okay so in this video I want to cover uh an uproar over Free Speech Free Press and ultimately states rights that took place in the late 1790s and of course we're referring to something known as the alien it's Edition acts as well as the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions but we're going to start with the Uproar over free speech and Free Press and that's going to be embodied in the Alien and Sedition Acts so let's start our attention to those first the Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of congressional bills that were signed into law by President John Adams and these remain today of a black stain on his presidency he even admitted later that it was probably his biggest mistake so what were the alienist Edition x well the alienist Edition Acts were a series of laws and they were very partisan because they were designed to kind of Tamp down and limit any opposition to the emerging Federalist Party of which John Adams was a member the Federalists had been in control of the administration or in control of the federal government since the founding of the Republic and as a result of all of the Foreign Affairs disputes um as well as economic disputes by the late 1790s a lot of opposition had built towards uh the Federalist administrations including of course president Adams's Administration since this is an early you know this is early in the Republic uh these types of things would be Unthinkable today but in the early years of the Republic you know a lot of people didn't know what to do in the face of such withering opposition and so what Adams and the Federalists controlled Congress ended up doing was passing the aliens Edition acts now what were they okay so the alienist Edition Acts were designed to limit the freedom of speech and freedom of the press as well as limit the liberty of uh aliens uh which is is just a fancy word for immigrants who had not yet gained citizenship in the United States now three of these four alienist Edition acts reflected hostility towards French and Irish immigrants who had immigrated to the country they tended to have supported the Irish Rebellion or the French Revolution and when they arrived here in the country they kind of gravitated toward these Democratic Republican clubs that had emerged which are kind of the precursor to the rise of the democratic Republican parties and a lot of them were very militant um they brought with them their their their ideas uh against uh centralized government and many of them were very outspoken critics of the Adams Administration and were preaching militancy and so what some of these laws then gave president Adams the ability to do was to round some of these people up and Deport them back to where they came from other alien acts such as the Naturalization Act extended how long somebody had to live in the country before they could be considered a citizen but the guys are the biggest problem here was the Sedition Act this addition Act made it a federal crime to criticize the actions of the federal government including the Adams Administration now what was the point of this well sedition is is you know treasonous language right to to preach sedition is to essentially foment um Rebellion uh and so under the submission acts if you were uh criticizing the federal government whether you were doing it in print which is what creates this uh upper over free press or you were doing it in just speech which creates an up or over Free Speech you could be arrested under this Edition act uh and imprisoned and a lot of people were now who were these people that were arrested well they tended to be people involved with the Democratic Republican clubs people that operated printing presses that identified with these Democratic Republican clubs or societies um and again these are the people that are criticizing Adams these are the people that are you couldn't make the case are fomenting uh uh treacherous actions against the federal government um and so under the alien it's Edition acts president Adams was going to be given immense power to deal with perceived threats to the government whether they came from Americans that operated printing presses or were heavily involved in the Democratic Republican Societies or from immigrants that had come to the country that uh perhaps were a bit too militant for Adams is taste um so the Alien and Sedition X this is what created in the 1790s this uproar over free speech and freedom of the press uh they were clear violations of civil rights and clear violation of constitutional rights that were enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S Constitution so why did Adams do it I already mentioned that this is the early years of the Republican there is no road map for what to do here in the face of all this withering criticism and so Adams is Adams and the Congress probably made a big mistake here so why are the alienist Edition x important well here's a copy of both of them there's the alien act on on the first side there and then the the Sedition Act the Alien and Sedition Acts are significant uh because they created great division among the American people in the 1790s the emerging Democratic Republican movement were of course Very outspoken against this they saw this as a gross violation of uh of constitutional protections um but then in the emerging Federalist Party that we're going to learn more about in a little bit these were for the most part supported uh some were very willing supporters of the aliens Edition x others kind of held their nose and accepted it um under the pretense that they were needed in such a period of emergency now how much of a National Emergency existed for something like the alien Sedition Acts to happen it's Up For Debate Adam certainly felt there was the Congress certainly felt there was that the Democratic Republican movement obviously didn't so why are they significant the alienist Edition x created great division in the United States it led to this uproar over free speech over free press it pushed the boundaries of government Authority in the early years of the Republic but another reason the aliens Edition acts are significant is that they're going to lead to a pretty powerful backlash and it's going to come from the leaders of this Democratic Republican movement and the powerful backlash is going to take the form of something known as the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions now let's turn our attention to these things now the Kentucky Virginia resolutions of 1798 1799 these were a series of resolutions that were ratified uh um approved by the state legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia the authors of these resolutions were the leaders of this Rising Democratic Republican movement Thomas Jefferson and James Madison which we're going to learn more about their uh leadership over the emerging movement that will become the