Enacted during the crisis of World War I, the Sedition Act was part of an effort to suppress domestic opposition to the entry of the United States into the war. With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, the Wilson administration, in an effort to ensure unity, steadily moved to restrict the civil liberties of its citizens. Even as it declared the United States neutral in the conflict, it began to prepare for war. In early April 1917, when President WoODROW WiLSON asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, he also called upon Congress to pass legislation that would enforce the loyalty of all Americans to the country’s role in the war. In response, Representative Edwin Webb of North Carolina and Senator Charles Culberson of Texas began to craft legislation that would give the president the ability to impose “stern repression” to ensure unity behind the nation’s emerging war effort.
The Espionage Act, as it was known when their legislative attempts were finally enacted in early June 1917, furnished the government with ample power for the suppression of those who opposed the war. It imposed stiff fines (between $5,000 and $10,000) and jail sentences of up to 20 years for individuals convicted under this legislation. The following year, Congress further restricted the ability to challenge America’s participation in the war with the passage of a series of amendments that came to be known as the Sedition Act (May 1918). These amendments prohibited “any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy.”
Combined, the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act went far beyond simply attempting to prevent spying for the enemy. Instead, their main effect was to make it illegal to write or utter any statement that could be construed as profaning the flag, the Constitution, or the military. The legislation stifled most domestic opposition to the war. The extreme nature of these legislative acts constituted the most drastic restriction of free speech since the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The Socialist Party of America and the INDUSTRIAL WORKERS Of THE WORLD (IWW) had emerged by 1917 as the most vocal and organized forces opposing America’s involvement in the war in Europe. Accordingly, they quickly became among the first groups to feel the strong arm of the legal system. Under these two laws, some 6,000 arrests were made and 1,055 convictions were obtained. In 1919, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this legislation in its ruling in Abrams v. United States. Both pieces of legislation expired in 1921.
See also Schenck v. United States.
Further reading: Paul Murphy, World War I and the Origins of Civil Liberties in the United States (New York: Norton, 1979).
—David R. Smith
World History
