Download 1 A politician, diplomat, and the second President of the United

A politician, diplomat, and the second President of the United States, John Adams
will forever be enshrined in American lore. Adams’s list of accomplishments is long, and
includes actions such as ensuring the ratification of the Constitution, negotiating the Treaty
of Paris in 1782, and building up the United States Navy. Despite these accomplishments,
Adams served only one term in office, from 1797 to 1801. Adams’s Vice President, Thomas
Jefferson, dislodged Adams from the presidency in the election of 1800. The reasons for his
defeat were diverse and complicated, but some specific explanations are the Quasi-War
with France and the Alien and Sedition Acts.1 Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts to
legalize the deportation of foreigners, and to try to silence anti-war, generally Republican
journalists.2 Adams’s plan backfired, and he ultimately lost support. Specifically in New
York, Adams won the state’s electoral votes before he signed the Acts, but lost New York to
Jefferson in the 1800 election after the Acts were passed. No matter what Adams’s
intentions may have been, The Alien and Sedition Acts eliminated the chance of avoiding
the Quasi-war with France and sparked intense debate over the Acts’ constitutionality,
therefore keeping President John Adams from being reelected.
John Adams entered the presidency in 1797 after the first contested election in
United States history. Adams represented the Federalists, while his opponent, Thomas
Jefferson, ran for office backed by the Democratic Republican Party. Adams took office
after George Washington decided not to run for a third term in part to show that presidents
should not serve lifelong terms. During Washington’s presidency, the nation faced an
identity crisis, with the public weighing in on politics through newspapers, pamphlets, and
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2
David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2001), 544.
Ibid., 505-06
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letters, and in debates like those at Democratic-Republican societies. The main point of
these debates was to determine the extent of the power of the government. Two schools of
thought emerged: either the government should have power to limit the liberties of the
people and be comprised of the elite men of society, or, the government should be made up
of the common-people and stress equality among society. These two ideas became the
foundation of the Federalist and Republican parties, with powerful government becoming
the tenet of the Federalists, and a smaller government becoming the focus of the
Republican Party. As Washington’s second term drew to a close, opposition between the
two parties grew. Federalists accused Republicans of being anarchists, without rules or
government. Republicans countered by calling the Federalists a party of despotism—
essentially a government with absolute power. Hostility reached its peak when
Washington decided not to run for a third term, leaving the two parties to fight for their
party to be represented as the next President.3
In the election of 1796, John Adams won the presidency with seventy-one electoral
votes, and Jefferson’s sixty-eight votes earned him the title of Vice President. This election
created a peculiar dichotomy—the President was Federalist, while the Vice President was
Republican. Federalists were concerned about Jefferson interfering with Federalist views,
specifically with regard to foreign policy in France. Typically, Federalists were not as
sympathetic to the French as Jefferson and the Republicans because Federalists were more
concerned with national power, while Republicans believed equality among all men. The
French government had recently chosen to treat Jay’s Treaty—a post-Revolution treaty
between Britain and the United States meant primarily to facilitate trade—as an alliance
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty: an American History, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 57480.
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between Britain and the United States.4 Because France was at war with Britain, and the
French thought Jay’s Treaty was an alliance, France began attacking American merchant
ships, and the United States Navy did what it could to defend them. Adams wished to send
Jefferson to France to negotiate peace, but was not sure whether or not the Constitution
would allow a Vice President to serve abroad.5 Instead, three diplomats sailed to Paris in an
attempt to end the aggression between the United States and France, but French
authorities stopped the Americans, demanding bribes before negotiations could even
begin. Because the French authorities were referred to in the press as X, Y, and Z, the
ordeal was known as the XYZ affair. After rejecting the bribes, the diplomats promptly
returned home and the news of the bribes became public. The reports of the XYZ affair
ignited the flames of fear, propaganda, and inter-party hostilities, which then factored in to
the passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. 6
The Acts were not one entity, but instead four separate Acts: The Naturalization Act,
the Alien Enemies Act, the Alien Friends Act, and the Sedition Act, each signed by Adams
between June 25th and July 14th, 1798. The Naturalization act increased the number of
years of residence required for an immigrant to obtain citizenship from 5 years to 14 years,
while the two Alien Acts gave the president power to deport aliens if they were either
considered to be dangerous to the nation or if their home country was currently at war
with the United States. The Sedition Act was by far the most controversial law of the four;
it made illegal any statement or publication deemed to be critical of the government. The
Alien Friends Act had a two year expiration date from the date of its passage, and the
