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John Quincy Adams

 
Who2 Biography: John Quincy Adams, U.S. President / U.S. Secretary of State
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  • Born: 11 July 1767
  • Birthplace: Braintree, Massachusetts
  • Died: 23 February 1848
  • Best Known As: President of the United States, 1825-1829

John Quincy Adams was the son of President John Adams, served as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and was Secretary of State under President Monroe. In the presidential election of 1824, no one candidate received a majority of electoral votes and the election was decided in Adams' favor by Congress. The election of 1828 was the first in which the candidates were chosen by state legislatures instead of congressional caucuses, making the popular vote more of a factor. Adams lost by a wide margin to the Democrat from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson. Although he served only one term as president, Adams was elected in 1830 to the House of Representatives, where he served for the remaining 17 years of his life.

Adams was the sixth president... His wife was Louisa Adams... Their eldest son, George Washington Adams, was named for President George Washington.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams.
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John Quincy Adams. (credit: © Archive Photos)
(born July 11, 1767, Braintree, Mass. — died Feb. 23, 1848, Washington, D.C., U.S.) Sixth president of the U.S. (1825 – 29). He was the eldest son of John Adams, second president of the U.S., and Abigail Adams. He accompanied his father to Europe on diplomatic missions (1778 – 80) and was later appointed U.S. minister to the Netherlands (1794) and to Prussia (1797). In 1801 he returned to Massachusetts and served in the U.S. Senate (1803 – 08). Resuming his diplomatic service, he became U.S. minister to Russia (1809 – 11) and to Britain (1815 – 17). Appointed secretary of state (1817 – 25), he was instrumental in acquiring Florida from Spain and in drafting the Monroe Doctrine. He ran for the presidency in 1824 against three other candidates; none received a majority of the electoral votes, though Andrew Jackson received a plurality. By constitutional design, the selection of the president went to the House of Representatives, where Adams was elected after receiving crucial support from Henry Clay, who had finished third in the initial balloting. He appointed Clay secretary of state, which further angered Jackson. Adams's presidency was unsuccessful; when he ran for reelection, Jackson defeated him. In 1830 he was elected to the House, where he served until his death. He was outspoken in his opposition to slavery; in 1839 he proposed a constitutional amendment forbidding slavery in any new state admitted to the Union. Southern congressmen prevented discussion of antislavery petitions by passing gag rules (repealed in 1844 as a result of Adams's persistence). In 1841 he successfully defended the slaves in the Amistad mutiny case.

For more information on John Quincy Adams, visit Britannica.com.

US Supreme Court: John Quincy Adams
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(b. Braintree [now Quincy], Mass., 11 July 1767; d. Washington, D.C., 21 Feb. 1848), lawyer, president of the United States, 1825–1829. The son of John and Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1787, read law with Theophilus Parsons, and passed the bar in July 1790. In mid‐1794, President George Washington commissioned him minister to Holland. In 1803, the Massachusetts legislature sent him to the United States Senate; a year later, he was admitted to the Supreme Court bar. After arguing for the defendant in Fletcher v. Peck (1810), Adams accepted an ill‐paid post as ambassador to Russia; shortly afterward, he turned down President James Madison's more lucrative appointment as associate justice of the Supreme Court. In 1817, Adams became secretary of state; in 1824 he was elected president of the United States.

Following Andrew Jackson's victory in 1828, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, where he opposed nullification, the imposition of a gag rule, and annexation of Texas. In 1841, abolitionists persuaded him to defend the right to freedom of fifty‐three Africans before the Supreme Court in United States v. The Amistad (1841). Justice Joseph Story termed Adams's argument “extraordinary, for its power [and] bitter sarcasm.” After resuming his House seat, Adams doggedly pressed the antislavery cause; in 1842, he introduced a bogus petition advocating the dissolution of the union to cordon off slavery, for which he was rewarded with threats of expulsion from the House. On 21 February 1848, during the House roll call, Adams suffered a cataclysmic stroke. He died two days later.

— Sandra F. Van Burkleo

US Military Dictionary: John Quincy Adams
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Adams, John Quincy (1767-1848) 6th president of the United States, diplomat, secretary of state, and U.S. congressman, born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, the son of 2nd President John Adams. He conceived the Monroe Doctrine (1823). As president, he strove to launch a vast program of national public works, such as road and canal construction.

In the close three-way election of 1824, neither Adams, Henry Clay, nor Andrew Jackson received an electoral majority; the election was decided in the House of Representatives, and, with Clay's support, Adams was made president. With only 31 percent, he holds the record for the lowest percentage of the popular vote.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Biography: John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was the sixth president of the United States. A brilliant statesman and outstanding secretary of state, he played a major role in formulating the basic principles of American foreign policy.

Born in Braintree (now Quincy), Mass. on July 11, 1767, John Quincy Adams was the eldest son of John and Abigail Smith Adams. In 1779, at the age of 12, he accompanied his father to Europe. Precocious and brilliant - at 14 he accompanied Francis Dana, the American minister, to Russia as a French translator - he served as his father's secretary during the peace negotiations in Paris. Except for brief periods of formal education, he studied under his father's direction. When he entered Harvard in 1785, he was proficient in Greek, Latin, French, Dutch, and German.

After his graduation Adams studied law and began to practice in Boston in 1790. More interested in politics than the law, he made a name for himself with political essays supporting the politics of President George Washington. Those signed "Publicola" (his answer to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man) were so competent that they were ascribed to his father, who was then vice president.

The Diplomat

In 1793 Washington appointed young Adams minister to the Netherlands. From this vantage point he supplied the government with a steady flow of information on European affairs. Sent to London in connection with Jay's Treaty, he met Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of the American consul, and married her on July 26, 1797. Although it was not a love match, the marriage was a happy one marked by deep mutual affection. In 1797 Adams became minister to Prussia, concluding a commercial treaty incorporating the neutral-rights provisions of Jay's Treaty.

On his return to the United States in 1801, Adams was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. Two years later he became a U.S. senator. Nominally a Federalist, he pursued an independent course. He was the only Federalist senator from New England to vote for the Louisiana Purchase. The Massachusetts Federalists forced him to resign in 1808 because they were angered by his support of Jefferson's commercial warfare against Great Britain and his presence at a Republican presidential nominating caucus.

