The autumn of 1798 marked the extreme limits to which the leaders and party intentionally strengthening the Union were allowed to go at present. It was the culmination of Federalist power. The critical turning-point, the momentary pause before the backward swing of the pendulum, was marked by popular disorders. The first heat of party passion, the tendency toward centralisation in ten years of Federalism, and ignorance of the extent to which the party might go, had combined to bring the country to the verge of actual disruption. The black cockades (English) fought with the tricoloured cockades (French) on a public fast-day in the streets of Philadelphia. Republicans, attempting to nail up petitions for the repeal of the Alien and Sedition laws on the doors of Christ Church, were set upon by the Federalists and driven away. The President received anonymous letters threatening to burn Philadelphia. Citizens packed their valuables in readiness for flight. Numerous incipient riots occurred in New York and other cities. While the people of the French faction were thus expressing their disapproval of the administration measures, their leaders were casting about to find the most potent remedy against such abuse of the national power. Even those who, like Madison, believed in the efficacy of the new Government had not expected to see it turned into an agency for the oppression of the individual. To their minds, a continuance of the present course must mean the complete loss of individual and State liberty, or the overthrow of the Union of States, which had been gained only after great effort. An appeal to the ballot was one remedy; but more than two years must elapse before a change of administration was possible. The States, in forming the Union, had thrown about themselves many safeguards. It was high time to test their efficiency. In the debates on the Alien and kindred measures, the ratification acts of the different States had been quoted by Republican members to show that the States had granted certain powers to the Union, and that the States alone could judge when those powers had been transcended. The State was the natural agency for the protection of the individual in this hour of danger. To an alarmed resident of Delaware, Jefferson offered an asylum in the State of Virginia, where the "laws of the land, administered by upright judges, would protect you from any exercise of power unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States. The _habeas corpus_ secures every man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume."