U.S. President #6: John Quincy Adams (Part I)

John Quincy Adams (/ˈkwɪnzi/ (July 11, 1767 – February 2, 1848) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, and diarist who served as the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States Secretary of State from 1817 to 1825. During his long diplomatic and political career, Adams also served as an ambassador, and as a member of the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives representing Massachusetts. He was the eldest son of John Adams, who served as the second US president from 1797 to 1801, and First Lady Abigail Adams. Initially a Federalist like his father, he won election to the presidency as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and in the mid-1830s became affiliated with the Whig Party.

Born in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts (then part of the town of Braintree), Adams spent much of his youth in Europe, where his father served as a diplomat. After returning to the United States, Adams established a successful legal practice in Boston. In 1794, President George Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, and Adams would serve in high-ranking diplomatic posts until 1801, when Thomas Jefferson took office as president. Federalist leaders in Massachusetts arranged for Adams's election to the United States Senate in 1802, but Adams broke with the Federalist Party over foreign policy and was denied re-election. In 1809, Adams was appointed as the U.S. ambassador to Russia by President James Madison, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Adams held diplomatic posts for the duration of Madison's presidency, and he served as part of the American delegation that negotiated an end to the War of 1812. In 1817, newly-elected President James Monroe selected Adams as his Secretary of State. In that role, Adams negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty, which provided for the American acquisition of Florida. He also helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, which became a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy.
The 1824 presidential election was contested by Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay, all of whom were members of the Democratic-Republican Party. As no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives held a contingent election to determine the president, and Adams won that contingent election with the support of Clay. As president, Adams called for an ambitious agenda that included federally-funded infrastructure projects, the establishment of a national university, and engagement with the countries of Latin America, but many of his initiatives were defeated in Congress. During Adams's presidency, the Democratic-Republican Party polarized into two major camps: one group, known as the National Republican Party, supported President Adams, while the other group, known as the Democratic Party, was led by Andrew Jackson. The Democrats proved to be more effective political organizers than Adams and his National Republican supporters, and Jackson decisively defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election.
Rather than retiring from public service, Adams won election to the House of Representatives, where he would serve from 1831 to his death in 1848. He joined the Anti-Masonic Party in the early 1830s before becoming a member of the Whig Party, which united those opposed to President Jackson. During his time in Congress, Adams became increasingly critical of slavery and of the Southern leaders whom he believed controlled the Democratic Party. He was particularly opposed to the annexation of Texas and the Mexican–American War, which he saw as a war to extend slavery. He also led the repeal of the "gag rule", which had prevented the House of Representatives from debating petitions to abolish slavery. Historians generally concur that Adams was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history. They typically rank him as a mediocre president who had an ambitious agenda but could not get it passed by Congress.
Early life, education, and early career
John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, to John and Abigail Adams (née Smith) in a part of Braintree, Massachusetts that is now Quincy.  He was named for his mother's maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is named. Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his father's law clerk, Nathan Rice.[6][page needed] He soon began to exhibit his literary skills, and in 1779 he initiated a diary which he kept until just before he died in 1848. Until the age of ten, Adams grew up on the family farm in Braintree, largely in the care of his mother. Though frequently absent due to his participation in the American Revolution, John Adams maintained a correspondence with his son, encouraging him to read works by authors such as Thucydides and Hugo Grotius. With his father's encouragement, Adams would also translate classical authors such as Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, and Aristotle.
In 1778, Adams and his father departed for Europe, where John Adams would serve as part of American diplomatic missions in France and the Netherlands.  During this period, Adams studied French, Greek, and Latin, and attended several schools, including Leiden University.  In 1781, Adams traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he served as the secretary of American diplomat Francis Dana. He returned to the Netherlands in 1783, and accompanied his father to Great Britain in 1784.  Though Adams enjoyed Europe, he and his family decided he needed to return to the United States to complete his education and eventually launch a political career.
