This book covers the years 1798-1800 when the Federalists had become the party of extreme conservatism and were taking advantage of our undeclared war with France to brand the Jeffersonian Republicans as "pro-French traitors." Under cover of a war-emergency program, they attempted to proscribe their political enemies as enemies of the country. The fruits of this hysteria were the Alien and Sedition Laws which the Federalists rammed through Congress and which John Adams signed, forgetting his earlier pronouncements on the virtues of Constitutional liberties.

Thomas Jefferson touched on throughout; pp. 169-81 focus on his role and Madison's in drawing up the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which offered the most forceful statement of the constitutional objections to the acts. Argues that their failure strengthened the Federalists' belief that public opinion was with them.--Frank Shuffelton.