First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

the party in power cracking down on the opposition press. In the two years after the Sedition Law was enacted, twenty-five journalists were arrested and ten convicted. There were five major anti-administration newspapers at the time; the editors of four of them were indicted.83

Federalists led by President Adams were in power. The Alien and Sedition Acts were employed to suppress the press and speech.