Chief Justice Ellsworth, in a charge delivered in Massachusetts, denounced "the French system-mongers, from the quintumvirate at Paris to the Vice-President and minority in Congress, as apostles of atheism and anarchy, bloodshed, and plunder." In charges delivered in western Pennsylvania, Judge Addison dealt with such subjects as Jealousy of Administration and Government, and the Horrors of Revolution.

Washington, then in private life, was so pleased with the series that he sent a copy to friends for circulation.
Convictions under the sedition law were few, but there were enough of them to cause great alarm.

A Jerseyman, who had expressed a wish that the wad of a cannon, fired as a salute to the President, had hit him on the rear bulge of his breeches, was fined $100.

Matthew Lyon of Vermont, while canvassing for reelection to Congress, charged the President with "unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and a selfish avarice." This language cost him four months in jail and a fine of $1000.
But in general the law did not repress the tendencies at which it was aimed but merely increased them.
The Republicans, too weak to make an effective stand in Congress, tried to interpose state authority.

Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions, adopted by the state legislature in November, 1798.