John Adams: Administration and Events (Part II)
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions stopped short of declaring the Alien and Sedition Acts to be unconstitutional. But the statement that a state had the right to nullify a law became the basis for the southern states' rights and justification for their secession from the Union prior to the Civil War. Thomas Jefferson certainly wanted to cause as much trouble for the Federalists as he could, but it is agreed by most historians that he did not want to be one of the causes of the dissolution of the United States. When the Democratic-Republicans took office after they won control of the White House and Congress in 1800, they allowed the Alien and Sedition Acts to expire.
Midnight Judges. In the election of 1800, the Democratic-Republicans won control of the Presidency and the Congress. During President John Adams' lame duck period, the Federalists tried desperately to gain solid control of the judicial branch. They created a large number of new positions, from district judges to marshals, U.S. Attorneys, and even justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. Their goal was to so fill the judicial branch with Federalists that the Democratic-Republicans would not be able to appoint enough of their party over the next four years to have much effect on the judicial branch. After the new President took office, the Supreme Court ruled in Marbury v. Madison that the positions were not properly filed, and the new Democratic-Republican President, Thomas Jefferson, got to fill them. Again, as with the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Federalist plans backfired and actually worked against them. (Marbury v. Madison will be fully discussed in the next article.)
Capital moved to Washington, D.C. One other event of note took place during the Adams Administration. The nation's capital was, by law, required to move from Philadelphia to the new city of Washington in the District of Columbia no later than November 1, 1800. The White House was not yet completed, but on the evening of November 1, 1800, John Adams moved into the White House. The walls were not finished, and he had difficulty finding adequate places for him and his staff to sleep that night. Later, he was joined by his wife, who used the large and unfinished East Room to hang her laundry to dry. A quote from one of his letters to his wife appears on a mantle in the White House. "I
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