. However, the lack of a bill of rights was the strongest objection to the ratification of the Constitution. Less than a decade after the Bill of Rights had been adopted it met its first serious challenge. In 1798, there was a threat of war with France and thousands of French refugees were living in the United States. Many radicals supported the French cause and were considered "incompatible with social order." This hysteria led Congress to enact several alien and sedition laws. One law forbade the publication of false, scandalous or malicious writing against the government, Congress or the President. The penalty for this crime was a $2,000 fine and two years in prison. The public was enraged at these laws. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison pleaded for freedom of speech and the press. The alien and sedition laws became a prime issue in the presidential election of 1800. Soon after Jefferson was elected, the Sedition Act expired and those who had been convicted under it were immediately pardoned. The next attack on the First Amendment occurred in 1835. President Andrew Jackson proposed a law that would prohibit the use of mail for "incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." John C. Calhoun of South Carolina led a special committee that opposed the proposal on grounds that it conflicted with the First Amendment. The proposal was defeated because it was a form of censorship. The next violation of the principles contained in the First Amendment came on January 2, 1920. Under the direction of A. Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General, about 500 FBI agents and police raided 3,000 Russians and other European immigrants, looking for Communists to deport. The victims were arrested without warrants, homes were ransacked, personal property was seized, and they were hauled off to jail. An even more vicious episode was known as "McCarthyism," an incident in the 1950's when Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wi...
