of their cause, common decency to the Court, and a proper respect for themselves, ought to have dictated to them in the interim to have made themselves fully acquainted with all the law relative to that subject in which they had thus determined officiously to interpose. ”

“ In the first place, the action of this Society, as a grand political organization, on the social fabric of foreign States—for the slave States are foreign in respect to it—with the intent to change it against their consent, and thus disturbing their domestic tranquility, is a violation of the law of nations. This is sedition in a higher and more important sense, than any combined assault on the social institutions of a community by its own members, inasmuch as the remedy is more difficult to be attained, and more momentous in its consequences. It can be settled only by the sword. ”

“ Every act of ill-will to the existing Government, is immediately followed by one tending to submission to Great Britain. These acts are, however, out of the question, for they belong to the class enumerated in the first section of the sedition law, which nobody wishes to repeal, as the committee declare. ”

“ To enact laws without giving the power of inflicting punishment for their infraction is certainly a poHtical paradox. The Constitution and laws recognize the offenses of treason, insurrection, mutiny, and sedition; but the Congress has never appropriated anything to their commission. Resistance to the execution of a law by persons associated for the purpose is sedition, and individuals setting themselves up in armed bodies in defiance of the laws, and with a view of preventing their operation, is insurrection. ”

“ The people therefore, are suspicious. A mandate was issued on the 24th of the 11th month of the 3rd year in which it is affirmed: "Democracy and republicanism are laid down in the Constitutional Compact; and there is also a law relating to the punishment of those who spread sedition in order to disturb the minds of the people. If any one shall hereafter dare to advance strange doctrines and misconstrue the meaning of the Constitution, he will be punished severely in accordance with the law of sedition." ”

“ Sedition is also dealt with by the state laws mostly in a very liberal spirit. Thus the Louisiana Code, § 394, enacted that “there is no such offence known to our law as defamation of the government or either of its branches, either under the name of libel, slander, seditious writing or other appellation.” By § 111, to constitute the offence of sedition “there must be not only a design to dismember the state, or to subvert or change its constitution, but an attempt must be made to do it by force.” ”

“ Sedition, in the legal sense, means to betray the government, to give aid and comfort to the enemy; or to counsel resistance to the laws or to measures of government having the force of law. There can be conduct morally as bad as legal sedition which yet may not be violation of law. The President - any President - can by speech or action (by advocating an improper peace or improper submission to national wrong) give aid and comfort to the public enemy as no one else in the land can do, and yet his conduct, however damaging to the country, is not seditious ”

“ Thus we discern, that sedition laws are consistent with the system of orders, for the same reason which makes them inconsistent with the policy of the United States. The sovereignty of orders being maintainable, only by reserving to itself free discussion, and imposing restraints upon the people, it follows, that national sovereignty is only maintainable, by reserving free discussion to the people, and imposing restraints upon the government. ”

“ For, as the court below observed:
'Unlike the Smith Act, which can be administered only by federal officers acting in their official capacities, indictment for sedition under the Pennsylvania statute can be initiated upon an information made by a private individual. The opportunity thus present for the indulgence of personal spite and hatred or for furthering some selfish advantage or ambition need only be mentioned to be appreciated. Defense of the Nation by law, no less than by arms, should be a public and not a private undertaking. ”

“ But the executive determined that the sedition act was a nullity under the constitution, and exercised his regular power of prohibiting the execution of the sentence, or rather of executing the real law, which protected the acts of the defendants. From these different constructions of the same act by different branches, less mischief arises, than from giving to any one of them a control over the others. The executive and Senate act on the construction, that until delivery from the executive department, a commission is in their possession, and within their rightful power ”

“ And although this law directs this punishment to be inflicted on alien friends only, if the principle is once admitted to be a constitutional one, it will soon be extended to natives also: and then the best of our patriots, would, under new-fangled charges of sedition, be sent to Botany Bay, to lament the general downfall of liberty, with the British patriots who have already been exiled there, under sentences given on similar charges. ”

