In 1798, the United States faced the threat of war with France. At the same time, internal battles raged between the emerging political parties in the Federal Government. The Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a crime for American citizens to “print, utter, or publish . . . any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the Government. Thomas Jefferson, leader of the Democratic-Republicans, predicted that the act “unless arrested at the threshold, [will] necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood.”

Sedition Act trials set off a firestorm of criticism against the Federalists. It was not the last time Americans would wrestle with the question, “how do we protect free speech during times of war?”