Foreign policies

According to Charles Edel, Adams believed that, "Intervention would accomplish little, retard the cause of republicanism, and distract the country from its primary goal of continental expansion." Moreover, fearful that U.S. intentions would outstrip its capabilities, Adams thought that projecting U.S. power abroad would weaken its gravitational force on the North American continent.^[66]
During his term as president, Adams achieved little of long-term consequence in foreign affairs. A reason for this was the opposition he faced in Congress, where his rivals prevented him from succeeding.^[67] Among his diplomatic achievements were treaties of reciprocity with a number of nations, including Denmark, Mexico, the Hanseatic League, the Scandinavian countries, Prussia, and Austria. However, thanks to the successes of Adams' diplomacy during his previous eight years as secretary of state, most of the foreign policy issues he would have faced had been resolved by the time he became president.^[68]
As president, Adams continued to pursue the peaceful settlement of potential disputes with Britain, including the unsettled border between Maine and Canada. However, in 1825, Britain banned U.S. trade from the British West Indies, damaging Adams's prestige in foreign affairs.^[69] After Congress retaliated by increasing tariffs on British products, the British forbid U.S. trade with any British colony aside from Canada, further damaging U.S. businesses.^[70]
Adams favored sending a U.S. delegation to the Congress of Panama, an 1826 conference of New World republics organized by Simón Bolívar. Adams sought closer ties with the new Latin American states, believing that stability among the new states would benefit the U.S. and be conducive for the purchase of Texas from Mexico.^[71] However, the funding for a delegation and the confirmation of delegation nominees became entangled in a political battle over Adams's domestic policies, with opponents such as Senator Martin Van Buren impeding the process of confirming a delegation.^[58] Though the delegation finally won confirmation from the Senate, it never reached the Congress of Panama due to congressional resistance and delay.^[72]

1828 presidential election

Main article: United States presidential election, 1828

1828 presidential election results

During his presidency, Adams's opponents coalesced around Jackson. Opponents accused Adams of favoring big government, the Northeast, manufacturing, and abolition. Followers of Jackson, Van Buren, and Calhoun formed a proto-party apparatus, raising large sums of money and sponsoring newspapers and local clubs.^[73] Adams, meanwhile, refused to adapt to the new reality of political campaigns, and he avoided public functions and refused to invest in pro-administration tools such as newspapers.^[74] As the presidential election of 1828 approached, Jackson was viewed as the favorite by many, as Van Buren and others had established a strong base of support. In the spring of 1827, Jackson was publicly accused of having encouraged his wife to desert her first husband.^[75] In response, followers of Jackson attacked Adams's personal life, and the campaign turned increasingly nasty.^[76] Though few doubted Adams's intelligence, the Jacksonian press portrayed him as an out-of-touch elitist.^[77]
Vice President Calhoun joined Jackson's ticket, while Adams turned to Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush as his running mate. This represented the first time in U.S. history that a ticket of two Northerners faced at ticket of two Southerners.^[78] Neither side publicly campaigned on the issue of slavery, but Adams's status as a New Englander may have hurt him, as many outside of New England held negative cultural stereotypes about the region.^[79]
The key states in the election were New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, which accounted for nearly a third of the country's electoral votes.^[80] Jackson won Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even Clay's home state of Kentucky. He also won a majority of the electoral votes in New York, and denied Adams a sweep of New England by winning an electoral vote in Maine. In the South, aside from Adams's win in Maryland, only Louisiana was remotely competitive, and even there Jackson won 53% of the vote. In total, Jackson won 178 of the 261 electoral votes and just under 56 percent of the popular vote. No future presidential candidate would match Jackson's proportion of the popular vote until Theodore Roosevelt exceeded it in 1904. Adams's loss made him the second one-term president, after his own father. The election marked the permanent end of the Era of Good Feelings and the start of the Second Party System.^[81]

Departure

John Quincy Adams left office on March 4, 1829. Adams did not attend the inauguration of his successor, Andrew Jackson, who had openly snubbed him by refusing to pay the traditional "courtesy call" to the outgoing president during the weeks before his own inauguration.^[5] Jackson's wife had died shortly after the election, and Jackson blamed Adams and his followers for her death.^[82] Adams was one of only four presidents who chose not to attend their respective successor's inauguration; the others were his father, Andrew Johnson, and Richard Nixon.^{[citation needed]}