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The Presidency of
John Adams
1797-1801
President John Adams by John
Singleton Copley
A Contentious Beginning…
• Political parties had developed into powerful
forces in the states
– States control electoral college, electors in each state cast two
votes each for a presidential candidate
• According to the Constitution:
– The candidate with the highest number of electoral votes
becomes President of the United States
– The candidate with the second highest number of electoral
votes becomes the Vice President of the United States
• What potential problems (flaws) can you
foresee happening with this selection process?
Election of 1796:
Meet the Candidates
John Adams
Federalist
Thomas Jefferson
Democratic-Republican
Electoral Votes-1796
On this week’s episode of
Desperate Founding Fathers…
• Electoral College Results:
– Adams—71 votes
– Jefferson—68 votes
• The Constitution Says…
– Two candidates with the most votes become President and
Vice President! So…..
• President Adams and Vice President Jefferson
are from different political parties
• This is changed by Amendment XII (1804)
• Predictions?
The Twelfth Amendment (1804)
• Amendment XII (1804)
– Required presidential electors to vote separately for
president & vice president
Twelfth Amendment
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and
Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state
with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President
and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make
distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as VicePresident, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify,
and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the
President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the
Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then
be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be
the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors
appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the
highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the
House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President, the votes
shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a
quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the
states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House
of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall
devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the VicePresident shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional
disability of the President.--The person having the greatest number of votes as VicePresident, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole
number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two
highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for
the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a
majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of VicePresident of the United States.
President Adams
• The Goods:
– Age: 62 (stuffy figure)
– Stats: 5 foot 7 inches
– Sharp figure, bald
• Personality:
– He was a man of stern principles who
did his duty with stubborn devotion.
– Educated, tactless, prickly intellectual
aristocrat
– No appeal to the masses (the common
people)
• Adams had Huge Shoes to Fill!
– No successor could hope to fill
Washington’s shoes, as he was perhaps
the greatest man alive at the time.
Adams’ Bitter Rival:
Alexander Hamilton
• He served at the Secretary of
the Treasury in Washington’s
Cabinet
– Hamilton resigned in 1795
• He hated John Adams
– He headed the faction of the Federalist
party known as the “High Federalists”
– Secretly plotted with certain members
of Adams’ cabinet against the president
• Adams on Hamilton
– He regarded Hamilton as:
• “the most ruthless, impatient,
artful, indefatigable and
unprincipled intriguer in the
United States, if not the world.”
Can Adams & Jefferson Work
Together?
• It almost works at first
– Adams and Jefferson have a lot of mutual respect from
Revolutionary days
– Adams states support for republican government, respect
for French, offers Madison high position as envoy to
France
• But Federalist cabinet (mostly Washington
loyalists) protests and wins.
– Doesn’t take control of cabinet until last year of his
presidency
• Beginning of the end of support for Adams
Domestic Policy
When Adams was president he followed
Washington's lead in making the presidency
the example of republican values, and
stressing civic virtue, he was never involved in
any scandal. Adams decided to keep the old
cabinet, which was controlled by Hamilton,
instead of installing his own people. Which is
looked upon by some historians as his worst
presidential decision. Yet, there are other
historians who feel that Adams's decision to
keep Washington's cabinet was a statesmanlike step to soothe worries about an orderly
succession. Adams's combative spirit did not
always lend itself to presidential decorum, he
always had something to say and sometimes it
was not of the classiest taste.
Unofficial Fighting with
France
The French furious with Jay’s treaty
• They saw the treaty as a flagrant violation of the FrancoAmerican Treaty of 1778
• French believed the U.S. was moving close to creating an
alliance with Britain, France’s perpetual foe.
• In retaliation, the French began seizing defenseless
American merchant ships (about 300 total by mid-1797)
• French refused to receive the American envoy
(ambassador) and threatened to arrest him.
Unofficial Fighting with
France
• Adams reacts:
– Adams keeps his cool & follows Washington’s policy to steer
clear of war at all costs
– He tried to keep the peace between the United States and
France at all costs
• He appointed a diplomatic commission of three men
(including future Chief Justice John Marshall) to head to
France for peace negotiations
The XYZ Affair
•
•
Charles Maurice Talleyrand
Adams’s envoys reach Paris
in 1797 hoping to meet
Talleyrand, the crafty
French foreign minister
American envoys secretly
approached by three gobetweens, later referred to
as X, Y, and Z in the public
dispatches
(records/newspapers)
The XYZ Affair: The Bribe
•
French spokesmen demanded that in order to merely
“talk” with Talleyrand, they had to:
– Provide them with an unneutral loan of 32 million florins
– A bribe of about $250,000
•
American Envoys reaction:
– Believed these terms were intolerable
– While knowing European diplomacy usually involved
bribes, they gagged at the possibility of handing over a
quarter of a million dollars
– There were no assurances that the diplomats would even
talk to Talleyrand, let alone no assurances for a peace
agreement
– John Marshall returned to the United States to brief the
President
Public Opinion toward France
Shifts
Britain looking on from on high
5 members of the Directory in France
Rest of the world
looking on
The XYZ affair - Maiden America ravaged by the French
Fallout from XYZ Affair
• War hysteria swept through the United States
• Many Americans (mostly Federalists) calling
for war with France
– Hamilton, others thought U.S. could gain land
– Slogan of the hour: “Millions for defense, but not one cent
for tribute!”
