[125] Madison, meanwhile, had declined to seek re-election to the House, and he returned to Montpelier.[120] On Jefferson's advice, Adams considered appointing Madison to an American delegation charged with ending French attacks on American shipping, but Adams's cabinet members strongly opposed the idea.[126]
Though he was out of office, Madison remained a prominent Democratic–Republican leader in opposition to the Adams administration.[127][128] Madison and Jefferson believed that the Federalists were using the Quasi-War with France to justify the violation of constitutional rights by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, and they increasingly came to view Adams as a monarchist.[129] Both Madison and Jefferson, as leaders of the Democratic–Republican party, expressed the belief that natural rights were non-negotiable even during a time of war. Madison believed that the Alien and Sedition Acts formed a dangerous precedent, by giving the government the power to look past the natural rights of its people in the name of national security.[130][131] In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson argued that the states had the power to nullify federal law on the basis of the Constitution being a compact among the states. 