The thin-skinned president who made it illegal to criticize his office

Adams and his Federalist Party supporters in Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts under the guise of national security, supposedly to safeguard the nation at a time of preparing for possible war with France. The “Alien” part of the law allowed the government to deport immigrants and made it harder for naturalized citizens to vote. But the law mainly was designed to mute backers of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson, who also happened to be the vice president. Jefferson had finished second to Adams in the 1796 presidential election and again ran against him in 1800.

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Just one decade after adoption of the U.S. Constitution, the United States had survived its first constitutional crisis. At stake, Jefferson said in his 1801 inauguration speech, was the right of citizens “to think freely and to speak and write what they think.” But there would continue to be many more challenges to these freedoms in the young democracy’s coming years.