[Congressman Billybob]

The interesting thing about the Alien and Sedition Laws is that they were NEVER found unconstitutional. The Supreme Court was a weak institution at the time, and it never ventured to declare them bad.

President Jefferson, on taking office, pardoned and freed the jailed editors of "Republican" newspapers, who had been jailed by the previous Federalist Administration. And those laws were simply allowed to expire.

It was not until nearly a century and a half later that the Supreme Court stated that the A&S laws "were unconstitutional" in the process of deciding the case of New York Times v. Sullivan. Talk about locking the barn door after the horse was stolen.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Raw Capitalism Revealed," discussion thread. FOR A FREEPER IN CONGRESS, CLICK HERE.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Those laws were never challenged. The Court would have ruled on them had they been challenged, it had nothing to do with weakness as it had previously ruled on constitutionality of other laws.