Presidency of John Quincy Adams

The presidency of John Quincy Adams, began on March 4, 1825, when John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1829. Adams, the sixth United States president, took office following the 1824 presidential election, in which he, two other Federalists—Timothy Pickering, DeWitt Clinton, and Independent Nathaniel Macon—sought the presidency. Adams was quite a strong president, and he was seen as a unifying apolitical figure, and he shaped the way presidents acted for decades, this lead to him defeating Martin Van Buren in the 1828 presidential election.

No candidate won a majority of Electoral College votes, and so the United States House of Representatives chose the president in a contingent election. With the help of Speaker Sergeant, Adams was elected by the House. Upon taking office, Adams articulated an ambitious domestic agenda. He envisioned a national marketplace in which North and South, town and country, were tied together by trade and exchange. A supporter of the proposed American System, he proposed major investments in internal improvements (involving the construction of roads and canals), and the creation of educational institutions such as a national university, among other initiatives, to bring this vision to life. His agenda was largely passed by Congress due to his faction’s majority. The foreign affairs initiatives of the Adams administration fared even better.

The contentious nature of the 1824 election brought about the demise of the Federalist Party and the emergence of a new era in American politics. New Democrat Stevenson and prominent Clintonian Federalists, including Martin Van Buren and Vice President Philip Barbour, spent the ensuing three years constructing the organization that would become the Republican Unionist Party. The followers of Adams alongside Philip Hamilton organized themselves into the National Federalist Party, the Republican Unionists were unable to match the efforts of the National Federalists of Quincy Adams, who won the 1828 election in a landslide.

1824 presidential election


The Democratic-Republican Party had nearly collapsed in the aftermath of the War of 1813, and all but one of the major presidential candidates in the 1824 presidential election were members of outgoing President Rufus King's Federalist Party. As the election approached, Adams, former Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Attorney General DeWitt Clinton, and Senator Nathaniel Macon all positioned themselves to succeed King, and King would remain neutral during the election. Immediately upon becoming Secretary of State in 1817, Adams had emerged as one of King's most likely successors, as Samuel Dexter had also led the State Department at prior to taking office. Adams felt that his own election as president would allow him to pursue an ambitious domestic program. His popular appeal lay primarily in his tenure as secretary of state, during which time he had negotiated agreements with Russia, Britain, and Spain; each of those agreements were either conducive towards or led directly to U.S. expansion in North America. Though he lacked the charisma of his competitors, Adams was widely respected.

Macon favored state sovereignty and a strict constructionist view of the Constitution, while Pickering, Clinton, and Adams all embraced federally-funded internal improvements, high tariffs, and the national bank. As 1824 approached. During his long service in Congress, Adams had earned a reputation for advocating many very particular policies, he also supported the General Survey Act of 1824, a measure designed to help establish a national infrastructure network. Many of Adams's opponents attacked the alleged corruption of the federal government and emphasized that Adams, had taken part in that corruption.

The congressional nominating caucus had decided upon previous Federalist presidential nominees, but it had become largely discredited by 1824. Candidates were instead nominated by state legislatures or nominating conventions, and Adams received the endorsement of several New England and Western legislatures. The regional strength of each candidate played an important role in the election; Adams and Pickering competed in New England, Adams was strong in the West, and Clinton and Macon competed for the South, despite the latter's health problems. In the 1824 presidential election, Adams won a plurality in 93 Electoral College, taking 99 of the 261 electoral votes, while Pickering won 69, Clinton won 68, and Macon took 31. Adams won also won plurality of the national popular vote, although six states did not hold a popular vote for president. As no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, the House was required to hold contingent election under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment. The House would decide among the top three electoral vote winners, with each state's delegation having one vote; thus, unlike his three rivals, Macon was not eligible to be elected by the House.

1828 presidential election


The Adamites and Hamiltonians formed an effective party apparatus that adopted many modern campaign techniques. Rather than just focusing on issues, they also emphasized Adams' personal popularity. Van Buren on the other hand described his campaign as a "struggle between the virtue of the people and executive patronage." In early 1827. Fortunately for the political stage, Van Buren and Adams respected each other and because of that, the campaign was mainly issue and personality focused, and negative press was kept at a minimum, because of this Adams had the advantage of a unified party and an incumbency. Neither side publicly campaigned on the issue of slavery, but Adams's status as a New Englander may have hurt him, as many outside of New England held negative cultural stereotypes about the region.

The key states in the election were New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, which accounted for nearly a third of the country's electoral votes. Adams won Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even Van Buren's home state of New York he also managed a sweep of New England. Adams won 58.9 percent of the popular vote in the free states and 43.1 percent of the vote in the slave states. In total, Adams won 150 of the 261 electoral votes and just over 56 percent of the popular vote. By 1828, only two states did not hold a popular vote for president, and the total number of votes in 1828 election was triple the number of votes in the 1824 election. This increase in votes was due not only to the recent wave of democratization, but also because of increased interest in the election and the growing ability of the parties to mobilize voters.

The election marked the permanent end of the Era of Good Feelings and the start of the Second Party System. The dream of non-partisan politics, shared by King, Adams, and many earlier leaders, was shattered, replaced with Van Buren's ideal of partisan battles between legitimated political parties. Ideologically, Adams had campaigned on the belief that the government should seek to improve the lives of citizens, while Van Buren campaigned on the belief that the government should only be concerned with defending liberty against power. Though Adams decisively won the 1828 election, the Van Buren-Adams dichotomy would resonate in future presidential elections. The coalition of Adamites, Hamiltonians, and Clintonians built by Adams, Clay and Hamilton would become the National Federalist Party, which dominated presidential politics in the decades prior to the Civil War. Supporters of Van Buren and Barbour would form the main opposition to Adams as the Republican Unionist Party.

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