ipl-logo

Why Was John Adams Ineffective

607 Words3 Pages

John Adams presidency was controversial. Following George Washington’s presidency, John Adams became president but not by many votes. John Adams presidency was an ineffective President of the United States. I believe he was ineffective due to the XYZ Affair, the Alien and Sedition ACts, his political parties, and him isolating his cabinet and him as vice president.
First of all, the XYZ Affairs and Alien and Sedition Acts played an impact on John Adams ineffective presidency. The first reason Adams was an ineffective president with the XYZ Affair was because of many reasons. Adams talked bad about France. He let everybody know about the XYZ Affair which included three French agents. They all demanded bribes, concessions, and some loans from the American Government in exchange for peace discussions. He asked Congress for money to build the army and navy. Adams sent a commission to France for negotiations which included Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry. The agents told Adams that if he wanted an official reception from France, Americans would have to apologize for Adam’s criticizing words. Also they would have to make a payment of 1.3 million livres and loan France thirty-two million florins for its war with …show more content…

Adams lost faith in the political virtue of his countrymen. Adams saw them repeating the mistakes of Europe, especially in the pursuit of luxury, with its unavoidable social and political corruption. A lot more control and authority were needed to govern a society dividing into the aristocratic few and many democrats. John Adams hardly wrote three volumes of A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. (Biography 1) The works stated that a strong, independent executive was essential to mediate between opposing interests. Adams assumed that the search for equality would bring chaos and the loss of freedom that the French revolutionaries

Show More
Related
456 Words | 2 Pages

• When Adams became president, the dispute with France carried over. The French looked at Jay’s Treaty as an American attempt to help the British in the war with France. To punish the U.S., the French took American ships that carried cargo to Brittan. During the fall of 1797, Adams sent a delegation to France with the hopes to end the dispute. The French foreign master wouldn’t meet with the Americans and instead demanded a bribe and loan from the Americans.

Read More
1576 Words | 7 Pages

Since the Revolution Jefferson and Adams parted ways and became enemies. When Jefferson was President he sent a letter to Abigail Adams in which he forgave Adams for what he had done. Abigail was angered by this and the two sent each other letters back about why the other was wrong. Adams had his own thing going on during this time. He was angry that everyone else was getting more credit than they deserved.

Read More
345 Words | 2 Pages

Similarly, the Adams administration also dealt with many foreign affairs, although these more often than not had a unifying effect in America. Similar to the Spanish reaction of Jay’s Treaty, the French were very skeptical of the unexpected agreement between the Americans and Great Britain, causing the French to take action. Seeing the treaty as a violation of the Franco-American Treaty, the French began impressing many American merchant ships just like the British had. Adams, infuriated by the actions of a supposed ally, sent representatives to fix the relations between these two nations, a meeting commonly known as the XYZ Affair. During this meeting, the Frenchmen dubbed “X”, “Y”, and “Z” demanded a huge bribe to allow the Americans to

Read More
927 Words | 4 Pages

At this point in time however, France and Britain are enemies, so in retaliation, France started seizing American ships. Two months into his presidency, Adams called a special session of Congress to discuss what should be done about the French’s ongoing actions. Just like Washington did, Adams met with his advisors prior to meeting with Congress, to discuss their potential course of action, and then informed Congress of his plans to negotiate with France by sending three American diplomats over to France to negotiate. However, when the diplomat’s arrived in France, they were told that they would only be able to initiate negotiation with the French Foreign Minister in exchange for a bribe. The diplomat’s took this attempt at bribery offensively, and the diplomat’s left France before any formal negotiations took place.

Read More
350 Words | 2 Pages

Before the end of John Adams presidency, he decided to appoint as many Federalist judges as possible. This was called the Judiciary Act of 1801 and it also stated that the judges couldn’t be removed. Adams knew that once Jefferson took over, he would turn the government and the country around based on Democratic Republican beliefs. John Adams didn’t want the government to be taken over by Democratic Republicans, also known as radicals, who were people that took extreme political positions. He thought that they would ruin the country and wanted some Federalist powers to remain in the government even after his presidency.

