4 Reasons Why John Adams is the Most Overrated President Ever

Every other year or so, some group or another decides to ask a panel of historians and other presidential experts to rank the now-46 Presidents of the United States from best to worst. The top and bottom of the lists are usually the same. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Washington are often at the top, while Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Donald Trump can usually be found at the bottom, though before Trump, it was Franklin Pierce who rounded out the worst.

If we’re being honest, it’s easy to identify and laud the best presidents while dunking on the worst of them. What’s much more difficult is having the courage to point out a president who gets more credit than he deserves, a man whose memory lives in the bell curve for no reason other than his association with other great leaders – and that president is John Adams.

Listing off the best presidents is really as easy as listing the worst. Those at the top of the list are leaders who guided the country through its greatest historical trials. Washington beat the world’s biggest superpower of the time period to make the United States a country. Roosevelt guided that country through the Great Depression and World War II, ushering in a new global order and leaving it a global superpower. Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and kept the Union intact. 

Conversely, Presidents Pierce, Buchanan and Johnson respectively dithered on the slavery issue, sat idly by as states left the Union and failed to reunite the country in a meaningful, inclusive way, the after effects of which we still live with to this day. It’s probably too early to judge the long-term effects of Trump’s administration – but it’s not too early to armchair quarterback President Adams’.

There’s no denying Adams’ importance to the founding and evolution of the United States. He was an early advocate for the U.S. Navy, a diplomat that secured loans from the Dutch, and if there was a War Secretary for the Continental Army early on, John Adams was the guy. But as far as his presidency goes he was so lackluster, he killed his own political party. Here’s why.

1. The Alien and Sedition Acts

John Adams was a lawyer who made his bones upholding the rule of law. When that didn’t work, he worked tirelessly to help win independence from Britain and create a country that had the freedoms and rights he (ostensibly) believed the creator endowed upon all men. Until he became President of the United States, anyway. 

Adams took office in 1797 and almost immediately tried to curtail the freedoms his contemporaries fought so hard to put in place. Upon taking the office, he  kept George Washington’s Cabinet in place, a Cabinet that was openly hostile toward him. The hostility might have stemmed from Adams’ constant refusal to heed their advice. One of the times he did take their advice was in signing the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts into law.

The Alien Friends Act Adams signed allowed the president to deport any noncitizen determined to be dangerous to the United States. The Alien Enemies Act allowed the government to arrest noncitizens from enemy countries. The Naturalization Act placed more requirements on immigrants to become citizens. The most insidious one, the Sedition Act, made it a crime to write false or malicious statements about the government. Adams essentially made it illegal to talk shit about him and arrested many who dared to defy it – because you know, “freedom.” 

2. He turned his back on our best friends. 

The Alien and Sedition Acts came about because of the French Revolution, which toppled the regime of King Louis XVI and led to his execution. In place of the monarchy, France established an unstable republican government. Because French intervention made American independence possible and since they both enjoyed the same form of government, the Franco-American alliance should have been a long-lasting and close partnership. It wasn’t. 

Relations between the two had degraded, the U.S. stopped paying on its Revolutionary War debt to France and the 1794 Jay Treaty had brought American and English trade closer. The French, who were at war with Britain, didn’t love the trade partnership and began seizing American merchant ships. To avert an all-out war, Adams sent three representatives to France to negotiate a peace, but the French representatives demanded a bribe before talks could begin – because Adams gave a speech in Congress asking for a military buildup against the French. 

3. Then he went to “war” with them. 

In a preview of future American conflicts, Adams didn’t actually ask Congress for a declaration of war with France. After a French privateer captured an American merchant off the coast of New York, Adams reestablished the U.S. Navy (which had been mothballed after the Revolution) and authorized a policy of harassing French ships and seizing French merchantmen. 

In what became known as the “Quasi-War,” the United States began working in tandem with the Royal Navy. The “war” saw a lot of American victories at sea, but cost the United States merchant fleet $20 million ($500 million in today’s numbers) and the loss of 2,000 merchant ships. 

4. The Midnight Judges

In the election of 1800, Adams ran for re-election against his own vice-president, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson won and became the first true lame duck. As the time to leave office in March 1801 approached, Adams and his lame duck Federalist Congress created a new layer of federal appeals courts between the existing district courts the U.S. Supreme Court and filled the new courts with as many appointments as he could before Jefferson’s inauguration. Most saw it as a blatant attempt by the Federalists to maintain control of one branch of government. 

The only upside to the Midnight Judges Act (before it was repealed by Jefferson) was a Supreme Court case sparked by the backlash to the act. One of the appointees challenged Secretary of State James Madison’s refusal to confirm his appointment. The case of Marbury v. Madison established the Supreme Court’s authority as an equal branch of government and its power of judicial review.  

Adams’ most important achievement is that he continued the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. Once elected, he took the office from Washington and when he lost his bid for reelection, he gave it up to Jefferson (even if he declined to attend Jefferson’s inauguration). That being said, it shouldn’t really put him at the beginning of the long bell curve of mediocre presidents (he usually sits somewhere around #14). Adams gets way too much credit for simply showing up.