In 1796, the first president of the United States, George Washington, voluntarily chose not to run for a third term as president, creating a precedent and unwritten rule that would last for the next 135 years. In his exiting address to the nation, Washington warned the country to avoid entangling foreign alliances and the growth of political parties and their partisan nature. Unfortunately, his speech came a little too late, given that two political parties had already formed. These were the Federalists, who supported a strong federal government, and the Republicans (different than today's Republican party which was formed in 1854), who supported states’ rights. Things of course quickly got out of hand.
The presidential election of 1796 was a decidedly fucked up affair with the two main contenders being Thomas Jefferson for the Republicans, a flamboyant man with Asperger's syndrome, versus John Adams for the Federalists, a pouty self-important potato. The great question of the day was whether or not to support Britain or France, which had been at war since the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. The Republicans wanted to help France since they had been best buds during the American Revolution and they hoped to see a republic founded in Europe. The Federalists wanted to support Britain since it was the U.S.'s largest trading partner and France's revolution mostly involved an overabundance of guillotining. This rather tense state of affairs wasn’t helped by the fact that Washington’s former right hand man, Alexander Hamilton, was plotting behind Adams’ back to get a Federalist more loyal to him elected. Despite these shenanigans, in the end Adams was elected president. Immediately after, France began attacking American shipping, starting an undeclared conflict which became known as the Quasi War.
It goes without saying that Adams was less than pleased with this turn of events. Fearing an all out invasion by France, he convinced Congress, which was controlled by his party, to increase the size of the army and navy. To pay for the larger military, a national property tax was enacted which Jefferson and his Republicans likened to the taxes levied by the British which had started the American Revolution 22 years prior. Seeing the property tax as a violation of state rights, they began railing against Adams in the press and convinced several states to not enforce the federal tax laws. For the Federalists, this amounted to fomenting open rebellion and threatening the very existence of the nation. In response, Adams put Washington back in charge of the army, who in turn, due to his failing health, put Hamilton in charge. This was probably not the best idea given that a) Hamilton supported the idea of a president-for-life, and b) upon taking command he immediately began pushing for permission to use the army to forcefully bring the resisting states back into line. The Republicans took this as well as you might imagine.
Adams was in a less than ideal position, so of course he did nothing and let his party make things worse. Since the Federalists controlled both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court was at the time just kind of a joke, the party passed several pieces of legislation that became known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts allowed the Federalists to deport any non-citizen they felt was a threat to the nation in anyway, increased the number of years someone had to live in the country to be a citizen from 5 to 14, and made it illegal to say bad things about the government or its officials. Adams wasn't so sure about the acts, but he allowed his wife and Hamilton to convince him to sign them into law.
It goes without saying that the Republicans completely lost their shit. For them the new laws were nothing more than a power grab by the Federalists, which kind of made sense given that most of the era’s immigrants tended to vote Republican, never mind the fact that the laws made it illegal to say shit about the Federalists. Over the next several years numerous newspaper owners were arrested, and even a U.S. Congressman from Vermont was put in prison. As a result, Jefferson convinced the states of Virginia and Kentucky to outright declare they wouldn't follow any federal law they didn't like, a move that threatened the very existence of the country since what was the point if the states were just going to do whatever the hell they wanted anyways. Hamilton responded by making plans to invade any state refusing to carry out federal law, which culminated in the invasion of southwestern Pennsylvania in 1799.
Adams, not wanting to see the entire country dissolve under his watch, went against his party and negotiated a treaty with the French, thus eliminating a major source of the conflict between the parties. As a result, the Federalists were badly fractured by the next presidential election in 1800, a situation made worse by Hamilton again conspiring against Adams. When the vote was tallied, Jefferson was president and the Republicans controlled Congress. The majority of the Alien and Sedition Acts were soon after repealed, except for the one which allowed the government to kick out any non-citizen they didn't like, which remains on the books still today.
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