Publicity from Sedition Act trials caused massive criticism and contributed to the Federalists being removed from power in the 1800 election.

The Adams administration encouraged these departures, and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering would ensure that the ships were granted passage.

Though Adams did not delegate the final decision-making power, Secretary Pickering was responsible for overseeing enforcement of the Alien Friends Act.

Secretary Pickering also proposed applying the act against the French diplomatic delegation to the United States, but Adams refused.

[27] The act was used to suppress speech critical of the Adams administration, including the prosecution and conviction of many Jeffersonian newspaper owners who disagreed with the Federalist Party.

[28] The Sedition Act did not extend enforcement to speech about the Vice President, as then-incumbent Thomas Jefferson was a political opponent of the Federalist-controlled Congress.

The Sedition Act was allowed to expire in 1800, and its enactment is credited with helping Jefferson win the presidential election that year.

[41] The spreading unrest in Europe and calls for secession in the United States appeared to threaten the newly formed American republic.

The Sedition Act, which was signed into law by Adams on July 14, 1798,[43] was hotly debated in the Federalist-controlled Congress and passed only after multiple amendments softening its terms, such as enabling defendants to argue in their defense that their statements had been true.

Upon assuming the presidency, Thomas Jefferson pardoned those still serving sentences under the Sedition Act,[31]: 231  and Congress soon repaid their fines.

[44] After the passage of the highly unpopular Alien and Sedition Acts, protests occurred across the country,[45] with some of the largest being seen in Kentucky, where the crowds were so large they filled the streets and the entire town square of Lexington.

[46] Critics argued that they were primarily an attempt to suppress voters who disagreed with the Federalist party and its teachings, and violated the right of freedom of speech in the First Amendment to the U.S.

[30] Noting the outrage among the populace, the Democratic-Republicans made the Alien and Sedition Acts an important issue in the 1800 presidential election campaign.

[48][49][50] While the eventual resolutions followed Madison in advocating "interposition", Jefferson's initial draft would have nullified the Acts and even threatened secession.

[52] In writing the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold", the Alien and Sedition Acts would "necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood".

[53] The Alien and Sedition Acts were never appealed to the Supreme Court, whose power of judicial review was not established until Marbury v. Madison in 1803.

Subsequent mentions in Supreme Court opinions beginning in the mid-20th century have assumed that the Sedition Act would today be found unconstitutional.