- Wikipedia: Sedition.
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech or organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interest of sedition.
Because sedition is overt, it is typically not considered a subversive act, and the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary by jurisdiction.
- Britannica: Sedition.
Sedition, crime against the state. Though sedition may have the same ultimate effect as treason, it is generally limited to the offense of organizing or encouraging opposition to government in a manner (such as in speech or writing) that falls short of the more dangerous offenses constituting treason.
The publication of seditious writing (“seditious libel”) or the utterance of seditious speech (“seditious words”) was made a crime in English common law. Modern statutes have been more specific. The display of a certain flag or the advocacy of a particular movement such as criminal syndicalism or anarchy have been declared from time to time to be seditious. In the United States after World War II, loyalty oaths were imposed for some government officials, and investigations and dismissals of certain public employees were made on the basis of their associations with suspect causes and groups.
- Wikipedia: Alien and Sedition Acts (1798).
The Sedition Act made it illegal to make false or malicious statements about the federal government. The act was used to suppress speech critical of the Adams administration, including the prosecution and conviction of many Jeffersonian newspaper owners who disagreed with the Federalist Party. The Sedition Act did not extend enforcement to speech about the Vice President, as then-incumbent Thomas Jefferson was a political opponent of the Federalist-controlled Congress. The Sedition Act was allowed to expire in 1800, and its enactment is credited with helping Jefferson win the presidential election that year.
- Wikipedia: Sedition Act of 1918.
The Sedition Act of 1918 (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 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.
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. 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. The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.
- Wikipedia: Brandenburg v. Ohio.
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action".: 702 Specifically, the Court struck down Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence. In the process, Whitney v. California (1927) was explicitly overruled, and Schenck v. United States (1919), Abrams v. United States (1919), Gitlow v. New York (1925), and Dennis v. United States (1951) were overturned.
- Sedition in England: The Abolition of a Law From a Bygone Era.
- Two Treatises of Government.