Adams severed his connections with the Federalists and in 1809 accepted an appointment from Republican president James Madison as minister to Russia. He did much to encourage Czar Alexander's friendly disposition toward the United States. It was partly due to Adams's encouragement that Russia made an offer to mediate between Great Britain and the United States, which led to direct peace negotiations to end the War of 1812. As a member of the peace commission at Ghent, Adams and his colleagues (Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and Jonathan Russell) found the British commissioners so intransigent that they were obliged to conclude a treaty short of American expectations. In 1815, as minister to great Britain, Adams worked to lessen the tension between the two nations by welcoming Lord Castlereagh's friendly overtures.

The Secretary of State

In March 1817 President James Monroe appointed Adams secretary of state. Adams, who was then 50, was not a prepossessing figure. He was short, plump, and bald; his best feature was his penetrating black eyes. Inclined to be irascible, and very much aware of his own intellectual powers, he disciplined himself to conceal his impatience. "I am," he wrote in his diary, "a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners…"Hewasillat ease in large gatherings, but in intimate circles he could be an entertaining companion. Imposing rigid moral standards on himself, he was inclined to judge others harshly. He had an almost Puritan sense of duty and a passion for work, which kept him at his desk for long hours not only in connection with official duties but in the scholarly researches that gave him so much pleasure. Every day he found time to make lengthy entries in his diary, which constitutes one of the most revealing sources for the political events of his era. His wife, witty and gracious, somewhat compensated for her husband's social shortcomings; Louisa Adams's weekly evening parties were among the most popular in the capital.

Adams and Monroe worked together in the greatest harmony and understanding, for they were in complete agreement on the basic objectives of American foreign policy. They wished to expand the territorial limits of the nation, to give American diplomacy a direction distinct from that pursued by the European states, and to compel the other powers to treat the United States as an equal. Monroe closely controlled foreign affairs, but he relied heavily on Adams, who proved a shrewd adviser, an adroit negotiator, and a talented writer whose state papers formulated administration policy with logic and a tremendous command of the relevant facts.

The most difficult negotiations undertaken by Adams were those culminating in the acquisition of Florida and the definition of the western boundary of Louisiana. In 1819 Adams was able to exploit Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida to force Spain to settle both issues in the Transcontinental Treaty, which Spain ratified in 1821. Adams's familiarity with the complexities of the history of Louisiana enabled him to obtain a boundary settlement favorable to the United States and to fix the northern boundary so that American interests in the Columbia River region were protected. During the crisis precipitated by Jackson's unauthorized seizure of Spanish posts in Florida, Adams was the only Cabinet member to recommend that the administration completely endorse the general's conduct.

Equally taxing and less successful were the prolonged negotiations with the French minister over indemnities for confiscation of American ships and cargoes during the Napoleonic Wars, France's commercial rights in Louisiana, and trade relations in general. In 1822 Adams concluded a treaty providing only for a gradual reduction of discriminatory duties. His efforts to persuade Great Britain to open West Indian trade to American ships were unsuccessful. In the midst of these demanding negotiations, Adams conducted an extensive correspondence with American diplomats, reorganized the State Department, and drafted a masterly report for Congress on a uniform system of weights and measures. In 1822 Monroe formally recognized the new independent states in Latin America. Adams's instructions to the first American emissaries reflected his misgivings about the future of these states, which were largely dominated by authoritarian regimes.

When France intervened in Spain in 1823 to suppress a revolution, Adams did not share the view that this presaged a move on the European powers, who had banded together in the Holy Alliance, to restore Spanish authority in South America. He was far more concerned about Russian attempts to expand along the Pacific coast. Consequently, he welcomed Monroe's decision in 1823 to make a policy declaration expressing American hostility to European intervention in the affairs of the Americas. To the President's declaration, later known as the Monroe Doctrine, Adams contributed the noncolonization principle, which affirmed that the United States considered the Americas closed to further European colonization. In 1824 the American minister in Russia, acting on instructions from Adams, obtained an agreement in which Russia withdrew north of latitude 54'40", but Adams was not able to persuade the British to vacate the Columbia River region.

The President

In 1824 Adams was involved in a bitter four-cornered presidential contest in which none of the candidates received a majority of the electoral votes. Adams with 84 votes, largely from New England and New York, ran behind Andrew Jackson with 99 but ahead of William H. Crawford with 41 and Henry Clay with 37. The contest was resolved in Adams's favor in the House of Representatives when Clay decided to support him. Adams's subsequent choice of Clay as secretary of state raised a cry of "corrupt bargain"; there was no overt agreement between them, but the charge was most damaging.

Adams's presidency added little to his fame. In the face of the absolute hostility of the combined Jackson-Crawford forces, he was unable to carry out his nationalist program. His proposals for Federal internal improvements, a uniform bankruptcy law, federally supported educational and scientific institutions, and the creation of a department of the interior were rebuffed. His sole success in dealing with Congress was the appointment in 1826 of two delegates to attend the Panama Congress, arranged by Simón Bolívar. This Adams achieved only after acrimonious debates in which hostile congressmen made much of the fact that American delegates would be participating in a conference attended by black representatives from Haiti.

Committed to a protectionist policy, Adams signed the Tariff of Abominations (engineered by the Jacksonians in 1828), although it was certain to alienate the South and displease New Englanders, whose manufactures were not granted additional protection. He never permitted political expediency to override his rigid sense of justice. Consequently, he alienated much Southern and Western opinion by his efforts to protect the interests of the Cherokees in Georgia. He also declined to use the power of patronage to build up a national following, although Postmaster General John McLean was appointing only Jackson men. Pilloried as an aristocrat hostile to the interests of the "common man," Adams was overwhelmingly defeated by Jackson in the election of 1828.

The Congressman

At the end of his presidency, Adams expected to concentrate on the scholarly interests which had always absorbed so much of his time, but his retirement was brief. In 1831 he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for eight successive terms until his death. Although generally associated with the Whigs, he pursued an independent course. For 10 years he was chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, which drafted tariff bills. He approved Jackson's stand on nullification, but he considered the compromise tariff of 1833, which was not the work of his committee, an excessive concession to the nullifiers. After 1835 he was identified with the antislavery cause, although he was not an abolitionist. From 1836 to 1844, when his efforts were finally successful, he worked to revoke the gag rule that required the tabling of all petitions relating to slavery. Session after session "old man eloquent," as he was dubbed, lifted his voice in defense of freedom of speech and the right to petition. True to his nationalist convictions, he continued to advocate internal improvements and battled to save the Bank of the United States.

