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Dawes Act

(Encyclopedia)Dawes Act or General Allotment Act, 1887, passed by the U.S. Congress to provide for the granting of landholdings (allotments, usually 160 acres/65 hectares) to individual Native Americans, replacing ...

Sedition Act

(Encyclopedia)Sedition Act: see Alien and Sedition Acts. ...

Smith Act

(Encyclopedia)Smith Act, 1940, passed by the U.S. Congress as the Alien Registration Act of 1940. The act, which made it an offense to advocate or belong to a group that advocated the violent overthrow of the gover...

Preemption Act

(Encyclopedia)Preemption Act, statute passed (1841) by the U.S. Congress in response to the demands of the Western states that squatters be allowed to preempt lands. Pioneers often settled on public lands before th...

Neutrality Act

(Encyclopedia)Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shi...

Patriot Act

(Encyclopedia)Patriot Act: see USA PATRIOT Act. ...

Nonimportation Act

(Encyclopedia)Nonimportation Act: see Embargo Act of 1807. ...

Nonintercourse Act

(Encyclopedia)Nonintercourse Act: see Embargo Act of 1807. ...

Volstead Act

(Encyclopedia)Volstead Act: see under Volstead, Andrew Joseph. ...

Stamp Act

(Encyclopedia)Stamp Act, 1765, revenue law passed by the British Parliament during the ministry of George Grenville. The first direct tax to be levied on the American colonies, it required that all newspapers, pamp...