John Quincy Adams

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John Quincy Adams
6th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829
Vice President(s)	John C. Calhoun
Preceded by	James Monroe
Succeeded by	Andrew Jackson
8th United States Secretary of State
In office March 5, 1817 – March 3, 1825
President	James Monroe
Preceded by	James Monroe
Succeeded by	Henry Clay
Born	July 11, 1767 Braintree, Massachusetts
Died	February 23, 1848 (aged 80) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and Whig
Spouse	Louisa Catherine (Johnson) Adams
Religion	Unitarian
Signature

John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was a diplomat, politician, and President of the United States (March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829). His party affiliations were Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Whig. Adams was the son of U.S. President John Adams, and Abigail Adams. He is most famous as a diplomat involved in many international negotiations, and for formulating the Monroe Doctrine. As president he proposed a grand program of modernization and educational advancement, but was unable to get it through Congress. Late in life, as a Congressman, he was a leading opponent of the Slave Power, arguing that if a civil war ever broke out the president could abolish slavery by using his war powers, a policy followed by Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

[edit] Early life

Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts in a part of town which eventually became Quincy. The John Quincy Adams birthplace, now part of Adams National Historical Park, is open to the public, as is the nearby Abigail Adams Cairn that marks the site from which Adams witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill as a seven-year-old boy. He first learned of the Declaration of Independence from the letters his father wrote his mother from Philadelphia. Much of Adams' youth was spent overseas accompanying his father, who served as an American envoy to France from 1778 until 1779 and to the Netherlands in 1780. During this period, he acquired his early education at institutions such as the University of Leiden. For nearly two years, he accompanied Francis Dana on a mission to St. Petersburg, Russia, to gain recognition to the new republic. He also spent time in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

During these years overseas, Adams gained a mastery of French and Dutch and a familiarity with German and other European languages. After returning to America, he had become far more worldly and well-travelled than most of his countrymen even twice his age. He entered Harvard College and graduated in 1787. He was then admitted to the bar and began practicing law in Boston.

[edit] Early political career

The young lawyer came particularly to George Washington's attention because of articles he published in Boston newspapers defending the president's policy of neutrality against the diplomatic incursions of Citizen Genet, the new French Republic's minister to the United States. As a result Washington appointed Adams as U.S. minister to the Netherlands, where he served from 1794 to 1797. At The Hague, Adams found himself at the principal listening post of a great cycle of European revolutions and wars, which he continued to report faithfully to his government both from the Netherlands and from his later post as minister to Berlin in 1797-1801. While on a subsidiary mission to England, connected with the exchange of ratifications of Jay's Treaty, he married on July 26, 1797, Louisa Catherine Johnson, one of the seven daughters of Joshua Johnson of Maryland, U.S. consul at London.

President John Adams relieved his son of the post at Berlin immediately after Jefferson's election in 1801. Returning to Boston, John Quincy Adams resumed the practice of law but was soon elected in 1803 as a Federalist to the U.S. Senate. His independent course as a senator dismayed the Federalist leaders of Massachusetts, particularly the Essex Junto. When he voted for Jefferson's embargo, they in effect recalled him by electing a successor two years ahead of time. Adams was then also serving as Boylston professor of oratory and rhetoric at Harvard (1806-1809). He had once more turned to the law when President Madison appointed him as the first minister of the United States to Russia, where he served from 1809 to 1814.

At the court of Alexander I, Adams again was diplomatic reporter extraordinary of the great events of Europe, including Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his subsequent retreat and downfall. Meanwhile the War of 1812 had broken out between Britain and the United States. After Alexander's abortive attempts at mediation, Adams was called to the peace negotiations at Ghent, where he was technically chief of the American mission. He next served as minister of the United States to England from 1815 to 1817.

As a diplomat John Quincy Adams had made very few mistakes, influenced many people, and made many friends for his country, including particularly Czar Alexander I. His vast European experience made him a vigorous supporter of Washington's policy of isolation from the ordinary vicissitudes and the ordinary combinations and wars of European politics.

