Fourteen words buried in a new federal statute declared it a crime to write, print, or utter anything 'false, scandalous and malicious' about the United States government. On July 14, 1798, President John Adams signed the Sedition Act of 1798 into law, giving Federalists a weapon to silence Republican critics during a near-war with France. Prosecutors moved fast: they charged at least 25 people, convicted 10, and jailed several newspaper editors whose only offense was criticizing Adams in print. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson fought back through the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, arguing the Act trampled the First Amendment before the ink on the Bill of Rights had barely dried. The law expired in 1801 and Adams lost his reelection bid, in part because voters recoiled at government-sanctioned censorship. No Supreme Court ever struck it down, leaving a constitutional wound that later courts, scholars, and lawmakers still probe whenever the government moves to punish dissent.