1) The XYZ Affair a) John Adams appointed Charles Pickney as minister to France in 1796 b) Charles Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, refused to recognize Charles Pickney as minister to France. c) Adams then sent a commission to France. i) Charles Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry made up this commission d) The commission’s goals were to establish a treaty to ensure peace and normalize trade. e) Charles Talleyrand sent three unidentified agents, X, Y, and Z, to the commission before any negotiations started. f) The agents told Pickney that Talleyrand would recognize Pickney if he were paid a bribe of $250,000 and France got a loan of 10 Million dollars. g) The meeting resulted in an unofficial naval war between the years of 1798 and 1800. h) Also resulted in the Alien and Sedition Acts, which targeted French and Irish immigrants and made the naturalization period longer, the president was allowed to export any immigrant deemed dangerous to the public, and also limited freedom of the press. i) The Treaty of Morfontaine restored normal relations between the U.S. and France and was signed in 1800, after Talleyrand sought to end the unofficial naval dispute without declaring war on the U.S.
2) Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 a) Made up of four laws i) The Naturalization Act, extended the five year period an immigrant would have to be a resident of the U.S. to become a citizen, to fourteen years. ii) The Alien Act, gave authorization to the president to export any immigrant deemed harmful to society, without any hearing, or the president thought was part of a treasonable or secret ordeal. iii) The Alien Enemy Act, which allowed the president to export, arrest, imprison or banish any immigrant of the nationality of any country that the U.S. was engaged in war with. iv) The Sedition Act made it a misdemeanor of the highest aptitude to “(1)