1. Aim: How did Adams’ presidency effect the US?

2. 1796 Election Adams(Federalist) vs. Jefferson (Anti-Federalist)
Adams wins 71-68
Jefferson becomes VP… Huh??
Original Constitution just said winner is Pres. (no electoral college majority yet!) and 2nd place is VP (no ticket yet) 12th Amendment to come soon!!!

3. Problems Adams faced Shadow of George Washington Country still in debt
Federalist party split
French Revolution
Tension with England and France
His VP is from the other party

4. Adams and France Undeclared war (Quasi War 1798-1800) Causes
US refused to pay debts to new French Republic
Sunken and seized ships
Naval Warfare

5. XYZ Affair
Agents XYZ make 3 demands for US to meet with minister Talleyrand
240,000 bribe for each guy
Multi-million dollar loan to France
Adams must apologize for anti-French remarks
If you were Adams, how would you respond to France?

6. Alien and Sedition Acts
Alien Acts
Increases citizenship timeframe from 5 years to 14 years
President can deport anyone from the country
Sedition Acts
Government can shut down newspapers that print articles that are negative about the government
With a partner,,,
Should the government be able to make these laws. One has to give the yes, the other give the no!!!
What problems should you see with these two laws???
Why are they able to be passed???
Who do you think they are really targeting??

7. Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
Written by Jefferson (Ky) and Madison (VA.)
Any state had the right to nullify or cancel any federal laws that they deemed unfit
Do you think this was the right reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts?
What problem does these laws have?
Goes against Supremacy Clause!!!

8. “The Alien Law has been bitterly inveighed against as a direct attack upon our liberties, when in fact it affects only foreigners who are conspiring against us, and has no relation whatever to an American citizen. It gives authority to the First Magistrate [President] of the Union to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof, to depart out of our territory.
The Sedition Act has likewise been shamefully misrepresented as an attack upon the freedom of speech and of the press. But we find, on the contrary, that it prescribes a punishment only for those pests of society and disturbers of order and tranquility "who write, print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring them into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them the hatred of the good people of the United States; or to stir up sedition, or to abet the hostile designs of any foreign nation."
What honest man can justly be alarmed at such a law, or can wish unlimited permission to be given for the publication of malicious falsehoods, and with intentions the most base? ….. Because we have the right to speak and publish our opinions, it does not necessarily follow that we may exercise it in uttering false and malicious slanders against our neighbor or our government, any more than we may under cover of freedom of action knock down the first man we meet, and exempt ourselves from punishment by pleading that we are free agents." C. W. Upham, Life of Timothy Pickering (1873), vol. 3, pp
Why does he feel the Alien law is bad for the country?

9. “By the convention signed Seotember, 30, 1800, France agreed to cancel the vexatious treaties if the United States would drop its bothersome financial claims. This meant that the United States would have to pay the claims to its own citizens arsing out of the undeclared naval war with France. The troubled history of the French pact does much to explain why the American people developed so violent an allergy to overseas entanglements.” E. Wilson Lyon, “The Franco-American Convention of 1800,” Journal of Modern History, XII [1940]
How did the chaos in France effect U.S. foreign policy?