[170] After winning election, Adams became affiliated with the Anti-Masonic Party, partly because the National Republican Party's leadership in Massachusetts included many of the former Federalists that Adams had clashed with earlier in his career. The Anti-Masonic Party originated as a movement against Freemasonry, but it developed into the country's first third party and embraced a general program of anti-elitism.[171]
Adams expected a light workload when he returned to Washington at 64 years old, but Speaker Andrew Stevenson selected Adams chair of the Committee on Commerce and Manufactures.[172] Though he identified as a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, Congress was broadly polarized into allies of Jackson and opponents of Jackson, and Adams generally aligned with the latter camp.[173] Stevenson, an ally of Jackson, expected that the committee chairmanship would keep Adams busy defending the tariff even while the Jacksonian majority on the committee would prevent Adams from accruing any real power.[174] As chair of the committee charged with writing tariff laws, Adams became an important player in the Nullification crisis, which stemmed largely from Southern objections to the high rates imposed by the Tariff of 1828. 