Adams suffered a stroke on the floor of the House of Representatives on Feb. 21, 1848. He was carried to the Speaker's room, where he died 2 days later without regaining consciousness.

Further Reading

The most important printed sources are Adams's diary, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams…, edited by Charles Francis Adams (12 vols., 1874-1877), and Worthington Chauncey Ford's edition of The Writings of John Quincy Adams (7 vols., 1913-1917), which stops in 1823. The best biography is Samuel Flagg Bemis's two volumes, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (1949) and John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956). Adams's election to the presidency is covered fully by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971). Studies of Adams's diplomacy are Dexter Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1823-1826 (1927; new ed. 1966); Philip C. Brooks, Diplomacy and the Borderlands: The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 (1939); Arthur Preston Whitaker, The United States and the Independence of Latin America, 1800-1830 (1941); Bradford Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823 (1964). See also George A. Lipsky, John Quincy Adams: His Theory and Ideas (1950).

US Government Guide: John Quincy Adams, 6th President
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Born: July 11, 1767, Braintree, Mass.
Political party: Federalist, Democratic-Republican, Whig
Education: Harvard College, A.B., 1787
Military service: none
Previous government service: minister to the Netherlands, 1794; minister to Prussia, 1797; Massachusetts Senate, 1802; U.S. Senate, 1803–8; minister to Russia, 1809–14; negotiator of Treaty of Ghent, 1814; minister to Great Britain, 1815–17; U.S. secretary of state, 1817–25
Elected President, 1824; served, 1825–29
Subsequent government service: U.S. House of Representatives, 1831–48
Died: Feb. 23, 1848,Washington, D.C.

John Quincy Adams spent much of his youth accompanying his father, John Adams, on diplomatic missions. He was educated in Amsterdam, Leipzig, London, Leiden, and Paris. In 1781, at the age of 14, he served as private secretary to Francis Dana, the American envoy to Russia. The following year he served as secretary to the American emissaries negotiating peace with Great Britain. After graduating from Harvard in 1787 and becoming a lawyer, he served as the American envoy to the Netherlands in 1794, and Washington wrote to Vice President Adams that his son “is the most valuable public character we have abroad.” In 1797 he served as minister to Prussia during his father's Presidency and negotiated a commercial treaty with Prussia.

Adams returned home shortly after his father left the White House in 1801 and served in the U.S. Senate. He supported Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana and voted for Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807. Both of these acts alienated the Federalists in Massachusetts and induced Adams to resign from the Senate a year early. He then joined the Democratic-Republicans and, after teaching at Harvard for two years, accepted the position of minister to Russia. He declined James Madison's offer of a Supreme Court appointment in 1810. He was one of three American commissioners who negotiated an end to the War of 1812 on terms favorable to America by negotiating the Treaty of Ghent (1814) with Great Britain.

Adams capped his career as a diplomat with eight years of service as James Monroe's secretary of state. He performed brilliantly, negotiating a treaty with Great Britain in 1818 to extend the U.S.-Cana-dian border along the 49th parallel; arranging future arbitration of the disputed Oregon boundary; and obtaining Florida from Spain in return for a renunciation of U.S. claims on Texas. His policy of benevolent neutrality, a"tilt" to the former colonies and away from Spanish efforts to reconquer them, assured the success of Latin American independence movements without leading to war with Spain. The Monroe Doctrine, which warned European states against interference in the Western Hemisphere, was largely Adams's work: President Monroe was willing to accept a joint declaration with the British to warn the French, Spanish, and Russians against attempts to dominate the Ameri-cas, but Adams insisted that the United States issue the doctrine unilaterally. Adams is considered by many to be the greatest secretary of state in American history.

Meanwhile, the Federalist party had disappeared, and in the misnamed Era of Good Feelings, as Monroe's Presidency was known, only the “National Republicans” under President Monroe remained. In the Presidential election of 1824, Adams was one of four regional candidates from this party. Andrew Jackson received a plurality of the popular vote (he got the mostvotes, but fewer than 50 percent), defeating Adams 153,000 to 114,000 in states where electors were chosen by popular vote. Jackson's 99 electoral college votes put him ahead of Adams's 84, Senator William Crawford's 41, and Representative Henry Clay's 37.

Since no one had received a majority of the electoral college votes, the election went to the House of Representatives, where each state would have one vote. Crawford had meanwhile suffered a stroke and was not in serious contention. Clay, who had come in fourth, was ineligible in the House election according to the 12th Amendment. But Clay was Speaker of the House and threw his influential support to Adams, who received a winning 13 votes to only 7 for Jackson and 4 for Crawford on the first ballot. Jackson's followers claimed there had been a “corrupt bargain." It is believable that a bargain had been involved-because Adams named Clay his secretary of state only three days after the election.

Adams's Presidency was tainted by the questions surrounding his election and the violent opposition of the Jacksonians. He had no personal following among the people or in Congress and accomplished little. He backed Clay's “American system," which called for protective tariffs that would raise the prices of foreign goods to encourage U.S. industry, land sales to encourage settlement of the West, and enlargement of foreign markets for American agricultural products. Adams also proposed the creation of a national university and naval academy, new scientific missions to explore American coastal waters and lands, and expeditions to the South Seas. His proposals were scornfully ignored in Congress. Adams, Clay, and Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush did manage to get Congress to pass measures subsidizing canals, harbors, and roads. Adams was more successful in foreign affairs. Together with Secretary of State Clay, he negotiated commercial treaties that improved trade with a number of European nations and with Mexico.

The midterm elections of 1826 gave a large majority in Congress to anti-Adams factions. Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson organized his followers and in 1828, running under the label Democrat or Democratic-Republican, defeated Adams, who ran on the ticket of the National Republicans.

Adams was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1830 and served there for 18 years. In the House he won the nickname Old Man Eloquent for speaking out vigorously against slavery and for defeating a “gag rule” that Southern representatives had imposed against antislavery petitions.