[edit] Secretary of State

President James Monroe recalled Adams from England to become Secretary of State in 1817. He held the office throughout Monroe's two administrations, until 1825. As secretary, Adams, under Monroe's direction and responsibility, pursued the policies and guiding principles that he had practiced in Europe. More than any other man he helped to crystallize and perfect the foundations of American foreign policy, including the Monroe Doctrine, which, however, appropriately bears the name of the president who assumed official responsibility for it and proclaimed it to the world.

Adams' greatest diplomatic achievement as Secretary of State was undoubtedly the Transcontinental Treaty (also known as the Adams-Onís Treaty) with Spain, signed on February 22, 1819. By this treaty Spain acknowledged East Florida and West Florida to be a part of the United States and agreed to a frontier line running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains and thence along the parallel of 42 degrees to the Pacific Ocean. In this negotiation, Adams took skillful advantage of Andrew Jackson's military incursions into Florida and of Spain's embarrassment in the revolutions of her American colonies. Over the opposition of Henry Clay, ambitious speaker of the House of Representatives, Adams deferred recognition of the independence of the new states of Spanish America until the Transcontinental Treaty was safely ratified. Immediately afterward President Monroe recognized Colombia, Mexico, Chile, the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, and later Brazil and the Confederation of Central America. Peru remained to be recognized by Adams as Monroe's successor. The idea of drawing the frontier line through to the other ocean in the Spanish treaty was Adams' own inspiration. It has been called "the greatest diplomatic victory ever won by a single individual in the history of the United States."^{(citation needed)}

At the same time Secretary Adams defended the northeastern frontier against proposed British "rectifications" and held the line of 49 degrees in the Oregon country. Except for an over contentious wrangle on commercial reciprocity with the British West Indies, his term as secretary of state, in the aftermath of Waterloo, was marked by unvarying successes, including the Treaty of 1824 with Russia. He was perhaps the greatest secretary of state in American history.

[edit] Election of 1824

Main article: United States presidential election, 1824

Adams ran against four other candidates in the Presidential election of 1824. His opponents included Speaker of the House Henry Clay, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Tennessee senator Andrew Jackson and John Calhoun. After Crawford suffered a stroke there was no clear favorite. After the elections no one had a majority of either the electoral votes or the popular votes, although Andrew Jackson was the winner of a plurality of both. The decision went to the House of Representatives. The candidate with the lowest votes, Henry Clay, was dropped from consideration, and Clay gave his support to Adams. Adams won on the first ballot and was named president. Adams then named Clay Secretary of State to the angry complaints of Andrew Jackson, who alleged a corrupt bargain and vowed to run again in 1828.

[edit] Presidency 1825–1829

Adams served as the sixth President of the United States from March 4, 1825, to March 4, 1829.

[edit] Domestic policies

During his term, he worked on developing the American System, consisting of a high tariff to support internal improvements such as road-building, and a national bank to encourage productive enterprise and form a national currency. In his first annual message to Congress, Adams presented an ambitious program for modernization that included roads, canals, a national university, an astronomical observatory, and other initiatives. The support for his proposals was limited, even with his own supporters. His critics accused him of unseemly arrogance because of his narrow victory. Most of his initiatives were opposed in Congress by Jackson's supporters, who remained outraged over the 1824 election.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Swain's Lock

Nevertheless, some of his proposals were adopted, specifically the extension of the Cumberland Road into Ohio with surveys for its continuation west to St. Louis; the beginning of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal' the construction of the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal and the Portland to Louisville Canal around the falls of the Ohio; the connection of the Great Lakes to the Ohio River system in Ohio and Indiana; and the enlargement and rebuilding of the Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina.

One of the issues which divided the administration was protective tariffs. Henry Clay was a supporter, but Adams's Vice President John C. Calhoun was an opponent. The position of Adams was unknown, because his constituency was divided. After Adams lost the control of Congress in 1827, the situation became more complicated. He also signed into law the highly unpopular Tariff of 1828 (also known as the Tariff of Abominations), thereby compromising his chances of getting anything else done during his presidency.

He and Clay set up a new party, the National Republican Party, but it never took root in the states. In the elections of 1827 Adams and his supporters lost the control of Congress. New York Senator Martin Van Buren, a future president and follower of Jackson, became one of the leaders of the senate.