Adams returned to the United States in 1785 and earned admission as a member of the junior class of Harvard College the following year. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and excelled academically, graduating second in his class in 1787.  After graduating from Harvard, he studied law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1787 to 1789.  Adams initially opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution, but he ultimately came to accept the document, and in 1789 his father was elected as the first Vice President of the United States.  In 1790, Adams opened his own legal practice in Boston. Despite some early struggles, he experienced moderate success as an attorney and was able to establish his financial independence from his parents.
Early political career (1793–1817)
Early diplomatic career and marriage
Adams initially avoided becoming directly involved in politics, instead focusing on building his legal career. In 1791, he wrote a series of pseudonymously-published essays in which he argued that Britain provided a better governmental model than France. Two years later, he published another series of essays in which he attacked Edmond-Charles Genêt, a French diplomat who sought to undermine President George Washington's policy of neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars.  In 1794, Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands; Adams considered declining the role but ultimately took the position at the advice of his father.  While abroad, Adams continued to urge neutrality, arguing that the United States would benefit economically by staying out of the ongoing French Revolutionary Wars.  His chief duty as the ambassador to the Netherlands was to secure and maintain the loans that were essential to U.S. finances. On his way to the Netherlands, he met with John Jay, who was then negotiating the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. Adams supported the Jay Treaty, but it proved unpopular with many in the United States, contributing to a growing partisan split between the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson.
Adams spent the winter of 1795–96 in London, where he met Louisa Catherine Johnson, the second daughter of American merchant Joshua Johnson. In April 1796, Louisa accepted Adams's proposal of marriage. Adams's parents disapproved of his decision to marry a woman who had grown up in England, but he informed his parents that he would not reconsider his decision.  Adams initially wanted to delay his wedding to Louisa until he returned to the United States, but they were married in All Hallows-by-the-Tower in July 1797.  Shortly after the wedding, Joshua Johnson fled England to escape his creditors, and Adams did not receive the dowry that Johnson had promised him, much to the embarrassment of Louisa. Nonetheless, Adams noted in his own diary that he had no regrets about his decision to marry Louisa.
In 1796, Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. ambassador to Portugal.  Later in that same year, John Adams defeated Jefferson in the 1796 presidential election. When the elder Adams became president, he appointed his son as the U.S. ambassador to Prussia.  Though concerned that his appointment would be criticized as nepotistic, Adams accepted the position and traveled to the Prussian capital of Berlin with his wife and his younger brother, Thomas Boylston Adams. The State Department charged Adams with developing commercial relations with Prussia and Sweden, but President Adams also asked his son to write him frequently about affairs in Europe.  In 1799, Adams negotiated a new trade agreement between the United States and Prussia, though he was never able to complete an agreement with Sweden.  He frequently wrote to family members in the United States, and in 1801 his letters about the Prussian region of Silesia were published in a book titled Letters on Silesia.  In the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson defeated John Adams, and both Adams and his son left office in early 1801.
U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
On his return to the United States, Adams re-established a legal practice in Boston, and in April 1802 he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate.  In November of that same year he ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives.  In February 1803, the Massachusetts legislature elected Adams to the United States Senate. Though somewhat reluctant to affiliate with any political party, Adams joined the Federalist minority in Congress.  Like his Federalist colleagues, he opposed the impeachment of Associate Justice Samuel Chase, an outspoken supporter of the Federalist Party.
Adams had strongly opposed Jefferson's 1800 presidential candidacy, but he gradually became alienated from the Federalist Party. His disaffection was driven by the party's declining popularity, disagreements over foreign policy, and Adams's hostility to Timothy Pickering, a Federalist Party leader whom Adams viewed as overly favorable to Britain. Unlike other New England Federalists, Adams supported the Jefferson administration's Louisiana Purchase and generally favored expansionist policies.  Adams was the lone Federalist in Congress to vote for the Non-importation Act of 1806, which was designed to punish Britain for its attacks on American shipping in the midst of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars. Adams became increasingly frustrated with the unwillingness of other Federalists to condemn British actions, including impressment, and he moved closer to the Jefferson administration. After Adams supported the Embargo Act of 1807, the Federalist-controlled Massachusetts legislature elected Adams's successor several months before the end of his term and Adams resigned from the Senate shortly thereafter.
While a member of the Senate, Adams served as a professor of logic at Brown University and as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. Adams's devotion to classical rhetoric shaped his response to public issues, and he would remain inspired by those rhetorical ideals long after the neo-classicalism and deferential politics of the founding generation were 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.  He was also influenced by the classical republican ideal of civic eloquence espoused by British philosopher David Hume.  Adams adapted these classical republican ideals of public oratory to the American debate, viewing its multilevel political structure as ripe for "the renaissance of Demosthenic eloquence." His 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 19th century, as the "public spheres of heated oratory" disappeared in favor of the private sphere.
Minister to Russia
After resigning from the Senate, Adams was ostracized by Massachusetts Federalist leaders, but he declined Democratic-Republican entreaties to seek office. In 1809, he argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Fletcher v. Peck, and the Supreme Court ultimately agreed with Adams's argument that the Constitution's Contract Clause prevented the state of Georgia from invalidating a land sale to out-of-state companies.  Later that year, President James Madison appointed Adams as the first United States Minister to Russia in 1809. Though Adams had only recently broken with the Federalist Party, his support of Jefferson's foreign policy had earned him goodwill with the Madison Administration. Adams was well-qualified for the role after his experiences in Europe generally and Russia specifically.
After a difficult passage through the Baltic Sea, Adams arrived in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg in October 1809. He quickly established a productive working relationship with Russian official Nikolay Rumyantsev and eventually befriended Tsar Alexander I of Russia. Adams continued to favor American neutrality between France and Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic War.  Louisa was initially distraught at the prospect of living in Russia, but she became a popular figure at the Russian court.  From his diplomatic post, Adams observed the French Emperor Napoleon's invasion of Russia, which ended in defeat for the French.  In February 1811, Adams was nominated by President Madison as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, but Adams declined the seat, preferring a career in politics and diplomacy, so Joseph Story took the seat instead.
Treaty of Ghent and ambassador to Britain
Adams had long feared that the United States would enter a war it could not win against Britain, and by early 1812 he saw such a war as inevitable due to the constant British attacks on American shipping and the British practice of impressment. In mid-1812, the United States declared war against Britain, beginning the War of 1812. Tsar Alexander attempted to mediate the conflict between Britain and the United States, and President Madison appointed Adams, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, and Federalist Senator James A. Bayard to a delegation charged with negotiating an end to the war. Gallatin and Bayard arrived in St. Petersburg in July 1813, but the British declined Tsar Alexander's offer of mediation. Hoping to commence the negotiations at another venue, Adams left Russia in April 1814. Negotiations finally began in mid-1814 in Ghent, where Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard were joined by two additional American delegates, Jonathan Russell and former Speaker of the House Henry Clay.  Adams, the nominal head of the delegation, got along well with Gallatin, Bayard, and Russell, but he occasionally clashed with Clay.
The British delegation initially treated the United States as a defeated power, demanding the creation of an Indian barrier state from American territory near the Great Lakes. The American delegation unanimously rejected this offer, and their negotiating position was bolstered by the American victory in the Battle of Plattsburgh.  By November 1814, the government of Lord Liverpool decided to seek an end to hostilities with the U.S. on the basis of status quo ante bellum. Adams and his fellow commissioners had hoped for similar terms, despite the fact that a return to the status quo would mean the continuation of British practice of impressment. The treaty was signed on December 24, 1814. The United States did not gain any concessions from the treaty but could boast that it had survived a war against the strongest power in the world. Following the signing of the treaty, Adams traveled to Paris, where he witnessed first-hand the Hundred Days of Napoleon's restoration.
In May 1815, Adams learned that President Madison had appointed him as the U.S. ambassador to Britain.  With the aid of Clay and Gallatin, Adams negotiated a limited trade agreement with Britain. Following the conclusion of the trade agreement, much of Adams's time as ambassador was spent helping stranded American sailors and prisoners of war.  In pursuit of national unity, newly-elected President James Monroe decided a Northerner would be optimal for the position of Secretary of State, and he chose the respected and experienced Adams for the role. Having spent several years in Europe, Adams returned to the United States in August 1817.
