Allison+-+JA

John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 and died on July 4,1826. He served as our president for one term during the years 1793-1797. He was from the Federalist party. While he served our Vice President was Thomas Jefferson. John Adams deserves a C for his presidency. He made some advancements, and kept peace for the most part, but came up with some acts that were not declarational. He avoided going into war with France, therefore aiding in the purchase of Louisiana. At the beginning of Adams term, the Jay's Treaty was not being fulfilled by the Americans and this upset the French. This caused the French to ransack some of the American ships. I imagine a goal of Adams would be to have peace with France. The legislation was mostly Federalists.John Adams worked together to make peace with France. John Adams did not go to war with France which was very unpopular to most federalists at the time. Adams and Congress stopped trade with France, and came up with the alliance of 1778. The most important thing Adams did during his presidency was refuse to go to war with France. He felt that if he did it would lead to a civil war. He wanted to keep to the principles of George Washington, to stay away from war. This ended up being a very good decision because Napoleon, the new ruler of France, ended up selling Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson. Had Adams gone to war their probably would have been this purchase. Some very negative actions John Adams made were the Alien and Sedition Acts. These acts went against the decleration, and the rights Americans fought for. The Sedition Act took away the right of speech, it said that you could be convicted for speaking badly about the government. These acts made Adams very unpopular, and rightly so. The decision to stay out of war strongly influenced the future. If he would have gone to war it would have divided the country, possibly causing a Civil War. America probably would not have gained Louisiana, either. Louisiana was a major piece of land that allowed America to get ahead. The country was better off after Adams. At the beginning of his term peace was in jeopardy, but he made good choices and got it. Even though some of his decisions were not good, they allowed America to make sure they never happened again. That is why he deserves a B, not all of his decisions were popular, or good, but they led to better things.

Kennedy. __The American Pageant: A History of the Republic 13e ,__ Houghton Mifflin Company College Division: 2007. 10 Sep. 2008<[|http://hippocampus.org]>