McCullough, 473-74
Ibid., 472-73
6 McCullough, 495-96.
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Sedition Act was scheduled to expire the day before Adams’s term was to end. The
Naturalization Act was repealed in 1802, and the Alien Enemies Act remains in law today.
Commenting on the passage of the Acts, John Adams said “I knew there was need
enough of both, and therefore I consented to them.”7 Adams believed that restricting
constitutional rights was necessary as a wartime measure, and foresaw at least a part of the
turmoil he helped to cause; recalling the event later, Adams said he “was apprehensive that
a hurricane of clamor would be raised against [the Acts], as in truth there was, even more
fierce and violent than I had anticipated.”8 Adams supposedly passed the Acts primarily to
protect the United States from the domestic threat aliens of French origin living in the
United States, but in reality all the Acts accomplished was to spite those of foreign birth,
and to protect Adams’s image in the press.
By passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, John Adams unofficially declared war on the
France, effectively ending the possibility of ending the conflict through peaceful
negotiation. In his works, written after the Acts were passed, Adams says the Acts “were
then considered as war measures, and intended altogether against the advocates of the
French and peace with France.”9 Because this statement was not in the Acts, their
intentions were not as obvious, but it remained clear that the Acts were anti-French. Apart
from a speech by Adams in May of 1797—in which he stated his aims were to keep
between the United States and France despite the “wound in the American breast” the
French had caused—the Alien and Sedition Acts was the first recognition of the Quasi-war
John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1854), 9: 291 http://books.google.com/books?id=-Wh3AAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
(accessed 03-13-10).
8 Ibid., 291
9 Ibid., 291
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by the United States government.10 So for all intents and purposes, when John Adams
signed the Acts he declared war on the French in America, and in doing so abolished any
remaining chance for peace with France.
The difference between the Naturalization, Alien Friends, and Alien Enemies Acts
and the Sedition Act is significant; the Sedition Act affected not only foreign aliens, but also
all citizens of the United States. Specifically, the Sedition Act made illegal the following:
Write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed,
uttered or published . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing or
writings against the government of the United States, . . . with intent to
defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said
President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or
to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people
of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States. . .11
For the first time in the brief history of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,
Americans found significant restrictions on First Amendment rights. The public accepted
the three acts concerning aliens, but, in the eyes of politically aware citizens, the Sedition
Act crossed the line, violating their freedom too much. Newspapers relentlessly attacked
the Federalists. The Philadelphia Aurora called the Alien and Seditions act a “menace.”12 In
a letter to fellow Republican and Vice President Thomas Jefferson before the Acts were
passed, James Madison wrote “the bill proposed in the Senate is a monster that must
forever disgrace its parents”.13 One citizen wrote to Congress, declaring that the legislature
McCullough, 484.
“Statutes at Large, 5th Congress, 2nd Session,” American Memory.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html (accessed 03-13-10).
12 McCullough, 544.
13 James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, comprising his Public Papers and his Private Correspondence,
including his numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G.P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1900). 6: Chapter: TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1 mad. mss.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1941/124447 (accessed: 03-12-2010).
