Espionage Act

From one point of view, the author of the Espionage and Seditions Acts was President Woodrow Wilson himself. In his State of the Union address on December 7, 1915, Wilson urged Congress to pass such legislation, against those who “have entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government.”

The legislation Wilson wanted was introduced by Senator Charles Allen Culberson (1855–1925) of Texas and Representative Edwin Y. Webb (1872–1955) of North Carolina. Culberson, a Democrat, served as a senator from 1899 to 1923. During World War I, he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and introduced numerous pieces of legislation having to do with espionage, foreign relations, sabotage, and other wartime issues. Webb, also a Democrat, served in the House of Representatives from 1903 to 1919, when he accepted a federal judgeship. He was the sole sponsor of the Sedition Act in Congress.