John Adams

In my eyes, John Adams is the most important Founding Father in American history. Not only did he help broker the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War and secured British recognition of America's sovereignty, but he assigned other significant Founding Fathers to their roles in the revolution. Adams selected both George Washington to command the Continental Army and Thomas Jefferson to author the Declaration of Independence. On the subject of the Declaration of Independence, Adams was even a member of the Committee of Five, the board that penned that document, and hence assisted Jefferson and its creation. But despite my kind words for John Adams the Founding Father, I cannot say such words for John Adams the president.

Adams replaced George Washington as president on March 4, 1797. Adams took office as a crisis known as the Quasi-War began to unfold. Washington had brokered a treaty with London that revived the British-American alliance. Because Britain and France were staunch rivals at the time, the French government was outraged by this development. So, at the beginning of 1796, the French navy began attacking American ships.

To his credit, Adams observed this issue and was extremely concerned. So, in the spring of 1798, Adams sent a group of American diplomats to France to help negotiate a solution to the conflict. However, French officials refused to meet with them unless Adams and his government gave a large amount of money to France. During this incident, known as the XYZ Affair, Adams refused to pay this money. This, in my eyes, was a poor decision. Refusing to pay the government the money it demanded prevented these meetings and hence got in the way of a resolution to the fighting. Not only did Adams' actions here prevent the issue from ending in a quick and convenient manner, but they actively escalated the crisis. Because Adams refused to meet the French government's demands, the fighting continued, allowing for the XYZ Affair to become especially inflammatory. In response to the XYZ Affair, the American government, on July 7, 1798, withdrew from all treaties between it and Paris, marking the official beginning of the Quasi-War.

While these events unfolded, Adams, a member of the right-wing, authoritarian Federalist Party, observed that Democratic-Republicans, members of the left-wing, libertarian Democratic-Republican Party that functioned as a rival to Adams' party, tended to sympathize with France. From here, Adams realized that immigrants to the US tended to support the Democratic-Republican Party over the Federalist Party. Consequently, he signed a group of bills called the Alien and Sedition Acts.

On June 18, 1798, Adams signed the first of the Alien and Sedition Acts: The Naturalization Act of 1798, which increased the number of years an immigrant had to live in the US from 5 years to 14. Then, on June 25, 1798, he signed the Alien Friends Act, which permitted the government to deport any immigrant accused of plotting against the government, even if said immigrant had received no trial. Soon after, on July 6, 1798, Adams signed the Alien Enemies Act. The only law in the Alien and Sedition Acts that remains in effect today, the Alien Enemies Act allowed the president to deport all immigrants to the US from a country the US was at war with. Finally, on July 14, 1798, Adams signed the most controversial and hated of the Alien and Sedition Acts: The Sedition Act, which outlawed all criticism of the government.

Clearly, Adams loses a ton of points for the Alien and Sedition Acts. However, the actual amount of criticism these laws warrant is reduced by the fact that two of the laws - the Alien Friends Act and the Sedition Act - had built-in expiration dates: March 3, 1801, the last full day of Adams' presidency. His position on this list is still lowered by the Alien and Sedition Acts and his poor handling of the XYZ Affair, but their temporary nature keeps him from being any lower. A few other factors also sustain Adams' position in the upper rungs of the US' bottom 15 presidents.

First off, while Adams treated immigrants poorly, he was an anti-slavery president. In fact, he was the first abolitionist to become president. His opposition to slavery also rubbed off on his son, fellow president John Quincy Adams, who spent his post-presidency fighting slavery in the House of Representatives, even proposing a Constitutional amendment that would have banned the enslavement of anyone born on or after July 4, 1842. As president, Adams signed the Slave Trade Act of 1800, which said that outside of those elements of the international slave trade directly involving the US, Americans were not allowed to participate in the sale of enslaved humans. This closed off most of the slave trade to American citizens, which was a huge step in the right direction. And while Adams did indirectly spark the Quasi-War, he also ended it with the Treaty of Mortefontaine, signed on September 30, 1800.