Secretary of State (1817–1825)
Adams served as Secretary of State throughout Monroe's eight-year presidency, from 1817 to 1825. Many of his successes as secretary, such as the convention of 1818 with Great Britain, the Transcontinental Treaty with Spain, and the Monroe Doctrine, were not preplanned, but came about in response to unexpected events. Adams wanted to delay American recognition of the newly independent republics of Latin America that were breaking with Spanish imperialism, so as not to risk a war with Spain and its European allies. However, Andrew Jackson's military campaign in Florida, and Henry Clay's threats in Congress, forced Spain to cut a deal, which Adam negotiated successfully. Biographer James Lewis says, "He managed to play the cards that he had been dealt – cards that he very clearly had not wanted – in ways that forced the Spanish cabinet to recognize the weakness of its own hand."   Apart from the Monroe doctrine, his last four years the Secretary of State were less successful, since he was absorbed in his presidential campaign and refused to make compromises with other nations that might have weakened his candidacy; The result was a small scale trade war, but a successful election to the White House.
Taking office in the aftermath of the War of 1812, Adams thought that the country had been fortunate in avoiding territorial losses, and he prioritized avoiding another war with a European power, particularly Britain.  He also sought to avoid exacerbating sectional tensions, which had been a major issue for the country during the War of 1812.  One f the major challenges confronting Adams was how to respond to the power vacuum in Latin America that arose from Spain's weakness following the Peninsular War.  In addition to his foreign policy role, Adams held several domestic duties, including overseeing the 1820 Census.
Monroe and Adams agreed on most of the major foreign policy issues: both favored neutrality in the Latin American wars of independence, peace with Great Britain, denial of a trade agreement with the French, and expansion, peacefully if possible, into the North American territories of the Spanish Empire.  The president and his secretary of state developed a strong working relationship, and while Adams often influenced Monroe's policies, he respected that Monroe made the final decisions on major issues.  Monroe met regularly with his five-person cabinet, which initially consisted of Adams, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield, and Attorney General William Wirt.  Adams developed a strong respect for Calhoun but believed that Crawford was unduly focused on succeeding Monroe in 1824.
During his time as ambassador to Britain, Adams had begun negotiations over several contentious issues that had not been solved by the War of 1812 or the Treaty of Ghent. In 1817, the two countries agreed to the Rush–Bagot Treaty, which limited naval armaments on the Great Lakes. Negotiations between the two powers continued, resulting in the Treaty of 1818, which defined the Canada–United States border west of the Great Lakes. The boundary was set at the 49th parallel to the Rocky Mountains, while the territory to the west of the mountains, known as Oregon Country, would be jointly occupied. The agreement represented a turning point in United Kingdom–United States relations, as the U.S. turned its attention to its southern and western borders and British fears over American expansionism waned.
Adams–Onís Treaty
When Adams took office, Spanish possessions bordered the United States to the South and West. In the South, Spain retained control of Florida, which the U.S. had long sought to purchase. Spain struggled to control the Indian tribes active in Florida, and some of those tribes raided U.S. territory. In the West, New Spain bordered the territory acquired by the U.S. in the Louisiana Purchase, but no clear boundary had been established between U.S. and Spanish territory.  After taking office, Adams began negotiations with Luis de Onís, the Spanish minister to the United States, for the purchase of Florida and the settlement of a border between the U.S. and New Spain. The negotiations were interrupted by an escalation of the Seminole War, and in December 1818 Monroe ordered General Andrew Jackson to enter Florida and retaliate against Seminoles that had raided Georgia. Exceeding his orders, Jackson captured the Spanish outposts of St. Marks and Pensacola and executed two Englishmen. While the rest of the cabinet was outraged by Jackson's actions, Adams defended them as necessary to the country's self-defense, and he eventually convinced Monroe and most of the cabinet to support Jackson.  Adams informed Spain that Jackson had been compelled to act by Spain's failure to police its own territory, and he advised Spain to either secure the region or sell it to the United States. The British, meanwhile, declined to risk their recent rapprochement with the United States, and did not make a major diplomatic issue out of Jackson's execution of two British nationals.
