John Adams Personality

In 1797, there were two American battles raging–one internal and one external. On the home front, the government was widely split between the two partisanships at the time: the Federalists, who wanted a stronger centralized government, and the Democratic-Republicans, who wanted a weaker government where states had more power. Internationally, the French Coalition Wars roared between the French and the British. Enter John Adams, President-elect and former Vice President under all-mighty hero George Washington. Adams’s appearance was not one of a desired president: he spoke with a lisp, was significantly below average in stature, and his hands often shook with palsy. Unbeknownst to those in attendance at his Inauguration on March 4, 1797, his

Adams crucial leadership during the XYZ Affair boosted his popularity and displayed his morality. Once the French and British went to war, the United States’s relationship with the French became strained. Although declaring neutrality, the Americans shipped goods and maintained a solid relationship with the English in part of the Jay Treaty. This preferential treatment angered the French and in 1796 the French retaliated against American ships and refusing to meet with the American Minister to France, Charles Pinckney. In response to French attacks on American ships, Adams sent delegates to Paris to try and meet with French Directory officials in an effort to get the Jay Treaty signed by France. The French Foreign Minister at the time, Charles Talleyrand, refused to meet with American diplomats until a set of conditions were met: “the Directory would need to refute Adams' anti-French sentiment in the May 16 speech to

In 1798, after the XYZ Affair, Federalists recognized the opportunity they had to utilize the negative French and immigrant sentiments and many Americans had and use that to their benefit. Because the Democratic-Republicans were typically pro-French and most of the immigrant voters voted for them, the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in an effort to reduce the popularity of their rival party. Of the four acts passed, only one was approved with bipartisan approval. The Naturalization Act lengthened the time immigrants must be in the United States to be considered citizens, and this delayed many of the pro-Democratic-Republican immigrants from being able to vote. The Alien Enemies Act allows Adams to expel immigrants from the United States during times of war. The only act to approve with bipartisan approval, the Alien Act, “allowed for the detention of enemy aliens in time of war without trial or counsel.” The Sedition Act, the one that infringed upon the Bill of Rights established seven years before, “outlawed conspiracy to prevent the enforcement of federal laws and punished subversive speech—with fines and imprisonment.”3 Specifically targeting Democratic-Republican newspapers, “Twenty-five [Democratic-Republican] editors were indicted under the act, and ten were convicted by Federalist judges who did not attempt to hide their