Others disliked interference from any level of government and were opposed to central planning.[111] Some in the South feared that Adams was secretly an abolitionist and that he sought to subordinate the states to the federal government.[112] Most of the president's proposals were defeated in Congress. Adams's ideas for a national university, a national observatory, and the establishment of a uniform system of weights and measures never received congressional votes.[113] His proposal for the creation of a naval academy won the approval of the Senate but was defeated in the House; opponents objected to the naval academy's cost and worried that the establishment of such an institution would "produce degeneracy and corruption of the public morality".[114] Adams's proposal to establish a national bankruptcy law was also defeated.[113]
Unlike other aspects of his domestic agenda, Adams won congressional approval for several ambitious infrastructure projects.[115] Between 1824 and 1828, the United States Army Corps of Engineers conducted surveys for a bevy of potential roads, canals, railroads, and improvements in river navigation. 