He was a tireless opponent of slavery and offered a plan for its gradual elimination. In 1841 he argued a case, United States v. Amistad, before the Supreme Court that resulted in overturning the convictions of the African crew members who had mutinied aboard the slave ship Amistad.

In 1848, John Quincy Adams suffered a stroke at his desk in the House chamber, shortly after making an impassioned speech against extending slavery to the Western territories won in the Mexican-American War. He died in a nearby room. A bronze marker on the floor indicates where Adams's desk once stood. Visitors to the Capitol know it as the “whispering spot” in Statuary Hall.

See also Jackson, Andrew; Monroe Doctrine; Monroe, James

Sources

  • James Truslow Adams, The Adams Family (Boston: Little, Brown, 1930).
  • Mary Hargreaves, The Presidency of John Quincy Adams (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985).
  • Leonard Richards, The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)
US History Companion: Adams, John Quincy
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(1767-1848), sixth president of the United States, diplomat, congressman, U.S. senator, and secretary of state. As the eldest and most gifted son of John Adams, second president of the United States, Adams enjoyed many opportunities that prepared him for later public service.

In 1802 Adams was elected a U.S. senator from Massachusetts as a Federalist, but he was too independent of mind to follow a regular party line. During the international tensions that arose from the Napoleonic Wars, he supported the policies of the Jefferson administration. His stand, contrary to the position of his party, resulted in his replacement as senator. He resigned, however, before the end of his term, only to be appointed to a series of important diplomatic posts. He was one of the American commissioners who arranged for the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. As secretary of state, he drafted the Monroe Doctrine and acquired Florida from Spain for the United States.

He was the New England candidate for the presidency in 1824, but neither he nor any of the other candidates commanded the electoral majority the Constitution required. Therefore the election was decided by the House of Representatives, each state casting one vote. Henry Clay threw his support to Adams, who was then elected over Andrew Jackson. When Adams made Clay his secretary of state, the disapproving Jacksonians accused the president of entering into "a corrupt bargain" with Clay. From then until the end of his administration, Adams was the target of highly charged partisan abuse.

Adams was probably the most experienced and intelligent of all American presidents, but his ideas about the role of the national government in developing the nation were too far in advance of then current economic thinking. An advocate of national planning that would have extended to a federally funded system of internal improvements, canals, turnpikes, and the like, Adams also proposed the establishment of a national university and recommended substantial government support for scientific investigation. As part of his program of national planning, Adams favored a protective tariff. He also supported a national banking system that would provide uniform currency and regulate credit. These policies were to a considerable degree an extension of Alexander Hamilton's ideas, especially in economic affairs, but they were more visionary and less class-oriented in other areas of public responsibility. They were, in addition, a formative influence on the evolution of Whig party doctrine. His first message to Congress that introduced his policies stands as a brilliant state paper. But his administration, bedeviled by partisan attack, must be accounted a failure. Savagely attacked as an aristocrat and a quasi Federalist, Adams lost his reelection bid to Andrew Jackson in 1828.

In 1831, Adams was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Although no abolitionist, he battled single-handedly against a southern-dominated House for the right to present petitions from antislavery groups. Subjected to a gag rule and threatened with censure and even expulsion, Adams persisted in his efforts to defend a constitutional right. Finally, in 1844, Congress repealed its gag rule and the right of petition was restored. In many ways Adams's congressional record as a champion of civil rights was the crowning point of his long career in public service.

Bibliography:

S. F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956); George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings (1952).

Author:

John Niven

See also Adams-Onís Treaty; Corrupt Bargain; Elections: 1824 , 1828; Monroe Doctrine.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: John Quincy Adams
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Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848, 6th President of the United States (1825-29), b. Quincy (then in Braintree), Mass.; son of John Adams and Abigail Adams and father of Charles Francis Adams (1807-86). He accompanied his father on missions to Europe, gaining broad knowledge from study and travel-he even accompanied (1781-83) Francis Dana to Russia-before returning home to graduate (1787) from Harvard and study law. Washington appointed (1794) him minister to the Netherlands, and in his father's administration he was minister to Prussia (1797-1801).

In 1803 he became a U.S. senator as a Federalist, but his independence led him to approve Jeffersonian policies in the Louisiana Purchase and in the Embargo Act of 1807; the Federalists were outraged, and he resigned (1808). Sent as minister to Russia in 1809, he was well received, but the Napoleonic wars eclipsed Russian-American relations. He then helped to draw up the Treaty of Ghent (1814), and served as minister to Great Britain. As secretary of state (1817-25) under James Monroe, Adams gained enduring fame. He negotiated a major treaty with Spain, which secured for the United States a great expanse of land that stretched to the Pacific. Perhaps most notably, Adams was also the architect of the somewhat misleadingly named Monroe Doctrine (1823).

In 1824 Adams was a candidate for the U.S. presidency. Neither he, nor Andrew Jackson, nor Henry Clay received a majority in the electoral college, and the election was decided in the House of Representatives. There Clay supported Adams, making him president. Adams appointed Clay secretary of state, over the Jacksonians' cry that the appointment fulfilled a corrupt bargain. With little popular support and without a party, Adams had an unhappy, ineffective administration, despite his attempts to institute a broad program of internal improvements.

After Jackson won the 1828 election, Adams retired to Quincy, but returned to new renown as a U.S. representative (1831-48). His eloquence, persistence, and moral forcefulness brought an end (1844) to the House gag rule on debate about slavery, and he attacked all other measures that would extend that institution, as well as Jackson's forced removal of southeastern tribes (1837) and the 1846 invasion of Mexico.

Cold and introspective, Adams was not generally popular, but he was respected for his high-mindedness and knowledge. His interest in science led him to promote the Smithsonian Institution. His diary (selections ed. by C. F. Adams, 12 vol., 1874-77, repr. 1970; abridged by A. Nevins, 1928 and 1951) is a valuable document. Most of his writings were edited by W. C. Ford (7 vol., 1913-17); some appear in The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams (ed. by A. Koch and W. Peden, 1946).

