Adams, John (Administration)

THE PRESIDENCY OF John Adams was dominated by tensions between the United States and France. Engaged in a long, ongoing conflict with Great Britain, France insisted that it had the right to seize American as well as British ships carrying goods between the two nations. Despite considerable pressures from New England Federalists, whose ships were being seized, John Adams wished to avoid war with France. Adams recognized that any war would have serious consequences on the economy of the new nation. Furthermore, a war with France would deepen America's continuing economic dependence on Great Britain and undercut the Hamiltonian tariffs that provided some protection for nascent American industries, most of which were also located in New England.

While the negotiations with France were in progress, Adams, however, prudently called for new taxes to support a military build-up in the event that war should become unavoidable. These taxes were especially abhorrent to farmers. Indeed, under the leadership of John Fries, 700 Pennsylvania Dutch farmers initially succeeded in driving off the federal tax collectors. Adams responded by sending in troops and capturing Fries, who was tried and sentenced to death for treason. Although Adams eventually pardoned Fries, the farmers denunciations—”Damm de President, damm de Congress, and damm de Arischdokratz”—echoed in the popular memory long after the rebellion was suppressed.

Although John Adams was commonly characterized as embodying patrician arrogance and was demonized by his Democratic-Republican opponents for favoring the development of an American aristocracy, Adams actually advocated the development of a meritocracy by which men of talent, regardless of their backgrounds, would rise to positions of influence.

Adams was very wary of grand schemes to stimulate economic growth, believing that such schemes would benefit speculators and financiers at the expense of ordinary citizens. Ironically, like the Democratic-Re-publicans, Adams believed that the economic stability of the new nation depended on the establishment of stable agricultural communities in which independent farmers achieved and sustained a moderately prosperous livelihood. Under Adams, the Federalists pushed through Congress legislation that became known as the Naturalization, Alien, and Sedition Acts. Of particular interest here is the Naturalization Act, which required immigrants to reside in the United States for 14 years [Page 4]before they could apply for U.S. citizenship. Although the Naturalization Act may not have had a discernible impact on immigration, it did very much reinforce the notion that Adams and the Federalists were antagonistic to those in the lower economic classes.