Ranking the US Presidents Week 2: John Adams

In My Humble Opinion
1

Time for the second week of our presidential rankings, we have a very interesting subject this week in John Adams.

You can find the first week’s George Washington thread here Ranking the US Presidents Week 1: George Washington - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board

John Adams

John Adams’s stock has risen somewhat in recent years with the success of David McCullough’s biography and the HBO miniseries based upon it. While McCullough has created many new students of our complicated second president, we are ultimately still learning about a respectable man who was by many measures a failure during his single term

Adams still has his detractors, it would impossible to discuss the Adams presidency without mentioning the stain that is the alien and sedition acts. But then it is hard to ignore his success in avoiding serious international conflict at a time when his own party was itching a confrontation with France, a hawkishness that could have only been agitated further had Adams not treated the XYZ matter with such care.

In fact most of Adams’s failures can be attributed to his difficult personality and his stubborn independence, qualities that may not be suited for the presidency, but ones that still win him admirers.

Perhaps most interesting though, Adams is still our invisible founder. He does not have the high profile that his contemporaries do in our American conscious, despite his equally great accomplishments. His story is little known outside of those interested in history, as opposed to George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, figures who all American school children are well acquainted with. This fact continues to make him compelling to so many of us, we want to know why.

Leadership Qualities- 3/10
Really pretty terrible.
*
Accomplishments and Crisis Management- 5/10*
While there was some good such as the XYZ affair and creating the navy and such, dealing with problems with those awful acts makes his record mixed at best.
*
Political Skill- 4/10*
Politicking mostly involves getting people to like you, this was not his strong point.

Character and Integrity- 9/10
The more I read about Adams as a person, the more I find him to be a wonderful human being who truly wanted what was best for his country. He was willing to devote his life in service of that goal. His relationship with his wife is really a beautiful American story.

Adams also has the benefit of being one of the presidents who left the most personal writing behind for us. His correspondence with Abigail and Jefferson are absolute pleasures to read. I think very highly of Adams as a man.

Foreign Policy- 7/10
Very measured.

Domestic Policy- 3/10
Not so measured.

I know there are a variety of opinions of this president, so let’s do it!

2

Leadership Qualities- 5/10
Tolerable although very uncharismatic and uninspiring

Accomplishments and Crisis Management- 6/10*
While there was some good such as the XYZ affair and creating the navy and such, dealing with problems with those awful acts makes his record mixed at best.
Expanded our nation’s military but the Alien and Sedition acts turned the US dangerously close to tyranny.
*
Political Skill- 4/10*

Not much, like leadership qualities tolerable and dull.

Character and Integrity- 9/10

Very honest and decent, incorruptable, uncompromising.

Foreign Policy- 8/10
Strong, vigorous and excellent. Expanded our nation’s military, unfortunately Jefferson and Madison reduced it leaving us defenseless for the War of 1812. :mad:

Domestic Policy- 3/10
Dangerously close to dictatorship in the Alien and Sedition Acts.

3

John Adams set the unfortunate precedent of being the first president to shamelessly exploit a foreign crisis for partisan political gain.

The crisis was real enough—France was angry about the Jay Treaty, and was harassing our Atlantic commerce, on which the prosperity of the eastern seaboard depended. When Adams sent diplomats to negotiate, the French Directory refused to even meet with them unless they first paid a humiliating bribe.

Adams unleashed the infant American navy in the Quasi-War (1798), and given an opportunity to resume negotiations after Napoleon’s coup d’etat, managed a successful settlement with the Convention of Montfortaine (1800).

But in the meantime . . . Federalists in Congress weren’t satisfied with a minimalist naval campaign, and created a huge standing army, even though the chance of a land war with France was zero. Officer commissions went to prominent Federalist politicians. To finance the army, they enacted a federal property tax, which required an army of Federalist assessors and collectors. Then they enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, to criminalize any criticism of the new levies.

The Adams administration resisted none of this, and enforced the Sedition Act with vigor, lining up Republican editors and politicians for prosecution and intimidation. Adams was an extremely intelligent and honest man, and a great revolutionary leader and diplomat, but he had an elitist and authoritarian streak that ill served him as President. His defeat in 1800 was a blessing for the country, and I cannot rate him as more than 5 points out of 10.

4

As much as John Adams is a hero of mine, his Presidency was pretty much a disaster.

5

Physical Resemblance to a Koala - 10/10

John Adams.

Koala.

6

I think you mixed up your links.

7

Sorry I’m late to the party. I agree with OP’s assessment and numbers. Adams also suffered by spending so much of his later career in George Washington’s shadow. No one could really measure up to his Olympian heights, but Adams really couldn’t. The second President wanted what was best for his country and labored mightily to make it so, but he was a far better thinker than a leader.

Ron Chernow’s magnificent biography Alexander Hamilton, BTW, has some nice insights into Adams. They were political foes during Adams’s single term, and and Chernow tells the story well.

Adams does get a bonus point for being the first to live in the White House, writing to Abigail, “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” FDR later had that carved into the mantel of the State Dining Room.