“ They were violently opposed by the minority in parliament, and Fox declared that if they became law, obedience would no longer be a question of duty but of prudence, a direct [Pg 380] incitement to rebellion only to be excused as uttered in the heat of debate, an excuse which is also needed for some foolish and intemperate language on the other side. The sedition bill, which was limited to three years, was amended by giving up the clause empowering magistrates to dissolve meetings at their discretion as dangerous to the public peace. ”

“ Usurpation, perpetrated or designed, invariably resorts to sedition laws, because by suppressing discussion, it defends itself against suppression. What! Are these laws also defenders of national sovereignty or self government? Will they, like Swiss soldiers, fight equally well for spurious or for legitimate sovereignty? Will a suppression of discussion, be equally serviceable to a sovereignty which lives upon free discussion, and to one which cannot live, until free discussion is dead? Can an usurper and a nation secure sovereignty by the same code? ”

“ The state court further gave its interpretation of the third clause of the statute, that is, in relation to the display of a flag or banner 'as an aid to propaganda that is of a seditious character.' Both opinions dealt with the meaning of this clause. Thus in one opinion it is said: 'Appellants' counsel concedes that sedition laws which 'interdict against the use of force or violence' are consistently upheld by the courts, and all of the authorities cited by him support that proposition. ”

“ Then a person who had profoundly and carefully examined the use and purport of this law, affirmed that it was calculated not to increase but terminate sedition; and indeed it really is so, for if all the more respectable, who were at first unable to check sedition, and could not overawe the divided and infatuated people, join themselves to one part or other, it will happen that when they are divided on both sides, and each party begins to be ruled and moderated by them, as men of superior influence, harmony will by their means be sooner restored and confirmed ”

“ Every armed force or meeting of persons which shall arrogate to itself the rights of the people, and petition in their name, is guilty of sedition. Article 23. In the event of internal commotion or foreign attack which might place in jeopardy the practice of this Constitution, and the free action of the Authorities created by it, the Province or territory where such disturbance exists shall be declared in a state of siege, all constitutional guarantees being meantime suspended there. But during such suspension the President of the Republic cannot condemn nor apply any punishment per se. ”

“ President, only in the past few months this Court rendered a decision which struck down the sedition statutes in 48 States and two Territories, merely because the Federal Government had a statute on sedition. The Supreme Court held that because of that fact, the Federal Government had preempted the whole field, and struck down the State statutes on sedition. Sedition means overthrowing the Government. ”

“ It is important that punitive sanctions for sedition against the United States be such as have been promulgated by the central governmental authority and administered under the supervision and review of that authority's judiciary. ”

“ The Government of this country, and those States which are parties concerned, cannot be too much alive to this fact. The public generally ought to understand it; and if the knowledge and conviction should generally obtain, that this Society is a seditious organization, and engaged in a work of sedition, which, by continuance, may grow into treason, it is believed, that no more acquisitions to its numbers and power could be made, and that it would gradually die away, and cease to agitate the public mind, without the intervention of the public authorities. ”

“ There is, consequently, no question as to whether some general congressional regulatory scheme might be upset by a coinciding state plan. [2] In these circumstances the conflict should be clear and direct before this Court reads a congressional intent to void state legislation into the federal sedition acts. [3] Chief Justice Marshall wrote:
'To interfere with the penal laws of a State, where they * * * have for their sole object the internal government of the country, is a very serious measure, which Congress cannot be supposed to adopt lightly, or inconsiderately. ”

“ The best precautions against sedition are these: to avoid illegality and frauds upon the unprivileged; to maintain good feeling between rulers and ruled; to watch destructive agencies; to alter property qualifications from time to time; to let no individual or class become too powerful; not to let magistracies be a source of gain; to beware of class-oppression (c. 8) . In all magistrates we should require loyalty, ability, and justice; we should not carry the principle of the constitution to extremes; we should educate the citizens in the spirit of a constitution (c. 9) . ”