The four bills passed Congress by narrow margins in July 1798, and almost instantaneously set off mass protests across the country. Not merely were the bills objectively partisan, designed to enhance the Federalist’s hold on office and generally tighten the central government’s hold on power, but they struck at what Americans felt were basic rights. Jefferson took up his pen for North Carolina (initially, eventually his words were used in a Kentucky Resolution). James Madison wrote for Virginia. The talents of both were on full display, eloquently dismembering the intellectual and moral framework of the Acts. Jefferson’s was less disciplined, and some of his harshest language never made it into the final version, which was probably wise.
Predictably, the prosecutions that derived from the Sedition Act were entirely partisan. Bear in mind that the publishers that ended up on the docket were not exactly babes in the woods. They were just doing what some media figures have done for as long as publishing has existed—whether in newspapers, books, handbills, magazines, and anything else you could think of—trafficking in false, scandalous and malicious writing, along with perfectly factual, but critical news and opinion.
The first prosecution might have been the most predictable: The widely despised (and widely read) Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, a Democratic-Republican newspaper, and a rag beyond reproof. In 1798, he was charged with libel for remarks made about President Adams which included comments about his hairline and teeth, along with criticism for alleged nepotism and bad policy towards France.
Other targets included James T. Callender, a Scottish emigree, who may or may not have been paid off by Jefferson for some nasty stuff about George Washington and, more intimately, about Alexander Hamilton (and his affair with Maria Reynolds). In the book The Prospect Before Us (previewed by Jefferson), he slammed the Adams Administration and added some choice words about Adams himself. Callender was convicted and sentenced in 1800. Later, ostensibly because of his pique over not being sufficiently rewarded by Jefferson, he wrote about the then-President’s relationship with Sally Hemmings.
In all, roughly two dozen men walked the plank of the Sedition Act. Ten were convicted, four of those Democratic-Republican-aligned newspaper editors. The prosecutions included one man, a common laborer named Luther Baldwin, who, after having a few, shouted that he did not mind if a cannon salute for a presidential procession shot Adams in the rear. A local newspaper reported the incident, and Baldwin was fined $100.