• The United States Prepares for War?
– Navy Department was created (three ship navy expanded)
– United States Marine Corps was reestablished (created in
1775, but was disbanded after the Revolutionary War)
– New Army of 10,000 men was authorized (but not fully
raised)
The U.S. & France: Undeclared
Hostilities (1798-1800)
• Fighting took place mostly on the high seas (mostly in
the West Indies)
– American privateers, men-of-war, and the new navy
captured over 80 French vessels
– Several Hundred American ships were lost to the French
• While American public opinion was clamoring for war,
President Adams felt that U.S. Army and Navy were
not strong enough to fight a major power
– Sends new ministers instead
• Unpopular move, but….?
Adams: Peace Talks, Take 2…
• Talleyrand agrees to receive a new American envoy
and treat with respect & dignity
• While Adams contemplated going to war with France,
he decided to avoid war at all costs
– Adams initially felt a war with France (like Hamilton) could have been
lucrative: gaining land (Spanish Florida & Louisiana) and possibility
lining himself up for reelection for a second term
– Adams ultimately kept in line with Washington’s policy of neutrality
and keeping out of European wars
• When he announced to the Senate he was going to
send a new minister to France…
– Hamilton was furious (he wanted to go to war with France)
– Reasonable Federalists and Jeffersonians were receptive, agreeing that
avoiding war was the best course of action
Napoleon Bonaparte
• Seized dictatorial control of France,
thus ending the French Revolution
• Had designs on creating a “New
World Empire” in Louisiana
• Napoleon met with American
envoys in 1800:
– Treaty of Convention of 1800 (signed in Paris)
• France agreed to annul the FrancoAmerican Treaty (1778)
• American government agreed to pay the
damage claims of American shippers
• Ended American entanglements in Europe
during a time of peace
Napoleon Bonaparte
Significance of the Convention
of 1800
• Adams avoided the hazards of war with France.
• Laid the groundwork for the future purchase of the
Louisiana Territory from France (1803)
• If the U.S. had engaged in a war against France,
Napoleon probably wouldn’t have sold the U.S.
Louisiana
Federalists Take Control
• Public anger with France strengthens
Federalists in Congress
– Win majority of both houses in 1798
– Enacted laws that were restrictive to DemocraticRepublican rivals
• What did Washington warn about again?
Naturalization Act
What did it do?
• Increases from five to fourteen number of
years required to qualify for U.S.
citizenship
Why would it favor the Federalists?
• Most immigrants voted with the
Democratic-Republicans
Alien Acts
What did it do?
• Authorized the president to deport any
aliens considered to be dangerous
• Authorized the president to detain any
enemy aliens in a time of war
Why would it favor the Federalists?
• Democratic-Republicans sympathetic to
the French Revolution
Sedition Act
What did it do?
• Makes it illegal for newspapers to criticize the
president or Congress
• Imposed heavy penalties
for editors who violated
the new law
– Fines
– Imprisonment
Why would it favor
the Federalists?
• Are you kidding?
Representative Matthew Lyon of Vermont, arrested under
the Sedition Act of 1798, attacking a fellow congressman
Responses to Alien and
Sedition Acts
• Republicans say that they violate First
Amendment
– Judicial Review not yet established, so no Supreme Court
case
• Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
– Written, respectively, by Jefferson and Madison
• Argument: Since states had entered into the
compact (Constitution), they can nullify a
federal law that breaks the agreement. Try to
get other state legislatures enact “nullification”
laws. They didn’t.
The Crisis Fades
• Federalists, due to the unpopularity of
these laws, lose their majority in the
election of 1800
– Republicans allow the Alien and Sedition Acts to
expire or repeal parts of them
– Under John Marshall, Supreme Court will establish
role as the last resort in determining if a law is
constitutional
• News of a new peace with France doesn’t
make it to the U.S. until after the election
Judging Adams
Dislike for the Federalist Congress and the Alien and
Sedition Acts cost Adams his reelection and gave
control of Congress to the Republicans. But in
weighing his presidency, we have to consider the
negative along with the positive:
• Relationship with
France damaged
• New taxes imposed
• Party politics become
entrenched
• Keeps U.S. out of war,
preserves neutrality
• Strengthens the Navy
• Peaceful transfer of
power to opposing
political party in 1800
Presidential Rank
John Adams, I feel ranks among
the top ten of presidents in our
country’s history. I rank him as
number 8 on the list of presidents
for a number of reasons. He
established and maintained
foreign policy making the United
States a larger player in worldly
affairs and made a number of
changes in our nations first 50
years.
Electoral Vote (1800)
• End