John Adams Dbq

Words: 1547
Pages: 7

Introduction I. John Adams had a hard time being president of America and satisfying the people while keeping them safe. He had many difficulties in throughout his presidency and many more to come after. When he was president, The United States was on the brink of war, the economy was weak, and the legislative system was still getting started. He still had to get the nation ready, his presidency illustrates the stress and difficulty of leading a country and preventing Hamilton and Jefferson from breaking the country and allowing for the rich to take over. The presidency of John Adams exhibits the difficulty of the position as political parties, citizen sentiment, and foreign nations will all have their own concerns. As a result, these groups …show more content…
Adams had little political experience was described as, “He was too independent by nature and his political experience amounted to less than a year’s service in the Massachusetts legislature” (McCullough p.23). With little political experience Adams had difficulty in learning who he could trust. Adam kept the cabinet from Washington’s presidency and he also had to trust Hamilton and Jefferson, who were constantly trying to take the country over for their own political parties. During his presidency, Adams passed many laws that hunted illegal aliens in the United States. The law passed states, “The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, passed into law following revelation of the XYZ Affair, were designed to protect Americans from foreign insurgents. The four laws lengthened the residency requirement for citizenship, limited the number of new voters (who tended to vote Democratic-Republican), allowed for the president to deport or detain non-citizens in so far as they threatened national security, and banned subversive communication” (John Adams 2nd). As a result, many people were not able to enter into America and were prosecuted if they tried to sneak into the country. Even though Adams did not strongly enforced this war, Jefferson managed to get rid of the law through tireless effort. The laws were supposed to be created in the people's best interest so that other mischievous interests do not …show more content…
The presidency of John Adams illustrates the difficulty of being president and dealing with political parties, citizen sentiments and foreign nations. As a result, not all groups will be happy with the outcome if it does not cater to their needs. Adams did whatever measures that he deemed necessary to protect the United States. With that, he had proven that his presidency had not been a successful one and had failed since he pulled the United States into war with another country when he did not have much experience with the politics or running a