Bibliography

See the definitive biography by S. F. Bemis (2 vol., 1949 and 1956), other biographies by J. T. Morse (1883, repr. 1972), B. C. Clark (1932), P. C. Nagel (1997), and R. V. Remini (2002); J. T. Adams, The Adams Family (1930); M. B. Hecht, John Quincy Adams: A Personal History of Independence (1972); R. Brookhiser, America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918 (2002).

Works: Works by John Quincy Adams
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(1767-1848)

1791An Answer to Paine's Rights of Man. Adams begins a series of articles, published in the Columbian Sentinel under the signature "Publicola," that defends the rights of the minority against Thomas Paine's insistence on the absolute power of the majority. Adams defines the Federalist argument for a strong judiciary to protect minority rights.
1874The Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. The first of Adams's massive twelve-volume diary is published (completed in 1877). Recording his thoughts and activities for more than sixty years, the memoirs provide a unique perspective on people and events that shaped American history.

History Dictionary: Adams, John Quincy
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A political leader of the early nineteenth century. John Quincy Adams was the son of John Adams and was president of the United States from 1825 to 1829, between James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. The defeat of the scholarly Adams by the uneducated Jackson in the presidential election of 1828 is considered a turning point in the journey toward democracy in American politics.

Quotes By: John Quincy Adams
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Quotes:

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

"Where annual elections end where slavery begins."

"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air."

"La molesse est douce, et sa suite est cruelle."

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [Americas] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."

See more famous quotes by John Quincy Adams

Wikipedia: John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams

Glass collodion negative copy c. 1860 of a daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams in 1847 or 1848, attributed to Mathew Brady (retouched)

In office
March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829
Vice President John C. Calhoun
Preceded by James Monroe
Succeeded by Andrew Jackson

In office
1803 – June 8, 1808
Preceded by Jonathan Mason
Succeeded by James Lloyd

In office
September 22, 1817 – March 3, 1825
President James Monroe
Preceded by James Monroe
Succeeded by Henry Clay

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 8th, 11th, and 12th district
In office
March 4, 1831 – February 23, 1848

In office
1815 – 1817
President James Madison
Preceded by Jonathan Russell As Chargé d'affaires
Succeeded by Richard Russell

In office
1809 – 1814
President James Madison
Preceded by New Office
Succeeded by James A. Bayard

In office
1797 – 1801
President John Adams
Preceded by New Office
Succeeded by Henry Wheaton (after 34 years)

In office
1794 – 1797
President George Washington
Preceded by William Short
Succeeded by William Vans Murray

In office
1802 – 1803

Born July 11, 1767
Braintree, Massachusetts
Died February 23, 1848 (aged 80)
Washington, D.C.
Resting place United First Parish Church, Quincy, Massachusetts
Political party Federalist
Democratic-Republican
National Republican
Anti-Masonic
Whig
Spouse(s) Louisa Catherine Johnson
Children Louisa Adams
George Washington Adams
John Adams
Charles Francis Adams
Alma mater Leiden University
Harvard University
Religion Unitarianism
Signature

John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth President of the United States from March 4, 1825 to March 4, 1829. He was also an American diplomat and served in both the Senate and House of Representatives. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties.

Adams was the son of the second President John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams, the name "Quincy" having come from Abigail's maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts is also named.[1][pn 1] As a diplomat, he was involved in many international negotiations, and helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine as Secretary of State. As president he proposed a program of modernization and educational advancement, but was stymied by Congress. Adams lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson.

Adams was elected a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts after leaving office, the only president ever to do so, serving for the last 17 years of his life. In the House he became a leading opponent of the Slave Power and argued that if a civil war ever broke out the president could abolish slavery by using his war powers, which Abraham Lincoln partially did during the American Civil War in the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

Contents

Early life

Adams was born on July 11, 1767, to John Adams and his wife and third cousin[2] Abigail Adams in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts. Quincy in 1767 was the "north precinct" of Braintree, Massachusetts; Quincy became incorporated as an independent town in 1792 and was named for John Quincy, just as John Quincy Adams had been. The John Quincy Adams birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park and open to the public. It is near Abigail Adams Cairn, marking the site from which Adams witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill at age seven.

In 1779 Adams began a diary that he kept until just before his death in 1848.[3]

Adams first learned of the Declaration of Independence from the letters his father wrote his mother from the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Much of Adams' youth was spent accompanying his father overseas. John Adams served as an American envoy to France from 1778 until 1779 and to the Netherlands from 1780 until 1782, and the younger Adams accompanied his father on these journeys.

Adams acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. For nearly three years, at the age of 14, he accompanied Francis Dana as a secretary on a mission to St. Petersburg, Russia, to obtain recognition of the new United States. He spent time in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark and, in 1804, published a travel report of Silesia.[4]

During these years overseas, Adams gained a mastery of French and Dutch and a familiarity with German and other European languages. He entered Harvard College and graduated in 1788, Phi Beta Kappa.[5] (Adams House at Harvard College is named in honor of Adams and his father.)

He apprenticed as a lawyer with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts, from 1787 to 1789. He was admitted to the bar in 1791 and began practicing law in Boston.

Early political career

George Washington appointed Adams minister to the Netherlands (at the age of 26) in 1794 and to Portugal in 1796. He then was promoted to the Berlin Legation.

When the elder Adams became president, he appointed his son in 1797 as Minister to Prussia at Washington's urging. There Adams signed the renewal of the very liberal Prussian-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce after negotiations with Prussian Foreign Minister Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein. He served at that post until 1801.

While serving abroad, Adams married Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of an American merchant, in a ceremony at the church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower, London. Adams remains the only president to have a foreign-born First Lady.

