A Comparison and Contrast of the Nixon Administration's Engineerings against Press Freedoms with Those of the Adams Federalists

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dc.contributor.authorJohnston, Stephen
dc.contributor.departmentHistory
dc.date.accessioned2014-09-26T21:00:14Z
dc.date.available2014-09-26T21:00:14Z
dc.date.issued2014-09-26
dc.description.abstractThis essay will compare the Nixon Administration assaults on First Amendment rights, particularly freedom of the press, with the attacks perpetrated by the Adams Federalists. The Adams Administration's infringement of individual liberties consisted mainly in the enforcement of the Alien Act, the Alien Enemies Act, the Naturalization Act, and the Sedition Act of 1798. The first three applied to non-citizens of the United States and served to inhibit the growth of the Federalist party's opposition--the "popular" Jeffersonian faction. The function of the Sedition Acts was to suppress libels and slanders against the policies and officials of the elected government. No provision of the Sedition Act authorized suppressing libels against the government before the fact; there was to be no "prior restraint" of the press; the Sedition Act was passed to punish the crime after the fact. This sanction against prior restraint was a major departure from the principle of Blackstone that allowed a government to close down a press. I will try to show that the Nixon Administration has gone back beyond the conservative Federalists to Blackstone's archaic principle of prior restraint in its efforts to manipulate the media. I choose the Federalists as a comparison because they traditionally represent the broadest attack by an administration on the press.
dc.format.extentii, 63 pages
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10125/33818
dc.publisherUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa
dc.rightsAll UHM Honors Projects are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
dc.titleA Comparison and Contrast of the Nixon Administration's Engineerings against Press Freedoms with Those of the Adams Federalists
dc.typeTerm Project
dc.type.dcmiText

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