Federalist · 1797–1801
John Adams
Federalist. Built the navy and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts.
John Adams was president 1797–1801. The party color on the chart is Federalist. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: Federalist. Built the navy and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts.
The dot is economics +20 and authority +40. That is right of center on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: Order against French radicalism and a navy that could protect commerce. Done: The navy was built. The Alien and Sedition Acts were the part his own country rejected. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are James K. Polk (1845–1849, +12 / +38) and William McKinley (1897–1901, +28 / +32). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.