On his return to the United States Adams was appointed a commissioner of bankruptcy in Boston by a Federal District Judge. However, Thomas Jefferson rescinded this appointment. He again tried his hand as a lawyer, but shortly entered politics. John Quincy Adams was elected a member of the Massachusetts State Senate in April 1802. In November 1802 he lost in a congressional election where he was the Federalist candidate for a seat in the United States House of Representatives.[6]

The Massachusetts General Court elected Adams as a Federalist to the U.S. Senate soon after, and he served from March 4, 1803, until 1808, when he broke with the Federalist Party. Adams, as a Senator, had supported the Louisiana Purchase and Jefferson's Embargo Act, actions which made him very unpopular with Massachusetts Federalists. The Federalist-controlled Massachusetts Legislature chose a replacement for Adams on June 3, 1808, several months early. On June 8, Adams broke with the Federalists, resigned his Senate seat, and became a Democrat-Republican.[7] While a member of the senate Adams also served as a professor of rhetoric at Harvard University.[8]

New President James Madison appointed Adams as the first ever United States Minister to Russia in 1809. Three years later Adams, still in Russia, reported back to the United States the news of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and his disastrous retreat. In 1814, Adams was recalled from Russia to serve as chief negotiator of the U.S. commission for the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. Finally, he was sent to be minister to the Court of St. James's (Britain) from 1815 until 1817.[7]

Secretary of State

Adams served as Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President James Monroe from 1817 until 1825, a tenure during which he was instrumental in the acquisition of Florida. Typically, his views concurred with those espoused by Monroe. As Secretary of State, he negotiated the Adams-Onís Treaty and wrote the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European nations against meddling in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Adams' interpretation of neutrality was so strict that he refused to cooperate with Great Britain in suppressing the slave trade.[citation needed] On Independence Day 1821, in response to those who advocated American support for Latin America's independence movement from Spain,[9] Adams gave a speech in which he said that American policy was moral support for but not armed intervention on behalf of independence movements, stating that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."[10]

1824–25 presidential election

Adams ran against four other candidates in the presidential election of 1824: Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford of Georgia, U.S. Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. After Crawford suffered an incapacitating stroke, there was no clear favorite.

In the election, no candidate had a majority of the electoral votes (or of the popular votes), although Jackson had been the winner of a plurality of both. Under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment, the presidential election was thrown to the House of Representatives to vote on the top three candidates: Jackson, Adams, and Crawford. Clay had come in fourth place and thus was ineligible, but he retained considerable power and influence as Speaker of the House. Crawford was unviable due to the stroke.

Clay's personal dislike for Jackson and the similarity of his American System to Adams' position on tariffs and internal improvements caused him to throw his support to Adams, who was elected by the House on February 9, 1825, on the first ballot. Adams' victory shocked Jackson, who had gained the plurality of the electoral and popular votes and fully expected to be elected president. When Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State—the position that Adams and his three predecessors had held before becoming President—Jacksonian Democrats were outraged, and claimed that Adams and Clay had struck a "corrupt bargain." This contention overshadowed Adams' term and greatly contributed to Adams' loss to Jackson four years later, in the 1828 election.

Presidency 1825–1829

Adams served as the sixth President of the United States from March 4, 1825, to March 3, 1829. He took the oath of office on a book of laws, instead of the more traditional Bible, to preserve the separation of church and state.[11][12]

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 from his own party. 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.

Nonetheless, 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´ Vice President John C. Calhoun was an opponent. The position of Adams was unknown, because his constituency was divided. After Adams lost control of Congress in 1827, the situation became more complicated. By signing into law the Tariff of 1828 (also known as the Tariff of Abominations), extremely unpopular in the South, he limited his chances to achieve more during his presidency.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Swain's Lock.

Adams and Clay set up a new party, the National Republican Party, but it never took root in the states. In the elections of 1826, Adams and his supporters lost 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 (contending 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, although he was using his powers of patronage to curry favor with Jacksonites. Another blow to Adams' presidency was his generous policy toward Native Americans. Settlers on the frontier, who were constantly seeking to move westward, cried for a more expansionist policy. When the federal government tried to assert authority on behalf of the Cherokees, the governor of Georgia took up arms. It was a sign of nullification that foreshadowed the secession of the Southern states during the Civil War. Adams defended his domestic agenda as continuing Monroe's policies. In contrast, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren instigated the policy of Indian removal to the west (i.e. the Trail of Tears).[citation needed]

John Quincy Adams


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. On July 4, 1821, he gave an address to Congress:

...But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. [13]

During his term as president, however, Adams achieved little of consequence in foreign affairs. A reason for this was the opposition he faced in Congress, where his rivals prevented him from succeeding.[citation needed]

Among the few diplomatic achievements of his administration were treaties of reciprocity 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.

Administration and Cabinet

The Adams Cabinet
Office Name Term
President John Quincy Adams 1825–1829
Vice President John C. Calhoun 1825–1829
Secretary of State Henry Clay 1825–1829
Secretary of Treasury Richard Rush 1825–1829
Secretary of War James Barbour 1825–1828
Peter B. Porter 1828–1829
Attorney General William Wirt 1825–1829
Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard 1825–1829


Presidential Dollar of John Quincy Adams

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

Other courts

Adams was able to make eleven other appointments, all to United States district courts.

States admitted to the Union

None

Departure from office

John Quincy Adams left office on March 4, 1829, after losing the election of 1828 to Andrew Jackson. Adams did not attend the inauguration of his successor, Andrew Jackson, who had openly snubbed him by refusing to pay the traditional "courtesy call" to the outgoing President during the weeks before his own inauguration. He was one of only three Presidents who chose not to attend their respective successor's inauguration, the others were his father and Andrew Johnson.

Election of 1828

After the inauguration of Adams in 1825,[14][15] 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. As was the tradition of the day and age in American presidential politics, neither candidate personally campaigned, but their political followers organized many campaign events. Both candidates were rhetorically attacked in the press. This reached a low point when the press accused Jackson's wife Rachel of bigamy. She died a few weeks after the elections. Jackson said he would forgive those who insulted him, but he would never forgive the ones who attacked his wife.

Adams lost the election by a decisive margin, 178-83 in the Electoral College. 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, and Maryland, which cast 6 of its votes for Adams.

Representative Adams, copied from a lost daguerreotype taken in 1843 by Philip Haas.[16]

Member of Congress

Adams did not retire after leaving office. Instead he ran for and was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1830 elections as a National Republican. He was the first president to serve in Congress after his term of office, and one of only two former presidents to do so; Andrew Johnson later served in the Senate. He was elected to eight terms, serving as a Representative for 17 years, from 1831 until his death. Through redistricting Adams represented three districts in succession: Massachusetts's 11th congressional district (1831-1833), 12th congressional district (1833-1837), and 8th congressional district (1837-1843), serving from the 22nd to the 30th Congresses. He became a Whig in 1834.

