6-2 Us History Key Terms

Front 1

XYZ affair

Back 1

French Secret agents sent by French foreign minister called X,Y,Z met with American officials in Paris
• French agents demanded a bribe of 250,000 and a loan to the French for $10 million before the Americans would even be allowed to see the French foreign minister.( very common in European diplomacy for the time period)
• The Americans were outraged

Front 2

Alien and Sedition Acts

Back 2

The federalist took advantage of the war crisis and Adam’s popularity to push measures through congress like increase size of army, higher taxes to support navy and army and the Alien and Sedition) Acts of 1798
• Under the Alien Act, the Pres. gained the right to imprison or deport citizens of other countries living in the US.
• Under the Seditions Acts, person who wrote, published, or said anything “false, scandalous, and malicious” against the American govt. or its officials could be fined or jailed. Against law to criticize govt. officials unless you could prove everything you said.
• The federalist used the sedition acts to silence the republicans. Under this act 10 republicans
were convicted and many others were put on trial.

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Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

Back 3

• Jefferson and Madison responded to the Alien and Sedition Acts with this.
• They felt freedom of speech was being violated
• These resolutions adopted by the legislatures of those 2 states agrued that the states had the right to judge whether federal laws agreed with the constitution.
• If a state decided a law was unconstitutional it could declare that law “null and void” within that state
• Nullification remained untested-neither Virginia nor Kentucky tried to enforce the resolution-their defiance of federal power was clear

Front 4

tribute

Back 4

bribery