But beneath this effervescence honest and whole-hearted antagonism to the odious legislation surged in countless breasts. In the power of an anger which scorned all frivolous and tawdry action, men declared their deep and irrevocable opposition to such measures of government. That respectable and well-meaning aliens, from lack either of inclination or opportunity to become citizens, should be expelled from the country, or remaining here should become the targets of suspicion and the victims of political oppression; that opposition to government must henceforth wear a muzzle, with a heavy bludgeon meanwhile held menacingly over its head; that the damage done by favored partisan scribblers was not to be repaired by answering opponents; and all this under the guise of laws which, whatever their intention, operated to the enormous disadvantage of one of the two great political bodies of the day—these were things not to be endured by men to whom liberty was the very breath of life.
The actual amount of personal injury inflicted by the operation of the alien and sedition laws was not enormous, though certainly not negligible. A considerable body of aliens fled the country, either during the period when the alien laws were pending or immediately after they went into effect.[291] Probably something more than a score of individuals were arrested under the sedition law, less than half of whom were compelled to stand trial.[292] But once again popular judgment was based upon qualitative rather than quantitative grounds. The popular sense of personal liberty had been outraged by these acts.[293] The Federalist leaders by their precipitate and inconsiderate action had very much overshot the mark and were about to bring their house tumbling down about their heads. As for the opposition, those of its leaders whose highest political interest was party advantage lived to bless the day when, blinded by hysteria or lust of power, the Federalist party made the alien and sedition acts the law of the land. Six months after these unsavory measures were passed, discerning Democrats were able to rejoice that this body of legislation was operating as a powerful sedative to quiet the inflammation which that “God-send” to the Federalists, the X.Y.Z. despatches, had incited.[294] By their own blunder in party strategy the Federalists had alienated the sympathies of the people and given to the ground-swell of republican principles a tremendous impetus which carried them to a speedy triumph.