In Congress, he was chair of the Committee on Commerce and Manufactures (23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 28th and 29th), the Committee on Indian Affairs (for the 27th Congress) and the Committee on Foreign Affairs (also for the 27th Congress). He became an important antislavery voice in the Congress. During the years 1836-37 Adams presented many petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia and elsewhere to Congress. The Gag rule prevented discussion of slavery from 1836 to 1844, but he frequently managed to evade it by parliamentary skill.

United First Parish Church

In 1834 he unsuccessfully ran as the Anti-Masonic candidate[17] for Governor of Massachusetts, losing to John Davis. Adams then continued his legal career.

In 1841, he had the case of a lifetime, representing the defendants in United States v. The Amistad Africans in the Supreme Court of the United States. He successfully argued that the Africans, who had seized control of a Spanish ship on which they were being transported illegally as slaves, should not be extradited or deported to Cuba (still under Spanish control) but should be considered free. Under Andrew Jackson's successor Martin Van Buren, the United States Department of Justice argued the Africans should be deported for having mutinied and killed officers on the ship. Adams won their freedom, with the chance to stay in the United States or return to Africa. Adams made the argument because the U.S. had prohibited the international slave trade, although it allowed internal slavery. He never billed for his services in the Amistad case.[18]

Adams sat for the earliest confirmed photograph still in existence of a U.S. president in 1843.[19] The original daguerreotype is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.[20]

Although there is no indication that the two were close, Adams met Abraham Lincoln during the latter's sole term as a member of the House of Representatives, from 1847 until Adams' death. Thus, it has been suggested that Adams is the only major figure in American history who knew both the Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln.[citation needed]

Death and burial

John Quincy Adams during his final hours of life after his collapse in the capitol. Drawing in pencil by Arthur Joseph Stansbury, digitally restored.

On February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives was discussing the matter of honoring US Army officers who served in the Mexican-American War. Adams firmly opposed this idea, so when the rest of the house erupted into 'ayes', he cried out, 'No!'[21] Immediately thereafter, Adams collapsed, having suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage.[22] Two days later, on February 23, he died with his wife and son 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 original interment was temporary, in the public vault at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.. Later, he was interred in the family burial ground in Quincy at the First Unitarian Church, called Hancock Cemetery. After his wife's death, his son, Charles Francis Adams, had him reinterred with his wife in a family crypt in the United First Parish Church across the street. His parents are also buried there, and both tombs are viewable. Adams' original tomb at Hancock Cemetery is still there, marked simply "J.Q. Adams".[23]

Family

Tombs of Presidents John Adams (left) and John Quincy Adams (right) and their wives, in a family crypt beneath the United First Parish Church.
John Quincy Adams' original tomb at Hancock Cemetery, across the street from United First Parish Church.

John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine (Johnson) Adams had three sons and a daughter. Louisa was born in 1811 but died in 1812 while the family was in Russia. They named their first son George Washington Adams (1801-1829) after the first president. Both George and their second son, John (1803-1834), led troubled lives and died in early adulthood.[24][25] (George committed suicide and John was expelled from Harvard before his 1823 graduation.)

Adams' youngest son, Charles Francis Adams (who named his own son John Quincy), 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. 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.

The actor Mary Kay Adams is a descendant of John Quincy Adams.

John Adams and John Quincy Adams were the first father and son to each serve as president (the others being George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush). In addition, each Adams served only one term as President.

See also

Pronunciation note

  1. ^ The name Quincy has subsequently been used for at least nineteen other places in the United States. Those places were either directly or indirectly named for John Quincy Adams (for example, Quincy, Illinois was named in honor of Adams while Quincy, California was named for Quincy, Illinois). The Quincy family name was pronounced /ˈkwɪnzi/, as is the name of the city in Massachusetts where Adams was born (John_Quincy_Adams_pron.ogg spoken pronunciation of Adams' name). However, all of the other place names are locally pronounced /ˈkwɪnsi/. Though technically incorrect, this pronunciation is also commonly used for Adams' middle name. Sources: "Frequently Asked Questions". City of Quincy. http://www.quincyma.gov/Utilities/faq.cfm#13. Retrieved 2009-07-09. ; Wead, Doug (2005). The raising of a president : the mothers and fathers of our nation's leaders. New York: Atria Books. pp. 59. ISBN 0743497260. OCLC 57358429. http://books.google.com/books?id=BI22SihvFJwC&pg=PA59. Retrieved 2009-07-09. 

