Adams’s family connections had certainly benefited his political career, but they also left him vulnerable to criticism. Many of Jackson’s supporters linked the younger Adams, a former Federalist, with the unpopular, one-term administration of his father. A pro-Jackson convention in Albany, New York, made the following argument for why Adams’s background made him an ineffective president who did not deserve a second term. It focuses on the War of 1812, in which then–Secretary of State John Quincy Adams served as a peace negotiator.
Resolved, That we oppose the re-election of John Quincy Adams—
Because we believe him to be now, as in all his early hostility to Jefferson and the democracy, imbued with the principles and wedded to the distinctions of the aristocracy—
Because he came to the democratic party, with tales of treason against his former political associates, but with unchanged principles and with personal views—
Because, his ends being selfish, he was willing to prey upon any party that chanced to be predominant—. . .
Because, in that eventful period, when his patriot competitor devoted his whole energies to his country, and, instead of accusing his government of feebleness and penury and holding out the disgraceful language of fear and submission, raising the banner of his country, and inviting to its defence, by the most elevated examples of constancy, devotion and courage, the brave volunteers and militia of the west, freely pledging his private fortune for a people whom he loved, and for hearths that were assailed, showing himself at every point of danger, exciting all to the noble discharge of their duty, animating them by his presence and relieving them by his sacrifices, passing days of fatigue and sleepless nights in preparing for the gallant resistance which the invader afterwards met with at his hands and the hands of his undaunted compatriots, and appearing in that hour of peril in the midst of the conflict, holding to all the inspired and encouraging language,“Remember that our watch-word is victory or death: our country must and shall be defended: we will enjoy our liberty or perish in the last ditch,”—John Quincy Adams predicted our overthrow without raising a finger to avert it, and declared that it could not be expected that “we should resist the mass of force which the gigantic power of Britain had collected to crush us at a blow!”—. . .
Because, bred amongst the aristocracy and educated in foreign courts, his habits and principles are not congenial with the spirit of our institutions and the notions of a democratic people.
Source: The Striking Similitude between the Reign of Terror of the Elder Adams, and the Reign of Corruption of the Younger Adams: An Address Adopted by the Albany Republican County Convention (Albany: D. M’Glashan, 1828), 1.