Michael Haddam

speaker

274 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 22 Jan

Michael Haddam’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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American History Hit · Origins of the First Amendment · 22 Jan 2026 podcast

It only restricts the federal government or Congress specifically from making a law that establishes a religion for the nation or abridges any of these other rights.

In reality, a state that doesn't have its own Bill of Rights and its Constitution could still legally abridge the freedom of speech or of the press, and the Federal Bill of Rights would have no impact on that whatsoever.

I mean, in some sense, we see it in the Alien and Sedition Acts, right?

In 1798, when the John Adams administration is involved in this, what we call the quasi-war with France, which was basically the French Republic was very annoyed at the fact that the US was trying to remain neutral, even though it had signed a treaty with France during the American Revolution.

And so maintaining this neutrality in having to do with the war between France and Britain,

some French privateers started attacking US ships in the Caribbean.

And so this set off this sort of kind of like a Cold War.

That's why they call it a quasi-war.

There was no outright fighting.

But this issue of the war with France and Britain and what side to take is a central issue in the politics of the 1790s.

And Adams...

Adams administration and the Federalist Congress at the time passes what we call the Alien and Sedition Acts, which is a set of four acts that basically allowed the administration to imprison or deport foreigners.

Right.

Because there were people from France that agents that had been sent over from France to try to rally support.

for France, you know, among the people.

The Alien Enemies Act gave the president powers to detain foreigners during times of war.

And the Sedition Act allowed the government to arrest people for making false or malicious statements about the federal government.

So these four acts were really meant to chill free expression, free political expression, specifically during this conflict with France.

I mean...

We're hearing about it today, yeah.

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