Under the impression that the United States was secretly in cahoots with France due to their alliance, despite the implementation of the Neutrality Acts, the British attacked American vessels in the French West Indies. They seized 300 merchant ships and hundreds of seamen, some of whom they employed on their own ships and others they incarcerated in dungeons. In 1794 Washington sent John Jay to London to treat with the British about their violations of America’s neutral rights but, due in part to Hamilton selling out Jay’s bargaining tactics to the Britons, he instead ended up binding American merchants to pre-Revolutionary debts, received only tentative assurance that Britain would remove her posts on U.S. soil, and none at all that they would cease future maritime attacks and seizures.
…show more content…
Federalists banked on anti-French sentiment of the time, which often spread to anti-immigrant sentiment in general, to carry their acts through Congress. The Alien Acts extended the wait time for immigrants desiring citizenship from five years to fourteen years, which Jeffersonians smeared as directly counterintuitive to the ideal of speedy assimilation. They also allowed for forced deportation or imprisonment of immigrants who were deemed “dangerous,” an arbitrary and controversial power. The Sedition Act was viewed as an assault on the First Amendment because it legalized the fining and imprisonment of individuals convicted of spreading or publishing false attacks on government officials, including the president. Because of the Sedition Act, several editors who opposed Federalist views ended up fined or incarcerated for their words, fueling discontent within the states and earning Democratic-Republicans greater
Federalists banked on anti-French sentiment of the time, which often spread to anti-immigrant sentiment in general, to carry their acts through Congress. The Alien Acts extended the wait time for immigrants desiring citizenship from five years to fourteen years, which Jeffersonians smeared as directly counterintuitive to the ideal of speedy assimilation. They also allowed for forced deportation or imprisonment of immigrants who were deemed “dangerous,” an arbitrary and controversial power. The Sedition Act was viewed as an assault on the First Amendment because it legalized the fining and imprisonment of individuals convicted of spreading or publishing false attacks on government officials, including the president. Because of the Sedition Act, several editors who opposed Federalist views ended up fined or incarcerated for their words, fueling discontent within the states and earning Democratic-Republicans greater