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John Quincy Adams: Independent

Yet Quincy Adams talked about unity in his presidential inaugural speech. Adams said the Constitution and the representative democracy of the United States had proved a success. The nation was free and strong and stretched across the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

He noted that political divisions had eased. So now, he said, it was time for the people to settle their differences and make a truly national government.

In his first message to Congress, President Adams described his ideas.

The chief purpose of the government, he said, was to improve the lives of the people it governed. To do this, he offered a national program of building roads and canals. He also proposed a national university and a national scientific center.

Adams said Congress should not be limited to making laws only to improve the nation's economic life. He said it should make laws to improve the arts and sciences, too.

But many people of the West and South did not believe that the Constitution gave the federal government the power to do all these things. They believed these powers belonged to the states.

Their representatives in Congress rejected the president’s proposals.

In addition, a new opposition party was trying to weaken support for Quincy Adams. They supported a general from Tennessee named Andrew Jackson.

Historian Harlow Giles Unger says John Quincy Adams was never able to meet the high expectations many people had for him.