Sedition Act of 1918 - wikipedia Sedition Act of 1918 Sedition Act of 1918 Long title An Act to amend section three, title one, of the Act entitled `` An Act to punish acts of interference with the foreign relations, the neutrality, and the foreign commerce of the United States, to punish espionage, and better to enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and for other purposes, '' approved June fifteenth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and for other purposes. Enacted by the 65th United States Congress Effective May 16, 1918 Citations Public law 65 - 150 Statutes at Large 40 Stat. 553 Codification Acts repealed December 13, 1920 Legislative history Introduced in the House as H.R. 8753 by Edwin Y. Webb ( D -- NC ) on April 17, 1918 Passed the House on April 23, 1918 ( Passed ) Passed the Senate on May 4, 1918 ( 48 - 26 ) Reported by the joint conference committee on May 7, 1918 ; agreed to by the House on May 7, 1918 ( 292 - 1 ) and by the Senate on May 7, 1918 ( Agreed ) Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on May 16, 1918 United States Supreme Court cases Abrams v. United States Brandenburg v. Ohio The Sedition Act of 1918 ( Pub. L. 65 -- 150, 40 Stat. 553, enacted May 16, 1918 ) was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. It forbade the use of `` disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language '' about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years. The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times `` when the United States is in war. '' The U.S. was in a declared state of war at the time of passage, the First World War. The law was repealed on December 13, 1920. Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act. Therefore, many studies of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act find it difficult to report on the two `` acts '' separately. For example, one historian reports that `` some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, resulting in more than a thousand convictions. '' Court decisions do not use the shorthand term Sedition Act, but the correct legal term for the law, the Espionage Act, whether as originally enacted or as amended in 1918. Contents 1 Earlier legislation 2 Enactment 3 Enforcement 4 See also 5 References 6 Sources 7 Further reading 8 External links Earlier legislation The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to interfere with the war effort, disrupt military recruitment, or to attempt to aid a nation at war with the U.S. Wartime violence on the part of local groups of citizens, sometimes mobs or vigilantes, persuaded some lawmakers that the law was inadequate. In their view the country was witnessing instances of public disorder that represented the public 's own attempt to punish unpopular speech in light of the government 's inability to do so. Amendments to enhance the government 's authority under the Espionage Act would prevent mobs from doing what the government could not. Enactment While much of the debate focused on the law 's precise language, there was considerable opposition in the Senate, almost entirely from Republicans like Henry Cabot Lodge and Hiram Johnson, the former speaking in defense of free speech and the latter assailing the administration for failing to use the laws already in place. Former President Theodore Roosevelt voiced opposition as well. President Wilson and his Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory viewed the bill as a political compromise. They hoped to avoid hearings that would embarrass the administration for its failure to prosecute offensive speech. They also feared other proposals that would have withdrawn prosecutorial authority from the Justice Department and placed it in the War Department, creating a sort of civilian court - martial process of questionable constitutionality. The final vote for passage was 48 to 26 in the Senate and 293 to 1 in the House of Representatives, with the sole dissenting vote in the House cast by Meyer London of New York. Officials in the Justice Department who had little enthusiasm for the law nevertheless hoped that even without generating many prosecutions it would help quiet public calls for more government action against those thought to be insufficiently patriotic. Enforcement Most U.S. newspapers `` showed no antipathy toward the act '' and `` far from opposing the measure, the leading papers seemed actually to lead the movement in behalf of its speedy enactment. '' The legislation came so late in the war, just a few months before Armistice Day, that prosecutions under the provisions of the Sedition Act were few. One notable case was that of Mollie Steimer, convicted under the Espionage Act as amended by the Sedition Act. U.S. Attorneys at first had considerable discretion in using these laws, until Gregory, a few weeks before the end of the war, instructed them not to act without his approval. Enforcement varied greatly from one jurisdiction to the next, with most activity in the Western states where the Industrial Workers of the World labor union was prevalent. For example, Marie Equi was arrested for giving a speech at the IWW hall in Portland, Oregon, and was convicted after the war was over. In April 1918, the government arrested industrialist William Edenborn, a naturalized citizen from Germany, at his railroad business in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was accused of speaking `` disloyally '' when he allegedly belittled the threat of Germany to the security of the United States. In June 1918, the Socialist Party figure Eugene V. Debs of Indiana was arrested for violating the Sedition Act by undermining the government 's conscription efforts. