The Alien and Sedition Acts: A Gift that Keeps on Giving
1-Time Lecture | To register, please call us at: 305-919-5900.
As the French Revolution devolved into Napoleon’s European conquests and wars, tensions mounted between the U.S. and France over neutrality and trading rights. French privateers were seizing U.S. shipping in the Caribbean. Fears increased of an imminent invasion and enemy spies infiltrating American society. Hamilton’s Federalist Party accused Jefferson’s Republican Party of being in league with the French. Congress, dominated by the Federalists passed 4 acts collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which President John Adams signed into law. One of these, The Alien Enemies Act, is still in force today, allowing the government to arrest and deport citizens of an enemy nation in the event of war.
- OLLI Members save $10 and enjoy free parking at our BBC campus.
Rebecca Staton-Reinstein
Rebecca Staton-Reinstein, Ph.D., president of Advantage Leadership, Inc. has served as an executive in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and as a consultant in strategic leadership. She is the author of several books on strategic leadership and planning. Her best-selling Conventional Wisdom: How Today’s Leaders Plan, Perform and Progress Like the Founding Fathers allowed her to draw on her lifelong passion for history to draw parallels between the founders and contemporary leaders. Growing up in Virginia, the daughter of history-loving parents, the family visited every battlefield and historic home and read every historic highway marker. She followed in her mother’s footsteps and graduated from William and Mary. While there, she worked for the Restoration as a costumed guide and was hooked on the 18th century. Her programs examine the Enlightenment, the transition from colonies to independence, the creation of the Constitution, and lead up to the Civil War and its aftermath. In profiles of the women and men who were critical in the development of the U.S., she helps her audience understand them as human beings with their admirable qualities and their flaws. “Because these people were humans and not idealized superheroes, we can learn from them and apply the lessons of history to our situation today.”