Sedition

An insurrectionary movement tending towards treason, but wanting an overt act; attempts made by meetings or speeches or by publications, to disturb the tranquillity of the state. The distinction between "sedition" and "treason" consists in this: that though the ultimate object of sedition is a violation of the public peace, or at least such a course of measures as evidently engenders it, yet it does not aim at direct and open violence against the laws or the subversion of the constitution. Alis. Crim. Law, 580.

In Scotch law. The raising commotions or disturbances in the state. It is a revolt against legitimate authority. Ersk. Inst. 4, 4, 14.

In English law. Sedition ls the offense of publishing, verbally or otherwise, any words or document with the intention of exciting disaffection, hatred, or contempt against the sovereign, or the government and constitution of the kingdom, or either house of parliament, or the administration of Justice, or of exciting his majesty's subjects to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, the alteration of any matter in church or state, or of exciting feelings of ill wlll and hostility betwcen different classes of his majesty's subjects. Sweet And sce State v. Shepherd, 177 Mo. 205, 76 S. W. 79, 99 Am. St. Rep. 624.

— Seditions libel. See Libel.