Of greater consequence was the Sedition Act, which made any “False, scandalous, and malicious” writing against the government, Congress, or the President, or any attempt “to excite against them . . . the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition,” crimes punishable by fine and imprisonment. Though it was clearly a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, its Federalist proponents in Congress insisted, like Adams, that it was a war measure, and an improvement on the existing common law in that proof of the truth of the
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