The American way of life is currently threatened from two sources: immigration and anti-government speech (most particularly anti-president speech).  The two are not necessarily related, but they both must be limited to save our nation.  The first problem is freedom of speech and the press. In order to promote the general welfare sometimes the blessings of liberty must be limited.  There is great danger in the false and malicious speech aimed at the president and the party that is currently in control of Congress.  The second problem is that enemies are infiltrating American society.  We must make it more difficult for aliens to obtain citizenship.  It should also be easier to deport new immigrants who are deemed dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, (New immigrants also tend to vote for the other party.)  So believed John Adams when in July of 1798 he signed in to law the Alien and Sedition Acts.

According to Adams our nation was at a dangerous precipice, where “Disorder, indifference, indiscipline, and disobedience” were defended as rights.  The “calumnies and contempts” and the “spirit of falsehood and malignity” that were directed against his government were a threat to the very “moral character of the nation.”[1]  It was therefore necessary to pass this law that would allow the president to deport “all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” In addition, this law determined that speech that was intended to defame “either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them…into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them…the hatred of the good people of the United States,” was punishable with fines and imprisonment.

This was the time in American history when our nation was first negotiating the relationships between liberty and security, and between party allegiance and patriotism. Adams made the mistake of conflating his political opponents with those who would truly wish to undermine or destroy our form of government, in other words, real and imagined threats.

Aristotle identified three forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy.  The distinguishing feature was whether power was held by one, or by a few, or by the many.  Democracy, unlike in the other two, is government by discussion.  The core problem that Adams faced, and mishandled to the ultimate harm of his party, was how to control the vitriol, exaggerations, and lies that will always be part of the discussion.

[1] John Adams, “‘To the Citizens Committee of Boston and Vicinity,'” in John Adams: Writings from the New Nation 1784-1826, ed. Gordon S. Wood (New York, N.Y.: Library of America, 2011), 350.