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had accomplished only “a foreign war—a violated constitution, and a divided people.”14
These quotations illustrate reactions from the American public, showing that the Sedition
Act did not do what Adams intended it to do: silence anti-war, pro-France journalism
particularly that written by Republicans.15
On the contrary, the Sedition Act did just the opposite. Instead of muffling the
Republican press, the Act threw them into an uproar. Although some Republican writers
and editors were arrested for violation of the Act, the Sedition Act also caused the
formation of other papers, for example the Sun of Liberty and the Tree of Liberty. Historian
Eric Foner writes “The Sedition Act thrust freedom of expression to the center of
discussions of American liberty.”16
Republicans responded by passing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which
challenge the authority of the central government and offer a method of circumventing the
Alien and Sedition Acts. Written secretly the leaders of the Republican Party, Jefferson and
Madison, the Resolutions were legislation passed in Kentucky and Virginia in November
and December of 1798, respectively. Though the authorship was supposed to remain
anonymous, word leaked out that Jefferson and Madison wrote the resolutions. Virginia’s
declaration was very clear; it accused the federal government of not having the power to
pass the Acts, and gave specific reasons for why it did not.17 The resolution then stated that
Virginia would not in good conscience allow the essential rights of its citizens to be violated
John Armstrong, To the Senate and Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled, Regarding
Alien and Sedition Laws (Poughkeepsie, 1798) American Memory.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html (accessed: 03-08-19).
15 McCullough, 506.
16 Foner, 283.
17 James Madison, “Virginia Resolutions of 1798, Pronouncing the Alien and Sedition Laws to be
Unconstitutional and Defining the Rights of the States,” December 21, 1798, http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?collId=lled&fileName=004/lled004.db&recNum=540 (accessed: 03-14-10).
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by the Alien and Sedition Acts. In the final paragraph, Madison implored other states to
join Virginia in denouncing the Acts:
The General Assembly doth solemnly appeal to the like dispositions in the
other states, in confidence that they will concur with this commonwealth in
declaring, as it does hereby declare, that the acts aforesaid are
unconstitutional; and that the necessary and proper measures will be taken
by each, for cooperating with this state, in maintaining unimpaired the
authorities, rights, and liberties, reserved to the states respectively, or to the
people.
By adding this final sentence, Madison gave Adams and the Federalists a parting shot; the
conclusion transforms the Resolution from declaring a law unconstitutional and urging
courts to protect citizen’s rights, to a much more politically charged statement. The
General Assembly’s appeal almost sounds like a coup trying to unite states against the
central government. Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolution was similar to the Virginia
Resolution; providing Kentucky the right to nullify federal laws if the state deemed them
unconstitutional.18 In an account of the lives of Madison and Jefferson, Adrienne Koch says
“the Resolutions were tremendously effective, frightening the Federalist ranks, and uniting
the Republicans into a determined party of body and solidity.”19 One might expect the
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to have garnered widespread support throughout the
nation, but many people feared that state action would cause disunion among the states.20
Although not adopted by any other states, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions continued
McCullough, 521.
Adrienne Koch, Jefferson and Madison – The Great Collaboration (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), 185.
20 Foner, 283.
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to spread the “broad revulsion against the Alien and Sedition Acts [which] contributed
greatly to Jefferson’s election as president in 1800.”21
With so many negative opinions circulating about the Alien and Sedition Acts, the
press could single out only one man to blame: President Adams. In the preface to the
publication of the Virginia Reports, a summary of a series of debates in Virginia regarding
the Alien and Sedition Acts, publisher J.W. Randolph said the Acts “raised a storm, before
which all the recent popularity of Mr. Adams’s administration vanished like morning
mist.”22 Not only did Adams acknowledge the unofficial war with France when he signed
the Acts, but he also managed to lose a large portion of his political support. Republicans
assaulted Adams in newspapers and other forums, despite the threat of prosecution under
the Sedition Act. The most outspoken of them all, James Callender, published a collection of
essays named The Prospect Before Us.23 Callender initially published the collection in the
Richmond Examiner, and he filled the essays with significant accusations about Adams’s
policies.
