“Every one commits a misdemeanour who publishes verbally or otherwise any words or any document with a seditious intention. If the matter so published consists of words spoken, the offence is called the speaking of seditious words. If the matter so published is contained in anything capable of being a libel, the offence is called the publication of a seditious libel. Every one commits a misdemeanour who agrees with any other person or persons to do any act for the furtherance of any seditious intention common to both or all of them. Such an offence is called a seditious conspiracy. A seditious intention is an intention to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, or the Government and constitution of the United Kingdom, as by law established, or either House of Parliament, or the administration of justice, or to excite Her Majesty's subjects to attempt otherwise than by lawful means the alteration of any matter in church or state by law established, or to raise discontent or disaffection amongst Her Majesty’s subjects, or to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of Her Majesty’s subjects. An intention to show that Her Majesty has been misled or mistaken in her measures, or to point out errors or defects in the Government or constitution as by law established, with a view to their reformation, or to excite Her Majesty’s subjects to attempt by lawful means the alteration of any matter in church or state by law established, or to point out, in order to their removal, matters which are producing or have a tendency to produce feelings of hatred and ill-will between different classes of Her Majesty’s subjects, is not a seditious intention. In determining whether the intention with which any words were spoken, any document was published, or any agreement was made, was or was not seditious, every person must be deemed to intend the consequences which would naturally follow from his conduct at the time and under the circumstances in which he so conducted himself” (Digest of the Criminal Law, §§ 91-94).

The principal enactments now in force dealing with seditious offences were all passed during the last twenty-five years of the reign of George III. They are 37 Geo. III. c. 123, prohibiting the administering or taking of unlawful oaths (see Oath) or the belonging to an unlawful confederacy; 60 Geo. III. and 1 Geo. IV. c. 1, prohibiting unlawful drilling and military exercises; and the Acts for the suppression of corresponding societies, 39 Geo. III. c. 79 and 57 Geo. III. c. 19. No proceedings can be instituted under these last two Acts without the authority of the law officers of the crown (9 and 10 Vict. c. 33). Under the head of statutes aimed at seditious offences may also be classed 2 Ric. II. st. 1, c. 5 and 12 Ric. II. c. 11, against scandalum magnatum or slander of great men, such as peers, judges, or great officers of state, whereby discord may arise within the realm, and 13 Car. II. c. 5, against tumultuous petitioning (see Petition). There has been no prosecution in recent times for seditious words as distinguished from seditious libel, but such words have been admitted as evidence in proceedings for seditious Conspiracy (q.v.), as in the prosecution of O’Connell in 1844 and of Mr Parnell and others in 1880 (see Reg. v. Parnell, Cox’s Criminal Cases, vol. xiv. 508). By the Prison Act, 1877, any prisoner under sentence for sedition or seditious libel is to be treated as a misdemeanant of the first division (40 and 41 Vict. c. 21, s. 40).

Scotland.— "All acts by which the minds of the people may be incited to defeat the Government or control legislation by violent or unconstitutional means are seditious” (Macdonald, Criminal Law, 229). Sedition is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both (6 Geo. IV. c. 47). A very large number of Acts of the Scottish Parliament dealt with sedition, beginning as early as 1184 with the assize of William the Lion, c. 29. Leasing-making is to be distinguished from sedition, as it attacked only the sovereign individually, not the Government.

United States.— In the Acts of Congress the word “sedition” appears to occur only in the army and navy articles. A soldier joining any sedition or who, being present at any sedition, does not use his utmost endeavour to suppress the same is punishable with death. A sailor uttering seditious words is punishable at the discretion of a court-martial. In 1798 an Act of Congress called the Sedition Act was passed, which expired by effluxion of time in 1801. Its constitutionality was violently assailed at the time. (See Story on the constitution of the United States, §§ 1293-4.) Several prosecutions under the Act will be found in Wharton’s State Trials. Sedition is also dealt with by the State laws mostly in a very liberal spirit. Thus the Louisiana Code, § 394, enacts that “there is no such offence known to our law as defamation of the Government or either of its branches, either under the name of libel, slander, seditious writing, or other appellation.” By § 111, to constitute the offence of sedition “there must be not only a design to dismember the State, or to subvert or change its constitution, but an attempt must be made to do it by force.”

Continent of Europe.— The Continental codes as a rule are little more definite than English law in their treatment of sedition. In Germany a distinction is drawn between Auflauf, the remaining together of a mob after the authorities have thrice bid it disperse, and Aufruhr or Aufstand, an organized resistance to the authorities; but no definition is given of the terms. The Hungarian penal code defines Aufstand to be an armed assembly which has the intention of attacking a class of citizens, a nationality, or a religious body. The French penal code recognizes a difference between sédition and réunion séditieuse. If carried out with sufficient numbers and sufficient force sédition becomes rébellion. Section 100 exempts from the penalties of sedition those who have merely been present at a seditious meeting without taking any active part therein, and have dispersed at the first warning of the military or civil authorities.