Much of Adams' political difficulties were due to his refusal, on principle, to replace members of his administration who supported Jackson (on the grounds that no one should be removed from office except for incompetence.) For example, his Postmaster General, John McLean, continued in office through the Adams administration, despite the fact that he was using his powers of patronage to curry favor with Jacksonites.

Adams defended his domestic agenda as simply continuing Monroe's policies. However, Adams did not address public works spending like Monroe did, and had a rationale for government intervention. What was most striking was that Adams addressed congress and asked them to ignore objections to parts of his program that provoked the most opposition of the constitution.

[edit] Foreign policies

Adams is regarded as one of the greatest diplomats in American history and during his tenure as Secretary of State he was one of the designers of the Monroe Doctrine. But during his term as president, Adams achieved little of consequence in foreign affairs. A reason for this was the opposition he faced in Congress, where his rivals were determined to deny him any mark of success.

Among the few diplomatic achievements of his administration were treaties of reciprocity (free trade) with a number of nations, including Denmark, Mexico, the Hanseatic League, the Scandinavian countries, Prussia and Austria. However, thanks to the successes of Adams' diplomacy during his previous eight years as Secretary of State, most of the foreign policy issues he would have faced had been resolved by the time he became President.

Official White House portrait of John Quincy Adams

[edit] Administration and Cabinet

[edit] Supreme Court appointments

• Robert Trimble – 1826

[edit] States admitted to the Union

None

[edit] Election of 1828

Main article: United States presidential election, 1828

After the election of Adams in 1825 [1] [2], Jackson resigned from his senate seat. For four years he worked hard, with help from his supporters in Congress, to defeat Adams in the Presidential election of 1828. The campaign was very much a personal one. Although neither candidate personally campaigned, their political followers organized many campaign events. Both candidates were rhetorically attacked in the press. This reached a low point when Jackson's wife, Rachel, was accused of bigamy. She died a few weeks after the elections and Jackson never forgave Adams for this.

A sketch of Adams hours before his death.

In the end, Adams lost the elections in a landslide. He won exactly the same states that his father had won in the election of 1800: the New England states, New Jersey, and Delaware. Jackson won everything else except for New York, which gave 16 of its electoral votes to Adams.

[edit] Congressman

After his defeat Adams didn't attend the inauguration of his successor Andrew Jackson, just as his father John Adams did 28 years earlier with Jefferson's in 1801. But rather than retire, he went on to win election as a National Republican and Whig to the House of Representatives, serving for seventeen years, from 1831 until his death. He was asked by his neighbors to run, and he agreed under two conditions: he would never solicit their votes and he would follow his conscience at all times.

In Congress, he was chairman of the Committee on Manufactures (for the 22nd through 26th, 28th and 29th Congresses), the Committee on Indian Affairs (for the 27th Congress) and the Committee on Foreign Affairs (also for the 27th Congress). He was an important antislavery voice on congress.

United First Parish Church

In 1834 he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Massachusetts. In 1841, Adams represented the Amistad Africans in the Supreme Court of the United States and successfully argued that the Africans, who had seized control of a Spanish ship where they were being held as illegal slaves, should not be taken to Cuba but should be considered free and have the option to remain within the U.S. or return home as free people.

Tombs of Presidents John Adams (left) and John Quincy Adams (right) and their wives, in a family crypt beneath the United First Parish Church.

While preparing to address the House of Representatives on February 21, 1848, Adams collapsed, having suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Two days later, on February 23, he died with his wife and children at his side in the Speaker's Room inside the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.. His last words were reported to have been, "This is the last of earth. I am content." His interment was in the family burial ground at Quincy, and he was subsequently reinterred after his wife's death in a family crypt in the United First Parish Church across the street. His tomb can be viewed today and his parents are also interred there.

Adams's son Charles Francis Adams also pursued a career in diplomacy and politics. In 1870 Charles Francis built the first memorial presidential library in the United States, to honor his father John Quincy Adams. The Stone Library includes over 14,000 books written in twelve languages. The library is located in the "Old House" at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.

[edit] Trivia

• Adams took the Oath of Office on a book of laws, instead of the more traditional Bible.^[1]

• Adams was the first president to have a close family tie to a previous president (Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of William Henry Harrison, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt were cousins, as were James Madison and Zachary Taylor, and George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are also father and son).

