use in speech or written form any language that was disloyal to the government, the Constitution, the military, or the flag.

The provisions of the act prohibited certain types of speech as they related to the war or the military. Targets were typically individuals who opposed the war effort Wilson was concerned about the country’s diminishing morale and looking for a way to clamp down on growing and widespread disapproval of the war and the military draft that had been instituted to fight it.

President Woodrow Wilson, in conjunction with congressional leaders and the influential newspapers of the era, urged passage of the Sedition Act in the midst of U.S. Ultimately, its passage came to be viewed as an instance of government overstepping the bounds of First Amendment freedoms. Passed on May 16, 1918, as an amendment to Title I of the Espionage Act of 1917, the act provided for further and expanded limitations on speech. New York Times (1964), which determined that the press’s criticism of public officials-unless a plaintiff could prove that the statements were made maliciously or with reckless disregard for the truth-was protected speech under the First Amendment.The Sedition Act of 1918 curtailed the free speech rights of U.S. Major portions of the Espionage Act remain part of United States law to the present day, although the crime of sedition was largely eliminated by the famous libel case Sullivan v. In this decision, Holmes maintained that freedom of speech and press could be constrained in certain instances, and that the question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.ĭebs’ sentence was commuted in 1921 when the Sedition Act was repealed by Congress. United States (1919), when Charles Schenck, also a Socialist, had been found guilty under the Espionage Act after distributing a flyer urging recently drafted men to oppose the U.S. In the decision, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to the earlier landmark case of Schenck v. Supreme Court, where the court ruled Debs had acted with the intention of obstructing the war effort and upheld his conviction. Debs appealed the decision, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Debs, a pacifist labor organizer and founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who had run for president in 1900 as a Social Democrat and in 1904, 19 on the Socialist Party of America ticket.Īfter delivering an anti-war speech in June 1918 in Canton, Ohio, Debs was arrested, tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Sedition Act. One of the most famous prosecutions under the Sedition Act during World War I was that of Eugene V.

Constitution, namely to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Though Wilson and Congress regarded the Sedition Act as crucial in order to stifle the spread of dissent within the country in that time of war, modern legal scholars consider the act as contrary to the letter and spirit of the U.S. This was the same penalty that had been imposed for acts of espionage in the earlier legislation. Those who were found guilty of such actions, the act stated, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both. government, the flag, the Constitution or the military agitating against the production of necessary war materials or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts. armed forces’ prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies.Īimed at socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists, the Sedition Act imposed harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making false statements that interfered with the prosecution of the war insulting or abusing the U.S. entrance into the war in early April 1917, made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. The Espionage Act, passed shortly after the U.S. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson. On May 16, 1918, the United States Congress passes the Sedition Act, a piece of legislation designed to protect America’s participation in World War I.Īlong with the Espionage Act of the previous year, the Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A.

Espionage and sedition acts apush