political party uh here soon now the Kentucky Virginia resolutions were interesting because obviously people like Jefferson and Madison would have seen the alienist Edition acts as unfairly targeting their political movement they would have seen it as unconstitutional they would have seen it as a gross violation of civil liberties and in today's standards if someone saw something the federal government was doing or a federal law was passed that was a clear violation of the Constitution uh today somebody would take that case to the federal courts because that's their job is to interpret the Constitution to interpret federal laws but Jefferson and Madison didn't take their arguments against the alien its addition acts to the courts instead they took it to the states and I think it's important to understand why one reason they took it to the states their arguments against the alienist Edition acts is that they just didn't think they would receive a fair Hearing in any federal court because the judges sitting on any federal court including the Supreme Court were all appointed by um Washington or John Adams who were politically opposed to this Rising Democratic Republican movement so they didn't think that he'd get a fear Fair hearing but another reason they didn't take it to the federal courts and instead took it to the states is that they just believe that the states had the right to interpret uh anything the federal government did that was unconstitutional meaning they believed the states had the right to kind of Judge whether or not the federal government was acting within its constitutional bounds they believe that was a right Reserve to the states and so they wrote their arguments against the alienist Edition acts into a series of resolutions that were placed before the Kentucky State Legislature and the Virginia state legislature and they were of course endorsed and approved by both of those legislatures now let's talk about the Kentucky Virginia resolutions because they are very important to American history Within These resolutions was a theory known as the compact theory of government now what were the basic principles of this Theory as described by Jefferson and Madison the basic principles involved with this theory was that the federal government had been created by the states that the States created the federal government in 1787 at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention and that the way the States created the new government and the new constitution was that they willingly gave up some of their own power to this new government okay if that's the case then according to Jefferson and Madison if the federal government ever abused its powers that were given to it meaning if it ever did anything beyond what had the Constitutional power to do then according to Jefferson of Madison's compact Theory the states had the right to nullify that action now of course the the thing they're talking about here is the aliens Edition act which are clear constitutional violations um they're essentially making the case then that states could ignore uh or nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts within their borders meaning those laws do not apply to the citizens of those States so that was the basic idea behind the compact Theory it was a way for Jefferson and Madison to kind of um limit the impact of the alienist Edition x but also make a big a big statement a big political statement about um how powerful this national government had become and what ways in which the the states could kind of combat that and essentially what they came up with was known as the compact theory of government now what is the impact of the compact theory of government on the course of American History well it's big um the idea that a state can nullify the actions of the federal government um is essentially then making the case that a state can just ignore the power of the federal government and if that's the case then you're essentially making the argument that a state has the right to rebel against the federal government by not obeying the law and if you're making the case then that a state has the right to rebel against the federal government then you're essentially making the case that the state any individual State could leave the union if it wanted to by simply ignoring federal laws committing an act of rebellion and the real fancy word you're implying then that a state can secede from the Union now did that ever happen in American history did a state ever secede from the Union Yes in fact uh over a dozen of them did uh in 1860 1861 and this is what will cause the American Civil War so what is the impact of the compact theory of government on the course of American History here it is this is the seed of the idea that's going to cause the American Civil War what caused the American Civil War was the secession um of several Southern States in 1860 1861. that placed the nation on the precipice of War that's what caused the American Civil War now why did those states secede well that's where you can have arguments about states rights or slavery uh by the way the answer is slavery but what you have here in 1798-99 is simply the seed of the idea that causes the American Civil War meaning the compact Theory as as put out by Jefferson and Madison simply made the argument that a state could secede for or could nullify a federal law but if you take that argument out to its logical conclusion um you're going to then infer that a state has the right to just basically rebel against the federal government to not be a part of the country if that's the case and then you're talking about secession so what's planted here in 1798-99 is the seed of the idea that's going to cause the American Civil War and the idea is of course that a state has the right to secede from the Union okay so that'll wrap up here this uh little 15-minute lecture about the Uproar over Free Speech Free Press and states rights by the way the uh Kentucky and Virginia resolutions is the upper or over states rights um so that'll conclude this uh I'll finish out uh kind of the story line here um Jefferson and Madison wrote the Kentucky Virginia resolutions anonymously because of course they were criticizing the federal government and under the alienist Edition acts you could be arrested for that um in the end no State neither Kentucky or Virginia nullified the alienist Edition x they simply endorse the idea that you could but the idea is now out there right the compact theory is out there and it's a seed that is planted that over time will grow as it is nurtured by a new generation of Southerners here in the United States that will grab on to these ideas of nullification and then begin to assert these ideas of secession and then 60 years later we're going to have the American Civil War uh okay so I hope uh you found this informative and I'll see you in the next video