437 - Some things have never changed

Here's some parts of a wikipedia article on John Adams. My wife and I are watching an HBO series about him. But the wiki article pointed out what I think are some humorous things about politics in general. Keep in mind these things happened in the 1790's.

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During the presidential campaign of 1796 Adams was the presidential candidate of the Federalist Party and Thomas Pinckney, the Governor of South Carolina, his running mate. The federalists wanted Adams as their presidential candidate to crush Thomas Jefferson's bid. Most federalists would have preferred Hamilton to be a candidate. Although Hamilton and his followers supported Adams, they also held a grudge against him. They did consider him to be the lesser of the two evils.
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They cracked down on political immigrants and domestic opponents with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed by Adams in 1798.

These Acts were composed of four separate and distinct units:

The Naturalization Act, passed on June 18
The Alien Act, passed on June 24
The Alien Enemies Act, passed on July 6
The Sedition Act, passed on July 14
These 4 acts were brought about to suppress Republican opposition. The Naturalization Act doubled the period required to naturalize the foreign born to American citizenship to 14 years. Since most immigrants voted republican they thought by initiating this act it would decrease the proportion of people who voted republican. The Alien Friends Act and the Alien Enemies Act allowed the president to deport any foreigner that he thought was dangerous to the country. The Sedition Act criminalized anyone who publicly criticized the federal government.
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Link - John Adams article