Callender was arrested shortly after his essays hit the newsstands for violating the
Sedition Act. One recollection of Callender’s trial states that the ten chapters of The
Prospect Before Us “made up a violent tirade of the innumerable abuses of which the
Republicans complained.”24 One of the topics most touched upon by Callender was the
Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998), 43.
The Virgina Report of 1799-1800 (Richmond, J.W. Randolph, 1850), XII.
http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=zuc9AAAAIAAJ&output=text&pg=PR13 (accessed
03-12-10).
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McCullough, 536.
John Bach McMaster, A History of the People of the United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War
(London: D. Appleton & Company, 1921), 2: 469.
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Alien and Sedition Acts’ unconstitutionality.25 According to historian Michael Durey, “In
Callender’s opinion, the Sedition Act was both unconstitutional and impartial; John Ward
Fenno and Cobbett had violently attacked Adams in 1799, yet neither was prosecuted
under the legislation.”26 John Fenno and William Cobbett were Federalist newspaper
editors; Callender believed that they were not arrested because of their party affiliation. In
a letter to Callender in autumn 1799, Vice President Thomas Jefferson thanked Callender
for sending him drafts of the essays and commended his cause, saying “such papers cannot
fail to produce the best effect. They inform the thinking part of the nation; and these again,
supported by the tax-gatherers as their vouchers, set the people to rights.”27 Despite
Callender’s nine-month prison sentence, “as he and Jefferson expected, it was another
victory for the Republicans,” writes David McCullough in his biography of Adams.28 The
Republicans consider Callender’s arrest a victory because it made Callender a martyr in the
eyes of the public, so it was easy for citizens to become sympathetic to the Republican
cause. With the 1800 election quickly approaching, the fact that Adams’s Vice President
was in effect conspiring against him did not provide Adams and his supporters any
optimism for reelection. The worst news of all; however; was that the Republicans were
not the only party shying away from Adams’s administration.29
Criticism of the President from fellow Federalists, in conjunction with growing
Republican support, effectively ended John Adams chances at reelection. The dwindling
numbers of Adams supporters, even among Federalists was shown in the election for the
McMaster, 469.
Durey, Michael, With the Hammer of Truth”: James Thompson Callender and America’s Early National Heroes
(Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia Press: 1990), 124.
27 Ibid., 469.
28 McCullough, 537.
29 Ibid., 537-46.
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1800 New York legislature. Traditionally Federalist, after having voted for Adams in the
1796 presidential election, the legislature was replaced by a majority of Republicans. This
shift in power is crucial with regard to the presidential election of 1800, because those
elected to the New York legislature determined New York’s electoral vote. In the election
of 1796, Adams won New York’s 12 votes, but after the New York legislature became
Republican, Jefferson won New York in 1800.
Federalists spoke out against Adams, too. In May of 1799, Alexander Hamilton
wrote to fellow Federalists of Adams, “If we must have an enemy at the head of the
government, let it be one whom we can oppose . . . who will not involve our party in the
disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”30 Hamilton wrote, in a letter published in New
York, that Adams had “great intrinsic defects of character,” and treated his cabinet with
“bitter animosity,” among several other disdainful abuses.31 This letter may have crossed
the line, with Hamilton going to far. He seemed obsessed with bringing down Adams, even
if it meant sounding like a crazed lunatic. Regardless, Hamilton’s letter still affected some
voters, and may have split Federalist support between Adams, and Federalist Charles
Pinckney, furthering the likelihood of a Jefferson winning the election as a Republican.
The Republican argument against Adams remained simple: Adams did not do what
he could to avoid war with the French, and therefore was a pro-war president. In reality,
peace with France became Adams’s top priority in the final year of his term, but his lack of
success kept him labeled as a wartime president. If he had made more of an effort to come
to terms with France after the XYZ affair of 1798, perhaps the Republican criticisms would
be invalid, but because he did not pursue further negotiations, and passed the Alien and
30
31
Ibid., 545.
