Many speeches were made in the summer and fall of 1798 to arouse and organize sentiment against these laws. As Kentucky was in sympathy with France and anti-federalist in politics the sentiment against the laws was almost unanimous. A great Democratic meeting was held at Lexington and was addressed by George Nicholas. More than a thousand men were assembled around the wagon from which he spoke. Reverend Calvin Campbell, who at the time was assisting Father Rice in a protracted meeting at the Presbyterian Church, stood on the sidewalk within convenient distance of the speaker and appeared greatly interested in the speech, though he did not agree with what Mr. Nicholas had to say. His experiences with Wilkinson and his dupes and accomplices had made of him an ardent supporter of the Federal Union. Nicholas, who was instructor in the law department of Transylvania University, was a very able lawyer, a logical debater, a man of good character and fine attainments. His speech impressed all his hearers. He dwelt at length upon the great debt the United States owed to France; assailed the Jay treaty as a most selfish policy and the desertion of the truest ally a country ever had; and finally congress for having usurped power and disregarded the constitution by the enactment of the alien and sedition laws. Yet Calvin Campbell felt that the speaker knew that it was the duty of every Kentuckian to stand by his government even in her mistakes and as a matter of policy it was all Kentucky could do. He felt sure that such a lawyer as Nicholas knew that if each state reserved to itself power to say what laws of congress it would or would not regard, that the Union must of necessity fail and Kentucky end by surrendering her liberty to decadent Spain for a mess of pottage. He felt that he could answer every argument made by Nicholas, and in such a way as to gain his hearers from him; and wondered if others were affected as he had been: Though he acknowledged the strength of the speaker’s argument, instead of being persuaded, his sense of opposition had been accentuated. The crowd was beginning to disperse when several began calling for Henry Clay. In answer to these calls, a tall, slender and delicate looking young man, little more than twenty-one, climbed into the wagon and began to speak.