The actual amount of personal injury inflicted by the operation of the alien and sedition laws was not enormous, though certainly not negligible. A considerable body of aliens fled the country, either during the period when the alien laws were pending or immediately after they went into effect.[291] Probably something more than a score of individuals were arrested under the sedition law, less than half of whom were compelled to stand trial.[292] But once again popular judgment was based upon qualitative rather than quantitative grounds. The popular sense of personal liberty had been outraged by these acts.[293] The Federalist leaders by their precipitate and inconsiderate action had very much overshot the mark and were about to bring their house tumbling down about their heads. As for the opposition, those of its leaders whose highest political interest was party advantage lived to bless the day when, blinded by hysteria or lust of power, the Federalist party made the alien and sedition acts the law of the land. Six months after these unsavory measures were passed, discerning Democrats were able to rejoice that this body of legislation was operating as a powerful sedative to quiet the inflammation which that “God-send” to the Federalists, the X.Y.Z. despatches, had incited.[294] By their own blunder in party strategy the Federalists had alienated the sympathies of the people and given to the ground-swell of republican principles a tremendous impetus which carried them to a speedy triumph. Once again our special interest must be allowed to center upon a secondary element in the situation, _i. e._, the over-wrought tension of nerves because of which the most fantastic and unlikely of happenings seemed wholly within the circle of reason and probability. The circumstances which have just been considered were, in the main, upon the surface. As such they were capable of being evaluated and weighed. But who was to say that they were not attended by subterranean influences and designs? Affairs everywhere, be it remembered, were moving with incredible swiftness. In every quarter the beleaguered forces of conservatism found themselves surrounded and hemmed in by radical elements which manifested a spirit of militancy and a resolute will to conquer. With the European situation to lend strong emphasis to the suggestion of sinister tendencies and secret combinations, it cannot be thought extraordinary that here in America, where traditional opinions and institutions were as certainly being undermined, the conviction should take root that beneath all this commotion over foreign and domestic policies secret forces must be at work, perfecting organizations, promoting conspiracies, and ready at any hour to leap forth into the light to throttle government and order.