Read More
791 Words | 4 Pages

A healthy democratic institution, such as the Senate, must have its ideas challenged, its ills corrected, and its widely-held views challenged and debated over the long run. I think Adams recognized this need, but had the foresight to understand that only time would prove his vote for the Louisiana Purchase was on the right side of

Read More
1041 Words | 5 Pages

Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could” (Adams 2). John Adams’ answer was that he could not help but laugh at her letter. What he did not realize was that his wife had become the first in a long

Read More
1438 Words | 6 Pages

Towards the end of the 17th century US relations with foreign nations such as France and GBR depleted to the cries of war. Luckily Mr. Adams considered the US’s condition financially and never asked congress to declare war, especially with France. Though during the election of 1800, Adams became no match for the Republican Party as the Federalists, represented by John Adams during the election, stabbed Adams in the back as Alexander Hamilton, a prominent High-Federalist always creating problems for Adams, cried to many southern voters of the Presidents inability to hold office. In fact, Hamilton composed a pamphlet “Letter Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams.”

Read More
879 Words | 4 Pages

Adams greatly supported the fact that Washington wished to be the General of the Continental Army. Washington would defend Adams through a variety of letters and would often describe John as being high

Read More
486 Words | 2 Pages

Around 1770, when the Boston Massacre took place, Adams demanded that troops be taken out of Boston at once, and the British withdrew those troops (Leddy 79). The small things that Adams did to support the colonists rights was what made the British Crown go off the edge. Adams accepted the ratification, but not at first. He had to work out a plan with the Federalists on things to add to the ratification to make himself feel more secure with the constitution. “Adams advocated the constitutional separation of powers and a Bill of Rights intended to protect individual liberties” (Leddy 12).

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

Though Adams did not support this Act, he did little to stop it. Republicans were accused of being pro-French during a time when the French were confiscating U.S. ships in retaliation to the Jay Treaty which revoked the pact between the U.S. and France signed in 1778—the Supreme Court finally became involved and even set trials for the accused Republicans to be tried. Even worse, Adams lacked the diplomatic skills of his predecessor, refusing to be flexible and seeking a compromise between the U.S. and France. Instead, he demanded that the French acknowledge the end of their 1778 treaty. An accord

Read More
1062 Words | 5 Pages

The XYZ Affair occurred throughout 1797 and 1798 during the earlier times of John Adams as president. Essentially the situation was that the French saw that the United State’s refusal to assist in taking the Spanish Louisiana as disrespectful, and became even more upset after the United States signed the Jay’s Treaty with Britain. France saw this as an interference of the French trade and began to seize all the American ships they came across. French government outright declined the American minister, Charles C. Pinckney, forcing him to flee to the Netherlands. Obviously angry, John Adams decided it was best to just try to talk to France, as so not ruin the relationship they maintained.

Read More
974 Words | 4 Pages

John Adams born in Quincy, Massachusetts on October 30th, 1735. Adams was smart all his life. A the age of 16, because of his intelligence he was offered a scholarship to Harvard University. When he then graduated in 1755, and study at Harvard University. At the age of 20, John Adams was studying in law to become a lawyer.

Read More
1779 Words | 8 Pages

Jefferson is also once again seen as a contributor of this idea in his writing of the Declaration of Independence stating “all men are created equal.” Differences between the colonies and Europe on this idea were completely different in that the Kings and Monarchy used Christian doctorines to sustain their rule over their kingdoms. The third idea was that central government threatened polity and that a central government possessed too much power over man and many patriots rejected that notion and believed in a divided government unlike old European ways where there political theory was that god entitled political sovereignty to the Monarch’s rule. The fourth point that both deist and evangelicals believed was a cause of the revolution was the lack of virtue the English Government had shown.

Read More
510 Words | 3 Pages

The reasons are, he abused his veto power, caused The Trail of Tears, and The Bank War. The United States government has a system of checks and balances, which means all the branches of the government are equal, and if one branch does something it is not allowed to, it is checked by another branch to make sure it is in check. Reason why it is called checks and balances. Andrew Jackson abused his power of veto to intimidate the

Read More

More about Why Was John Adams Ineffective

Related Topics

Open Document