John Quincy Adams' Legislative Proposals

John Quincy Adams' proposals indicate clearly that he achieved the presidency too late. His ideas were a strong statement of Federalism, but the 1820s was an age of states’ rights. His program would no doubt have pleased Alexander Hamilton; it included the following:

• maintaining a strong Bank of the United States
• funding a federal role in education
• strengthening of the army and navy
• establishing a naval academy
• protecting the rights of Native Americans
• funding scientific expeditions.

The Adams program encountered a dead-end in Congress where the Jacksonian forces were still smarting from the “Corrupt Bargain.”