Rick Moran’s wrong about the Adams reference. First, November 1797 saw _serious_ problems with France that would break out into war the next year, and everyone knew it. Britain was a problem but not _the_ problem. Second, the British posts in the U.S. had been evacuated after the 1794 treaty with Britain (Jay’s Treaty) and Anthony Wayne’s demonstration of force against the Indians in northwest Ohio. Jay’s Treaty was why things were vastly better with the British, despite impressment and trade interference. Third, Adams was facing an internal struggle within his own party from Alexander Hamilton’s proteges, including Thomas Pickering, who believed that Adams was a fool for pushing diplomacy as much as naval preparation in the face of the French threat. But because he needed the Federalists in Congress to support his efforts, he couldn’t act against Pickering or the others until later.
All of this means that there is, in fact, no direct line to the Carter address, and this is a false analogy.
