ARCH8.4

DIFFICULTIESFOR PRESIDENT ADAMS

▪ Read pages 154-159
▪ Add items in blue to your notes.
▪ Answer the questions at the end of this lesson.
▪ Make sure you turn in your project by 3:00PM.
▪ Start getting your notes, etc ready for your exam review.

INSTRUCTIONS

▪ The XYZ Affair

▪ American Envoys Meet French Agents
▪ A Call to Arms
▪ War Avoided

▪ Opposition to Adams

▪ The Alien and Sedition Acts
▪ Opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts

▪ The Disputed Election of 1800

DIFFICULTIESFOR PRESIDENT ADAMS - OUTLINE

▪ “the XYZ affair.”
▪ President Adams wanted to negotiate with France before declaring

war on them.

▪ The French agents wanted a $250,000 bribe from the United States

and would insure a $10 million loan for France.

▪ To protect the three American envoys, Adams substituted the letters X,

Y, and Z for the names of the French agents.

AMERICAN ENVOYS MEET FRENCH AGENTS

Elbridge Gerry

▪ “quasi war.”
▪ Adams called for a stronger navy
▪ Congress voted to make the navy a separate department and to build

forty ships.

▪ The most famous of the new frigates was the USS Constitution.
▪ Congress also tripled the size of the army.
▪ Although Congress never actually declared war, the Americans

captured ninety French vessels by the fall of 1800.

A CALLTO ARMS

▪ In 1799 Napoleon saw that the United States might be a stronger enemy

than was commonly thought.

▪ Although Adams wanted Napoleon to pay the damages for France’s

actions against America, Adams settled for a new agreement called the
Convention of 1800.

▪ He had avoided all-out war, but few of his countrymen recognized the

benefit.

WAR AVOIDED

Napoleon Bonaparte

▪ In 1798, the Federalists in Congress passed four laws called the Alien

and Sedition Acts.

▪ The Federalists claimed that the laws would help protect the country

during the threat of war.

▪ The Naturalization Actextended the time that an immigrant had to live in

America before he could gain American citizenship.

▪ The Alien Enemies Act and the Alien Act allowed the president to

imprison or expel any “dangerous” foreigners.

▪ The Sedition Act said that any person who said, wrote, or published

anything false or malicious against the government or its officials could be
fined $2,000 and imprisoned for up to two years.

THE ALIENAND SEDITION ACTS

▪ The Republicans and even a few Federalists worked hard to overrule the

Alien and Sedition Acts.

▪ Republicans James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia

and Kentucky Resolutions for those two states’ legislatures.

▪ Each set of resolutions claimed that the states have the right to interpose

themselves between the national government and the people if the
national government overreaches its powers.

▪ The Kentucky Resolution used the term nullificationto describe a state’s

act of declaring void any federal law within its boundaries.

OPPOSITIONTOTHE ALIENAND SEDITION ACTS

▪ When the votes were counted, Jefferson and Burr both received equal

numbers of votes, more than Adams or Pinckney.

▪ But there was no designation that Jefferson was the one who was

supposed to be president.

▪ Burr refused to defer, and he would not say that he was running for vice

president, rather than for president.

▪ The states voted, and the election dragged on for a week before Jefferson

finally gained the majority.

THE DISPUTED ELECTIONOF 1800

Map

Resources

The National Gazette supported the Democratic-Republicans.