Notes

  1. ^ Herring, James; Longacre, James Barton (1853). The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans. D. Rice & A.N. Hart. pp. 1. http://books.google.com/books?id=gVMYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PT50&dq=%22mount+wollaston%22&lr=&as_brr=3#PPT50,M1. Retrieved 2008-10-22. 
  2. ^ This Day in History in 1828, www.history.com, retrieved 3-13-2008
  3. ^ The text of his 50-volume diary (plus a supplemental volume) at the Massachusetts Historical Society can be found at [1]
  4. ^ John Quincy Adams: Letters on Silesia: Written During a Tour Through that Country in the Years 1800,1801 [2]
  5. ^ U.S. Presidents Who Are Phi Beta Kappa Members, ‘’Phi Beta Kappa website’’, accessed Oct 4, 2009
  6. ^ McCullough. John Adams. p. 575-576
  7. ^ a b NPS bio of JQA
  8. ^ David McCoulough. John Adams. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005) p. 587
  9. ^ Francis Sempa essay
  10. ^ Adams speech July 4, 1821
  11. ^ "Presidential Inaugurations Past and Present: A Look at the History Behind the Pomp and Circumstance". Fpc.state.gov. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/40871.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-16. 
  12. ^ Romero, Frances (15 January 2009). "A Brief History Of: Swearing In". TIME Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871905,00.html. Retrieved 18 January 2009. 
  13. ^ Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia
  14. ^ Adams, John Quincy Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: comprising portions of his diary, Volume 6, accessed Oct 8, 2009
  15. ^ "Wednesday, February 9, 1825". Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(hj01849)). Retrieved 2008-09-16. 
  16. ^ "John Quincy Adams". Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/photographs/john_quincy_adams_albert_sands_southworth/objectview.aspx?page=59&sort=0&sortdir=asc&keyword=&fp=1&dd1=19&dd2=0&vw=1&collID=19&OID=190020159&vT=1. Retrieved 2009-09-04. 
  17. ^ Richards, Leonard L. (1986). The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. pp. 48. ISBN 0-19-504026-0. 
  18. ^ Miller, William Lee, pg 402
  19. ^ Krainik, Clifford. "Face the Lens, Mr. President: A Gallery of Photographic Portraits of 19th-Century U.S. Presidents". The White House Historical Association. http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_publications/publications_documents/whitehousehistory_16.pdf. Retrieved 2009-09-04. 
  20. ^ "CAP Search results related to Bishop". National Portrait Gallery. http://npgportraits.si.edu/emuseumnpg/code/emuseum.asp?style=single&currentrecord=1&page=seealso&profile=People&searchdesc=Bishop%20&searchstring=constituentid/,/is/,/30789/,/false/,/true&newvalues=1&rawsearch=constituentid/,/is/,/30789/,/false/,/true&newstyle=text&newprofile=CAP&newsearchdesc=Related%20to%20Bishop%20&%20Gray%20Studio&newcurrentrecord=1&module=CAP&moduleid=1. Retrieved 2009-09-04. 
  21. ^ Parker, Theodore (1848). A discourse occasioned by the death of John Quincy Adams. Boston: Published by Bela Marsh, 25 Cornhill. pp. 26. OCLC 6354870. http://books.google.com/books?id=mD8vAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA26. Retrieved 2009-08-02. 
  22. ^ Widmer, Edward L. (2008). Ark of the liberties: America and the world. New York: Hill and Wang. pp. 120. ISBN 978-0809027354. OCLC 191882004. http://books.google.com/books?id=9Cht_ETq3wwC&pg=PA120. Retrieved 2009-08-02. 
  23. ^ John Quincy Adams (1767 - 1848) - Find A Grave Memorial (original burial site
  24. ^ "Brief Biographies of Jackson Era Characters (A)". Jmisc.net. http://www.jmisc.net/BIOG-A.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-16. 
  25. ^ Shepherd, Jack, Cannibals of the Heart: A Personal Biography of Louisa Catherine and John Quincy Adams, New York, McGraw-Hill 1980

References

  • Allgor, Catherine (1997). "'A Republican in a Monarchy': Louisa Catherine Adams in Russia". Diplomatic History 21 (1): 15–43. doi:10.1111/1467-7709.00049. 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.
  • Bathroom Readers' Institute. Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader. Information on death of Adams. ISBN 1-57145-873-5.
  • 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. (1997). "Congressmen, Heroic and Otherwise". Reviews in American History 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 (2003). "John Quincy Adams and American Conservatism". Modern Age 45 (4): 305–314. ISSN 0026-7457.  Fulltext online at Ebsco
  • McMillan, Richard (2001). "Election of 1824: Corrupt Bargain or the Birth of Modern Politics?". New England Journal of History 58 (2): 24–37. 
  • Miller, Chandra (2000). "'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 94 (4): 365–388. ISSN 0026-6582.  Shows that both men considered splitting the country as a solution.
  • Miller, William Lee (1995). Arguing About Slavery. John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-3945-6922-9. 
  • Nagel, Paul C. John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (1999)
  • Parsons, Lynn Hudson (01 Oct 2003). "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 23 (3): 421–443. doi:10.2307/3595046. ISSN 0275-1275. 
  • Portolano, Marlana (2000). "John Quincy Adams's Rhetorical Crusade for Astronomy". Isis 91 (3): 480–503. doi:10.1086/384852. ISSN 0021-1753.  Fulltext online at Jstor and Ebsco. He tried and failed to create a national observatory.
  • Potkay, Adam S. (1999). "Theorizing Civic Eloquence in the Early Republic: the Road from David Hume to John Quincy Adams". Early American Literature 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 (2000). "The Ciceronian Rhetoric of John Quincy Adams". Rhetorica 18 (2): 175–215. doi:10.1525/rh.2000.18.2.175. 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. (2002). John Quincy Adams. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0805069399. 
  • Wood, Gary V. (2004). Heir to the Fathers: John Quincy Adams and the Spirit of Constitutional Government. Ladham, MD: Lexington. ISBN 0739106015. 
  • Brinkley, Alan; Dyer, Davis (2004). The American Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0618382739. 

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.[3]
  • Adams, John Quincy, Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, 1810 (facsimile ed., 1997, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISSN 9780820115078).

External links

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Political offices
Preceded by
James Monroe
President of the United States
March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829
Succeeded by
Andrew Jackson
United States Secretary of State
Served under: James Monroe

March 5, 1817 – March 4, 1825
Succeeded by
Henry Clay
United States Senate
Preceded by
Jonathan Mason
United States Senator (Class 1) from Massachusetts
1803 – 1808
Served alongside: Timothy Pickering
Succeeded by
James Lloyd
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
William B. Calhoun
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 8th congressional district

1843 – 1848
Succeeded by
Horace Mann
Preceded by
James L. Hodges
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 12th congressional district

1833 – 1843
Succeeded by
District abolished
Preceded by
Joseph Richardson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 11th congressional district

1831 – 1833
Succeeded by
John Reed, Jr.
(Redistricted)
Party political offices
New political party National Republican Party presidential candidate
1828
Succeeded by
Henry Clay
Preceded by
James Monroe
Democratic-Republican Party presidential candidate²
1824
Party Disbanded
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
Jonathan Russell
as Chargé d'affaires
United States Minister to the United Kingdom
1815 – 1817
Succeeded by
Richard Rush
Preceded by
William Short
United States Minister to Russia
1809 – 1814
Succeeded by
James A. Bayard
New title United States Minister to Prussia
1797 – 1801
Succeeded by
Henry Wheaton¹
Preceded by
William Short
United States Minister to the Netherlands
1794 – 1797
Succeeded by
William Vans Murray
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Andrew Jackson
Oldest U.S. President still living
June 8, 1845 – February 23, 1848
Succeeded by
Martin Van Buren
Notes and references
1. There was over a thirty-four year period between Adams's and Wheaton's terms.
2. The Democratic-Republican Party split in 1824, fielding four separate candidates: Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Harris Crawford.



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