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. He served his sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary from April 13, 1919, until December 1921, when President Harding commuted Debs ' sentence to time served, effective on December 25, Christmas Day. In March 1919, President Wilson, at the suggestion of Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory, released or reduced the sentences of some two hundred prisoners convicted under the Espionage Act or the Sedition Act. With the act rendered inoperative by the end of hostilities, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer waged a public campaign, not unrelated to his own campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, in favor of a peacetime version of the Sedition Act. He sent a circular outlining his rationale to newspaper editors in January 1919, citing the dangerous foreign - language press and radical attempts to create unrest in African American communities. He testified in favor of such a law in early June 1920. At one point Congress had more than 70 versions of proposed language and amendments for such a bill, but it took no action on the controversial proposal during the campaign year of 1920. After a court decision later in June cited Palmer 's anti-radical campaign for its abuse of power, the conservative Christian Science Monitor found itself unable to support him any more, writing on June 25, 1920 : `` What appeared to be an excess of radicalism... was certainly met with... an excess of suppression. '' The Alien Registration Act of 1940 was the first American peacetime sedition act. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Sedition Act in Abrams v. United States ( 1919 ), although Oliver Wendell Holmes used his dissenting opinion to make a commentary on what has come to be known as `` the marketplace of ideas ''. Subsequent Supreme Court decisions, such as Brandenburg v. Ohio ( 1969 ), make it unlikely that similar legislation would be considered constitutional today. As part of a sweeping repeal of wartime laws, Congress repealed the Sedition Act on December 13, 1920. See also Sedition Act of 1798, outlawing false statements criticizing the American government, which expired in 1801. Smith Act of 1940, passed in anticipation of World War II and later used against alleged Communist agents. Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, a failed bill which would have taken measures against domestic terrorism. References Jump up ^ Stone, 541 ; Kennedy, 80 Jump up ^ Stone, 12 Jump up ^ Stone, 186 ; Chafee, 44 - 5 ^ Jump up to : Stone, 230 Jump up ^ Chafee, 44 Jump up ^ Avrich, 94 Jump up ^ Stone, 187 - 8 ; Chafee, 46. ^ Jump up to : `` Senate Accepts Sedition Bill ''. The New York Times. May 5, 1918. Retrieved February 12, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Senators Assail the Sedition Bill ''. The New York Times. May 4, 1918. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Fears Speech Curb in Sedition Bill ''. The New York Times. April 25, 1918. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Jump up ^ Stone, 189 - 90. Jump up ^ Kennedy, 80. Jump up ^ `` Spies and their Congeners ''. The New York Times. April 22, 1918. Retrieved February 11, 2010. ( `` Congeners '' means `` others of the same sort. '' ) Jump up ^ Stone, 190 Jump up ^ `` Sedition Bill Sent to Wilson by House '' ( PDF ). The New York Times. May 8, 1918. Retrieved November 18, 2010. ^ Jump up to : Stone, 191n. Jump up ^ Mock, Jump up ^ Stone, 139. Jump up ^ Kennedy, 83 Jump up ^ Hodges, Michael ( Fall 2007 ), `` At War Over the Espionage Act in Portland '', Oregon Historical Quarterly, 108 ( 3 ), archived from the original on October 15, 2008 Jump up ^ `` Railway President Held as Seditionist ; William Edenborn, Naturalized German, Accused of Disloyal Speech in Louisiana, April 28, 1918 ''. The New York Times, April 28, 1918. April 29, 1918. Retrieved October 30, 2010. Jump up ^ New York Times : `` Harding Frees Debs and 23 Others Held for War Violations, '' December 24, 1921, accessed January 4, 2011 Jump up ^ Stone, 231 - 2 Jump up ^ Stone, 225. President Wilson endorsed a peacetime Sedition Act in December 1919. Kennedy, 87 Jump up ^ Chafee, 195 - 6 Jump up ^ Chafee, 197 Jump up ^ Nelles, 2 Jump up ^ Stone, 226 ; Chafee, 198 Jump up ^ Kennedy, 87 Jump up ^ Kennedy, 86 Jump up ^ According to Kennedy, 87n, the Sedition Act amendments were set to expire in 1921. Jump up ^ According to Hagedorn, 433, the Sedition Act amendments were repealed in March 1921. Sources Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti : The Anarchist Background ( Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1991 ) Hagedorn, Ann, Savage Peace : Hope and Fear in America, 1919 ( NY : Simon & Schuster, 2007 ) Kennedy, David M., Over Here : The First World War and American Society ( NY : Oxford University Press, 2004 ) Mock, James R., Censorship 1917 ( Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1941 ) Nelles, Walter, Seeing Red : Civil Liberty and the Law in the Period Following the War ( American Civil Liberties Union, 1920 ) Stone, Geoffrey R., Perilous Times : Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism ( NY : W.W. Norton & Company, 2004 ) Further reading Kohn, Stephen M., American Political Prisoners : Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts ( Westport, CT : Praeger, 1994 ) Murphy, Paul L., World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States ( NY : W.W. Norton, 1979 ) Peterson, H.C., and Gilbert C. Fite, Opponents of War, 1917 -- 1918 ( Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 1957 ) Preston, William, Jr. Aliens and Dissenters : Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903 -- 1933 2nd ed. ( Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1994 ) Rabban, David M., Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years ( NY : Cambridge University Press, 1997 ) Scheiber, Harry N., The Wilson Administration and Civil Liberties 1917 -- 1921 ( Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1960 ) Thomas, William H., Jr. Unsafe for Democracy : World War I and the U.S. Justice Department 's Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent. ( Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 2008 ) External links Wikisource has original text related to this article : Sedition Act of 1918 Strauss, Lon : Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression ( USA ), in : 1914 - 1918 - online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Brown, Charlene Fletcher : Palmer Raids, in : 1914 - 1918 - online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Thomas, William H. : Bureau of Investigation, in : 1914 - 1918 - online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. The Montana Sedition Project A prosecution, Nashville, August 1918 Text of the Sedition Act of 1918 Woodrow Wilson 28th President of the United States ( 1913 -- 1921 ) 34th Governor of New Jersey ( 1911 -- 1913 ) 13th President of Princeton University ( 1902 -- 1910 ) Presidency 1913 inauguration Suffrage Parade 1917 inauguration The New Freedom Clayton Antitrust Act Farm Loan Act Federal Employees ' Compensation Act Federal Reserve System Federal Reserve Act Federal Income Tax amendment Federal Trade Commission Act Federal Trade Commission Revenue Act of 1913 Flag Day National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Occupation of Haiti Bryan -- Chamorro Treaty Philippine Autonomy Act World War I entry campaigns home front Committee on Public Information Espionage Act of 1917 Selective Service Act of 1917 Four Minute Men Sedition Act of 1918 National War Labor Board The Inquiry American Commission to Negotiate Peace Paris Peace Conference, 1919 Treaty of Versailles The Big Four Fourteen Points League of Nations charter 1919 Nobel Peace Prize Wilsonian Armenia Silent Sentinels Women 's Suffrage amendment Roosevelt desk Judicial appointments Supreme Court Cabinet State of the Union Address 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1920 Life Birthplace and Presidential Library papers and manuscripts Boyhood home in Georgia Boyhood home in South Carolina Princeton University president Summer White House ( Harlakenden Shadow Lawn ) Woodrow Wilson House Gravesite Books Congressional Government When a Man Comes to Himself The New Freedom ( 1913 ) Elections New Jersey gubernatorial election, 1910 1912 Democratic National Convention 1912 U.S. presidential election 1916 Democratic National Convention 1916 U.S. presidential election Legacy Wilsonianism Woodrow Wilson Foundation Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Celestial Sphere Woodrow Wilson Memorial Woodrow Wilson Bridge Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation U.S. Postage stamps U.S. Currency Popular culture Wilson ( 1944 film ) Profiles in Courage ( 1965 series ) Wilson ( 2013 book ) Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of the American Century ( 2002 documentary ) Family Joseph Ruggles Wilson ( father ) Jessie Janet Woodrow ( mother ) Ellen Axson Wilson ( wife, 1885 -- 1914 ; death ) Edith Bolling Wilson ( wife, 1915 -- 1924 ) Helen Woodrow Bones ( cousin & his secretary ) Margaret Wilson ( daughter ) Jessie Wilson Sayre ( daughter ) Eleanor Wilson McAdoo ( daughter ) William McAdoo ( son - in - law ) Francis Bowes Sayre Sr. son - in - law Francis Sayre, Jr. ( grandson ) James Woodrow ( maternal uncle ) Related Progressive Era Jefferson Literary and Debating Society ← William Howard Taft Warren G. Harding → Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sedition_Act_of_1918&oldid=862775645 '' Categories : 1918 in law Sedition United States federal defense and national security legislation Legal history of the United States Censorship in the United States Political repression in the United States History of the United States ( 1865 -- 1918 ) Industrial Workers of the World United States repealed legislation 1918 in the United States Presidency of Woodrow Wilson World War I legislation Hidden categories : CS1 : Julian -- Gregorian uncertainty Use mdy dates from May 2018 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Add links This page was last edited on 6 October 2018, at 16 : 40 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: when was the sedition act passed and why
Answer: May 16, 1918