There's more to the question than meets the eye.
Look at the chart below. It seems to be saying that JOHN ADAMS reduced the national debt. But if you look closer (the bottom of the graph) you see that the debt isn't being displayed in dollars but in percent of GDP. That's not the same thing at all. In fact, if a person grew the economy, he could also increase the debt and have Adams' result. (I suspect that's what Adams did.)
Notice the 0.0 next to Andrew Jackson. He ELIMINATED the debt - a very impressive feat and not a statistical mirage. To their credit, all of the Presidents after Washington had been moving the country in that direction, at least as a percentage of GDP.
The whole idea of obfuscating the national debt by showing it as a percentage of GDP is a crock. GDP is a ridiculous, easily-manipulated and misunderstood figure that actually includes GOVERNMENT SPENDING as one of its components. Imagine that. If government took huge amounts of its income (taxes), built bombs and blew 'em all up in a field, it could result in a high GDP and most people would think it was good news. I guess it would be. The economy would be "BOOM"ing, after all.
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