[159] In 1790, Jefferson, James Madison, and Hamilton struck a bargain guaranteeing Republican support for Hamilton's debt assumption plan in exchange for the capital being temporarily moved from New York to Philadelphia, and then to a permanent site on the Potomac River to placate Southerners. In the Senate, Adams cast a tie-breaking vote against a last-minute motion to keep the capital in New York.[160]
Adams played a minor role in politics as vice president. He attended few cabinet meetings, and the President sought his counsel infrequently.[150] While Adams brought energy and dedication to the office,[161] by mid-1789 he had already found it "not quite adapted to my character ... too inactive, and mechanical."[162] He wrote, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."[163] Adams's initial behavior in the Senate made him a target for critics of the Washington administration. Toward the end of his first term, he grew accustomed to assuming a marginal role, and rarely intervened in debate.