Hello and welcome to a history of the United States, episode 186, The Adams Army.

Last time out, we looked at the escalating crisis that was the Adams administration.

What started as a diplomatic confrontation with France over the XYZ affair

had progressed into a quasi-war abroad

and a domestic culture war between the Federalists and Democratic Republicans, which spooked

the Federalists interpassing a series of laws known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.

This week, we're going to turn our attention to the

military situation. One of the key threats that the Federalists were concerned about was a French

invasion across the Atlantic. Now, this would have been an outlandish scheme, but it's worth

noting that the French transatlantic invasion

of Haiti by Charles Leclair set out in December 1801, three years in the future.

An invasion was something that the United States was not prepared for whatsoever.

Since the Whiskey Rebellion, the peacetime army stood at about 3,000 stretched out along the frontier, and they could be backed up with state militias

in times of emergency, something Republicans thought was more than enough. Madison thought that a standing army would make war

more likely, not less, in addition to taxes, debts, and increasing executive power.

Threats that the French would use blacks from Sandermont to spark slave uprisings seemed so pressing

that the Federalists did particularly well in the South during the midterms of 1798.

They lost just one house seat in Maryland and Pennsylvania, two seats in New York and three in New Jersey, but they

counted this by picking up one seat in Massachusetts, two in Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia,

and three in North Carolina, giving them 60 seats compared to 46 for the Democratic Republicans,

a federalist gain of three.

Many federalists were concerned about the French threat.

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