1. The Presidency of John Adams
President John Adams by John Singleton Copley

2. 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?

3. Election of 1796: Meet the Candidates
John Adams
Federalist
Thomas Jefferson
Democratic-Republican

4. 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?

5. The Twelfth Amendment (1804)
Amendment XII (1804)
Required presidential electors to vote separately for president & vice president

6. President Adams The Goods: Personality: Adams had Huge Shoes to Fill!
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.

7. 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.”

8. 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

9. Unofficial Fighting with France
The French furious with Jay’s treaty
They saw the treaty as a flagrant violation of the Franco-American 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.

10. 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

11. Charles Maurice Talleyrand
The XYZ Affair
Adams’s envoys reach Paris in 1797 hoping to meet Talleyrand, the crafty French foreign minister
American envoys secretly approached by three go-betweens, later referred to as X, Y, and Z in the public dispatches (records/newspapers)
Charles Maurice Talleyrand

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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)

15. 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….?

16. 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

17. 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 Franco-American 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

18. 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

19. Federalists Take Control
Public anger with France strengthens Federalists in Congress
Win majority of both houses in 1798
Enacted laws that were restrictive to Democratic-Republican rivals
What did Washington warn about again?

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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.

24. 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

25. 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