• Adams was one of the founders of All Souls Church, Unitarian, in Washington, D.C.

• Adams was the second president to wear long pants instead of knee-breeches, which had been the fashion up to that time. James Madison was the first.

• The couple named one of their sons after George Washington, making Adams the only U.S. President to do so.

Adams posed for this daguerreotype photograph shortly before his death in 1848--almost twenty years after leaving the White House--when he was serving as a congressman from Massachusetts. He is the earliest president of whom a photograph exists. (President Andrew Jackson was photographed in 1844-45; William Henry Harrison was the first president to have his picture taken while in office; James Buchanan was the first sitting president to be photographed by modern methods.)^[2]

• Though the story may be apocryphal, Adams is supposed to have been the first President to give an interview to a woman. Adams had repeatedly refused requests for an interview with Anne Royall, the first female professional journalist in the U.S., so she took a different approach to accomplish her goal. She learned that Adams liked to skinny-dip in the Potomac River almost every morning around 5 a.m., so she went to the river, gathered his clothes, and sat on them until he answered all of her questions.

• On another occasion, while Adams was skinny-dipping in the Potomac River, a tramp stole the clothes he had left on the riverbank. Adams remained in the river for nearly an hour, until he saw a young boy walking along the river bank. He called to the boy to "Go up to the White House and ask Mrs. Adams to send down a new set of clothes for the President." Twenty minutes later, the boy returned with a servant from the White House, bearing a new set of clothes for Adams.

• While in Russia, Adams and his wife lost an infant daughter, who was born in 1811, to illness.

• Adams was the first president to be involved in a railroad accident. He was a passenger on a Camden & Amboy train that derailed in the meadows near Hightstown, New Jersey on November 11, 1833. His coach was the one ahead of the first car to derail. He was uninjured and continued his journey to Washington the following day.^[3]

• Toilets, a novelty during his term, were given the nickname "Quincy" in his honor. The president was the first to have such a convenience installed in the White House.

• Adams County, Illinois, and its county seat Quincy, Illinois, are named after him, along with several other counties in the U.S.

• The Adams Memorial is proposed in Washington, D.C. for John Adams and his family.
• John Quincy Adams is one of only two presidents to publish verse in his lifetime (The other was Jimmy Carter). Dermot MacMurrogh, an epic poem about Henry II's conquest of Ireland in which he subtly associated the Roman Catholic Church with English aggression, was published in 1832. Poems of Religion and Society, a collection of lyrical poems, was published in 1848.

• The actress Mary Kay Adams is a descendant of John Quincy Adams.

• The "c" in Adams's middle name "Quincy" is properly pronounced with the z sound, not the s sound, just like the city of Quincy, Massachusetts, and Quincy Market in Boston (names derived from the same family).

• He is the first of the 8 senators profiled in John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.
• His last words were "This is the last of earth. I am content".[3]

• He was the first president to have his photograph taken, although not till many years after his presidency.

• According to a study by psychologist Keith Simonton, Adams has the highest estimated IQ of any US president.

[edit] References

• Allgor, Catherine. "'A Republican in a Monarchy': Louisa Catherine Adams in Russia." Diplomatic History 1997 21(1): 15-43. ISSN 0145-2096 Fulltext in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco. Louisa Adams was with JQA in St. Petersburg almost the entire time. While not officially a diplomat, Louisa Adams did serve an invaluable role as wife-of-diplomat, becoming a favorite of the tsar and making up for her husband's utter lack of charm. She was an indispensable part of the American mission.

• Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. vol 1 (1949), John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956), vol 2. Pulitzer prize biography.
• Crofts, Daniel W. "Congressmen, Heroic and Otherwise" Reviews in American History 1997 25(2): 243-247. ISSN 0048-7511 Fulltext in Project Muse. Adams role in antislavery petitions debate 1835-44.
• Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. 1999.
• Lewis, James E., Jr. John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union. Scholarly Resources, 2001. 164 pp.
• Mattie, Sean. "John Quincy Adams and American Conservatism." Modern Age 2003 45(4): 305-314. ISSN 0026-7457 Fulltext online at Ebsco
• McMillan, Richard. "Election of 1824: Corrupt Bargain or the Birth of Modern Politics?" New England Journal of History 2001-02 58(2): 24-37.
• Miller, Chandra. "'Title Page to a Great Tragic Volume': the Impact of the Missouri Crisis on Slavery, Race, and Republicanism in the Thought of John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams." Missouri Historical Review 2000 94(4): 365-388. ISSN 0026-6582 Shows that both men considered splitting the country as a solution.
• Nagel, Paul C. John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (1999)
• Parsons, Lynn Hudson. "In Which the Political Becomes Personal, and Vice Versa: the Last Ten Years of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson" Journal of the Early Republic 2003 23(3): 421-443. ISSN 0275-1275
• Portolano, Marlana. "John Quincy Adams's Rhetorical Crusade for Astronomy." Isis 2000 91(3): 480-503. ISSN 0021-1753 Fulltext online at Jstor and Ebsco. He tried and failed to create a national observatory.
• Potkay, Adam S. "Theorizing Civic Eloquence in the Early Republic: the Road from David Hume to John Quincy Adams." Early American Literature 1999 34(2): 147-170. ISSN 0012-8163 Fulltext online at Swetswise and Ebsco. Adams adapted classical republican ideals of public oratory to America, viewing the multilevel political structure as ripe for "the renaissance of Demosthenic eloquence." Adams's Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory (1810) looks at the fate of ancient oratory, the necessity of liberty for it to flourish, and its importance as a unifying element for a new nation of diverse cultures and beliefs. Just as civic eloquence failed to gain popularity in Britain, in the United States interest faded in the second decade of the 18th century as the "public spheres of heated oratory" disappeared in favor of the private sphere.
• Rathbun, Lyon. "The Ciceronian Rhetoric of John Quincy Adams." Rhetorica 2000 18(2): 175-215. ISSN 0734-8584. Shows how the classical tradition in general, and Ciceronian rhetoric in particular, influenced his political career and his response to public issues. Adams remained inspired by classical rhetorical ideals long after the neo-classicalism and deferential politics of the founding generation had been eclipsed by the commercial ethos and mass democracy of the Jacksonian Era. Many of Adams's idiosyncratic positions were rooted in his abiding devotion to the Ciceronian ideal of the citizen-orator "speaking well" to promote the welfare of the polis.
• Remini, Robert V. John Quincy Adams (2002) short
• Wood, Gary V. Heir to the Fathers: John Quincy Adams and the Spirit of Constitutional Government Lexington, 2004. 249 pp.
• Brinkley, Alan, Dyer, Davis "The American Presidency" Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

[edit] Primary sources

• Butterfield, L. H. et al., eds., The Adams Papers (1961- ). Multivolume letterpress edition of all letters to and from major members of the Adams family, plus their diaries; still incomplete.[4]

[edit] See also

• Adams political family
• Adams-Onís Treaty
• Mount Quincy Adams
• Treaty of Ghent
• U.S. presidential election, 1820
• U.S. presidential election, 1824
• U.S. presidential election, 1828

[edit] Notes

1. ^ http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/40871.htm
2. ^ http://www.whitehousehistory.org/08/subs/08_b.html
3. ^ Seriously injured in this accident was Cornelius Vanderbilt, future head of the New York Central Railroad, who suffered two cracked ribs and a punctured lung, taking a month to recover. Bob Withers, The President Travels by Train - Politics and Pullmans, (1996)

[edit] External links

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• Extensive essay on John Quincy Adams and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
• Official NPS website: Adams National Historical Park
• White House Biography
• John Quincy Adams Biography and Fact File
• Biography of John Quincy Adams
• Biography of John Quincy Adams by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
• Inaugural Address
• State of the Union Addresses: 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828
• July 4, 1821 Independence Day Speech
• Works by John Quincy Adams at Project Gutenberg
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Medical and Health history of John Quincy Adams
• Armigerous American Presidents Series
• The Jubilee of the Constitution: A Discourse
• Dermot MacMorrogh,: or, The conquest of Ireland. An historical tale of the twelfth century. In four cantos./ By John Quincy Adams
• Poems of religion and society.: With notices of his life and character by John Davis and T. H. Benton
• Biography resources dedicated to John Quincy Adams
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Adams, John Quincy

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