Sedition

In Criminal Law. The raising commotions or disturbances in the state; it is a revolt against legitimate authority.

Erskine, Inst. 4. 4. 14.

According to the English criminal libel act of 1820, it is to compose, print or publish any words tending to bring into hatred or contempt the king, government, or either house of parliament, or to incite subjects to attempt the alteration of any matter in church or state as by law established, otherwise than by lawful means. No act is seditious unless its full consequences are felt over considerable area or felt by a considerable number of persons. It does not include an isolated breach of the peace. It is sufficient that the acts or words tend to produce the result. An attempt to incite mutiny in the army and navy is seditious. Certain ancient forms of sedition were punished under the writ of prcemunire which is now practically obsolete. See Odgers, C. L. 149; Riot. 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.

Alison, Crim. Law 580.

The obnoxious and obsolete act of July 14, 1798, 1 Story, Laws 543, was called the sedition law, because its professed object was to prevent disturbances.