Binder Page 70 Name ______Period ______The Presidency of Date ______

The second president of the United States was John Adams.

He belonged to the .

He ran against for President in 1796.

PRO: CON: List some of the things that Adams had done List some of the things in Adams’s that made him seem qualified for the office of personality that made it difficult for him to be the president: president: ● Contributed to success of ● He wasn’t Revolution and had to follow him ● Member of Continental Congress ● Was erratic- Ups and downs ● Helped write (and signed) ● Self-doubt Declaration of Independence ● Pretentious ● Minister to France and England ● Opinionated ● Helped negotiate , ● Short temper 1783, that ended Revolution ● First vice-president of US

The war between France and Britain was continuing. Federalists believed the United States should help Britain because of the close historical ties we had always had with that country. Democratic Republicans believed that the United States should be helping France because they had been there to help us during our Revolution. Like George Washington, Adams supported neutrality (neither side) in the war.

When France began stopping American ships, Adams sent diplomats to France to try to find a peaceful solution. Instead of negotiating, three French officials demanded a bribe from the Americans. This controversial incident was known as the X,Y,Z Affair, and almost started a war between France and the United States. Instead of going to war, Adams tried to negotiate a treaty to keep the peace. In 1798, Congress passed laws known as the . “Alien”means “a foreigner” The Alien Act allowed the President to expel any alien thought to be dangerous to the country. New arrivals to the country often supported the Democratic Republicans. “Sedition” means “stirring up rebellion against the government.” The Sedition Act said that a person could be fined or jailed for criticizing the government, and several newspaper editors were. Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans hated these laws because they violated the freedoms of speech and press found in the First Amendment. However, the laws were not challenged in the Supreme Court.

Why would the Democratic Republicans not want the Supreme Court to decide on these laws? 1. The judges were mainly Federalists. 2. The Democratic Republicans wanted strong states to stand up to a powerful federal government.

In the states of and , the state legislatures voted to say they did not like these federal laws. These statements became known as the Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions. These statements were supposed to have been written by Thomas Jefferson and . They suggested that each state “had the right to judge for itself” whether a law is constitutional. They said that if a state decided that a law was unconstitutional, it could nullify the law, which means to cancel it within its borders. But do states have a right to decide anything about federal laws? That question was an important question about the Constitutional Principle of federalism that was not answered then and would come back again.

John Adams was the first president to live in the .

He is also the father of the .

"Two presidents signed the Declaration of Independence: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence."