Unit IV Exam

Essay by alucasftw November 2014

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Austin Lucas

Unit IV Exam Essay

There were a number of contributing factors that led to John Adams' single term presidency, and fail at reelection. However, it didn't matter where the issue came from or was about to the people, it all led to the same common theme, a dislike for Adams. The reasons of Adams' one term presidency led people to disrespect him, dislike him, and eventually find his power inadequate, leading to him losing the reelection.

For starters, President John Adams, the second President of the United States, had big shoes to fill. Americans only knew one president and his ways before Adams, and that was George Washington. In the eyes of the people, if Adams did not do something the way Washington did it, then the they did not like it. That being said, Adams' had the disadvantage of not being as popular and as well liked as Washington.

Adams is not all that innocent after all. He has some of the blame for not being well liked, therefore having one term. Adams wanted to be like Washington, so he kept Washington's cabinet and made similar decisions. This would backfire on Adams. It hurt his tenure, in the sense that Adams' (theoretically Washington's) cabinet didn't respect Adams and they also undercut his authority. This made it very difficult for Adams to get things accomplished without a cabinet of his own basically. John Adams had split support to begin with, but by the time his reelection came, even some of his own Federalist Party members were against him. Republicans always thought John Adams was an elitist and a monarchist, displaying great dislike for him. Federalist didn't have a ton of support for Adams, especially towards the end of his term, but Adams was not the true head...