# 1798 Midterm Elections [[John Adams]] administration midterm, held during the **Quasi-War** with revolutionary France, the **XYZ Affair** scandal, and Adams's signing of the **[[Alien and Sedition Acts]]** of 1798. Patriotic mobilization against France produced an unusual **midterm Federalist gain** — one of the rare cases in American history where the presidential party gained seats in a midterm (the pattern is overwhelmingly midterm losses for the sitting president's party). ## Result - **House:** Federalists gained seats; majority strengthened to roughly 60 of 106 seats in the 6th Congress - **Senate:** Federalists held strong majority (~22 of 32 seats) - **Chambers flipped:** None — Federalist control consolidated - **Net change:** Federalist gain in the House — anomalous for sitting-president-party midterm ## Notable - The XYZ Affair (Spring 1798) — Adams's revelation that French agents had demanded bribes from American envoys — produced enormous patriotic mobilization that boosted Federalist electoral fortunes - The Alien and Sedition Acts (June-July 1798) criminalized criticism of the federal government; **Democratic-Republican newspaper editors were prosecuted** under the Sedition Act during the 6th Congress - The 1798-1799 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (Jefferson and Madison) — articulating the doctrine of state nullification of unconstitutional federal acts — were the Democratic-Republican response ## Connections - [[John Adams]] — Sitting president. - [[Thomas Jefferson]] — Vice President; secretly authored the Kentucky Resolution opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts.