Compare wilson and. adams anti war response

President Woodrow Wilson and President John Adams had very similar responses to the outbreak of war.

When John Adams was president, the US was involved in a undeclared naval war with the French. During this war, Adams and Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Act. This law allowed the government to punish individuals who spoke out against the federal government during a time of war. This severely limited the first amendment rights of citizens in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Woodrow Wilson put similar laws into place when the US entered World War I, roughly a century later. These laws were called the Espionage and Sedition Acts. These laws punished individuals who made false claims against the government and made it so that the government could punish any person deemed to be interfering with the war effort.