George Washington, being the first president of the United States, set a precedent with his Farewell Address for the rest of the presidents to come. The way George Washington wrote his Farewell Address helped guide the future presidents, however the next three after him followed after his ideas in a different way. Washington had the best foreign policy, while John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison strayed away from Washington’s pristine ideas to varying degrees of success.
Washington’s Farewell Address talked about how citizens need to stay loyal to the country, and not the president or parties; how political parties split a country, especially regional ones; and to always assume all countries mean well, but don’t keep a permanent …show more content…
That being said, Adams always felt like he never got enough respect. Adams, since he was Federalist, felt like he was wholeheartedly following Washington’s precedents from the Farewell Address by not going to war with France and staying neutral, but in fact he was actually drifting apart from them and he didn’t know it. This is due to his insecurities of not getting enough respect. This is evident because when he passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, it shows that Adams doesn’t really care to be peaceful with his foreign neighbors, unlike Washington would have. The Alien acts were targeted to immigrants while Sedition acts were toward people already living in the country. In the Alien acts, Adams raised the requirement from 5 years to 14 years to get U.S. citizenship, and gave the president the power in peacetime to kick immigrants out of the country or throw them jail who disagree with the government. Although kicking immigrants out of the country and throwing them in jail was never done by Adams, the fact he gave himself the power by law to do so meant he didn’t want to be peaceful with other countries and wanted to stay on his own side of the world, because it was easier, and he hardly could control the people already living in the country. If Adams were to have thrown immigrants in jail or out of the country, he may have started a war with another country, even though he was supposed to remain neutral and peaceful, as it said in Washington’s Farewell
Washington’s Farewell Address talked about how citizens need to stay loyal to the country, and not the president or parties; how political parties split a country, especially regional ones; and to always assume all countries mean well, but don’t keep a permanent …show more content…
That being said, Adams always felt like he never got enough respect. Adams, since he was Federalist, felt like he was wholeheartedly following Washington’s precedents from the Farewell Address by not going to war with France and staying neutral, but in fact he was actually drifting apart from them and he didn’t know it. This is due to his insecurities of not getting enough respect. This is evident because when he passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, it shows that Adams doesn’t really care to be peaceful with his foreign neighbors, unlike Washington would have. The Alien acts were targeted to immigrants while Sedition acts were toward people already living in the country. In the Alien acts, Adams raised the requirement from 5 years to 14 years to get U.S. citizenship, and gave the president the power in peacetime to kick immigrants out of the country or throw them jail who disagree with the government. Although kicking immigrants out of the country and throwing them in jail was never done by Adams, the fact he gave himself the power by law to do so meant he didn’t want to be peaceful with other countries and wanted to stay on his own side of the world, because it was easier, and he hardly could control the people already living in the country. If Adams were to have thrown immigrants in jail or out of the country, he may have started a war with another country, even though he was supposed to remain neutral and peaceful, as it said in Washington’s Farewell