McCullough, 549.
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Sedition Acts, Adams could not refute the Republicans. While it may seem that Adams no
longer had any support whatsoever, the election of 1800 was not a Jeffersonian rout;
Jefferson won seventy-three electoral votes, while Adams won sixty-five. Due to a mistake
in the Republican Party, Jefferson’s running mate, Aaron Burr, tied him in the electoral vote
count. The tie was determined by a vote in the House of Representatives, but no decision
could be made until Hamilton stepped in and supported Jefferson. The tie was broken after
Hamilton’s intervention, which shows that Hamilton did have political power, and that his
campaigning against Adams likely did have significant impact on the election.
Nevertheless, Adams was able to keep the election close due to his supporters in New
England, who believed he could achieve peace. The New Englanders were right; the French
signed the Treaty of Mortefontaine, and sent it to the United States for approval. Signed on
September 30, 1800, the treaty ended the Quasi-war, and set up future trade agreements.
Unfortunately for Adams, the news did not reach America in time to affect the outcome of
the election.32
Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated as the third President of the United States on
March 4th, 1801, the day after the Sedition Act expired. If John Adams had more accurately
predicted the effects the Alien and Sedition Acts were going to have, he might have been
reciting the oath instead of his political rival Jefferson, but the fact is he did not. Adams
signed the Acts into law, creating a nasty pair of consequences: the Acts ended the
possibility of negotiation to end the Quasi-War and caused heated debate over the
constitutionality of the laws. Together, the two outcomes of the Alien and Sedition Acts
produced enormous amounts of public scrutiny—from Republicans as well as
32
Ibid., 545-53.
12
Federalists—that Adams and his administration were not able to overcome. As a result,
President Adams could not win reelection. J.W. Randolph stated of the Alien and Sedition
Acts, “These two laws, but especially the last, were fatal to the party which originated
them.”33 Mr. Randolph was certainly correct in regard to Mr. Adams, but it turns out his
statement holds true with the entire Federalist Party: after John Adams and Charles
Pinckney failed to win the election of 1800, no member of the Federalist Party would serve
as the commander-in-chief of the United States. The party itself slowly died over the next
decade, producing only one viable presidential candidate, making Adams the only
Federalist President in the history of the United States. John Adams killed the Federalist
Party and his chance for a second term as President. His weapon? The Alien and Sedition
Acts.
33
The Virgina Report, XII.
13
Bibliography
Primary Sources
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and Company, 1854. http://books.google.com/books?id=-Wh3AAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s.
Armstrong, John. To the Senate and Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled, Regarding
Alien and Sedition Laws. Poughkeepsie: 1798. American Memory.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
Madison, James. The Writings of James Madison, comprising his Public Papers and his Private Correspondence,
including his numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. ed. Gaillard Hunt. New
York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1941/124447.
Madison, James. “Virginia Resolutions of 1798, Pronouncing the Alien and Sedition Laws to be
Unconstitutional and Defining the Rights of the States,” December 21, 1798. American Memory
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
“Statutes at Large, 5th Congress, 2nd Session.” American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
The Virgina Report of 1799-1800. Richmond: J.W. Randolph, 1850.
http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=zuc9AAAAIAAJ&output=text&pg=PR13
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Durey, Michael. “With the Hammer of Truth”: James Thompson Callender and America’s Early National Heroes.
Charlottesville, Va: University Press of Virgina, 1990.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty: An American History, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.
Foner, Eric. The Story of American Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
Koch, Adrienne. Jefferson and Madison – The Great Collaboration. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950.
McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2001.
McMaster, John Bach. A History of the People of the United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War. 9 vols.
London: D. Appleton & Company, 1921.
Sharp, James Rogers. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. New Haven CN: Yale
University, 1993.
Smith, James Morton. Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1967.
Stone, Geoffery R. Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on
Terrorism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.