Sedition Act of 1918

Sedition Act of 1918

Long title	An Act to amend section three, title one, of the Act entitled "An Act to punish acts of interference with the foreign relations, the neutrality, and the foreign commerce of the United States, to punish espionage, and better to enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and for other purposes", approved June fifteenth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and for other purposes.
Enacted by	the 65th United States Congress
Effective	May 16, 1918
Citations
Public law	Pub. L. 65–150
Statutes at Large	40 Stat. 553
Codification
Acts repealed	December 13, 1920
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 8753 by Edwin Y. Webb (D–NC) on April 17, 1918 Passed the House on April 23, 1918 (Passed) Passed the Senate on May 4, 1918 (48-26) Reported by the joint conference committee on May 7, 1918; agreed to by the House on May 7, 1918 (292-1) and by the Senate on May 7, 1918 (Agreed) Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on May 16, 1918
United States Supreme Court cases
Abrams v. United States Brandenburg v. Ohio

The Sedition Act of 1918 (Pub. L. 65–150, 40 Stat. 553, enacted May 16, 1918) was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.^[1]

It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.^[2] The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war". The U.S. was in a declared state of war at the time of passage, the First World War.^[3] The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.^[4]

Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act.^[5] Therefore, many studies of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act find it difficult to report on the two "acts" separately. For example, one historian reports that "some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, resulting in more than a thousand convictions".^[6] Court decisions do not use the shorthand term Sedition Act, but the correct legal term for the law, the Espionage Act, whether as originally enacted or as amended in 1918.