Negotiations between Spain and the United States continued, and Spain agreed to cede Florida. The determination of the western boundary of the United States proved more difficult. American expansionists favored setting the border at the Rio Grande, but Spain, intent on protecting its colony of Mexico from American encroachment, insisted on setting the boundary at the Sabine River. At Monroe's direction, Adams agreed to the Sabine River boundary, but he insisted that Spain cede its claims on Oregon Country.[74] Adams was deeply interested in establishing American control over the Oregon Country, partly because he believed that control of that region would spur trade with Asia. The acquisition of Spanish claims to the Pacific Northwest also allowed the Monroe administration to pair the acquisition of Florida, which was chiefly sought by Southerners, with territorial gains favored primarily by those in the North.  After extended negotiations, Spain and the United States agreed to the Adams–Onís Treaty, which was ratified in February 1821.  Adams was deeply proud of the treaty, though he privately was concerned by the potential expansion of slavery into the newly-acquired territories. In 1824, the Monroe administration would further bolster U.S. claims to Oregon by reaching the Russo-American Treaty of 1824, which set the southern border of Russian Alaska at the parallel 54°40′ north.
Monroe Doctrine
As the Spanish Empire continued to fracture during Monroe's second term, Adams and Monroe became increasingly concerned that the "Holy Alliance" of Prussia, Austria, and Russia would seek to bring Spain's erstwhile colonies under their control. In 1822, following the conclusion of the Adams–Onís Treaty, the Monroe administration recognized the independence of several Latin American countries, including Argentina and Mexico. In 1823, British Foreign Secretary George Canning suggested that the U.S. and Britain should work together to preserve the independence of these fledgling republics. The cabinet debated whether or not to accept the offer, but Adams opposed it. Instead, Adams urged Monroe to publicly declare U.S. opposition to any European attempt to colonize or re-take control of territory in the Americas, while also committing the U.S. to neutrality with respect to European affairs. In his December 1823 annual message to Congress, Monroe laid out the Monroe Doctrine, which was largely built upon Adams's ideas.  In issuing the Monroe Doctrine, the United States displayed a new level of assertiveness in international relations, as the doctrine represented the country's first claim to a sphere of influence. It also marked the country's shift in psychological orientation away from Europe and towards the Americas. Debates over foreign policy would no longer center on relations with Britain and France, but would instead focus on western expansion and relations with Native Americans. The doctrine became one of the foundational principles of U.S. foreign policy.
1824 presidential election
Immediately upon becoming Secretary of State, Adams emerged as one of Monroe's most likely successors, as the last three presidents had all served in the role at some point before taking office. As the 1824 election approached, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun (who later dropped out of the race), and William H. Crawford appeared to be Adams's primary competition to succeed Monroe.  Crawford favored state sovereignty and a strict constructionist view of the Constitution, while Clay, Calhoun, and Adams embraced federally-funded internal improvements, high tariffs, and the Second Bank of the United States, which was also known as the national bank.  Because the Federalist Party had nearly collapsed in the aftermath of the War of 1812, all of the major presidential candidates were members of the Democratic-Republican Party.  Adams felt that his own election as president would vindicate his father, while also allowing him to pursue an ambitious domestic policy. Though he lacked the charisma of his competitors, Adams was widely respected and benefited from the lack of other prominent Northern political leaders.
Adams's top choice for the role of vice president was General Andrew Jackson; Adams noted that "the Vice-Presidency was a station in which [Jackson] could hang no one, and in which he would need to quarrel with no one."  However, as the 1824 election approached, Jackson jumped into the race for president.  While the other candidates based their candidacies on their long tenure as congressmen, ambassadors, or members of the cabinet, Jackson's appeal rested on his military service, especially in the Battle of New Orleans.  The congressional nominating caucus had decided upon previous Democratic-Republican presidential nominees, but it had become largely discredited by 1824. Candidates were instead nominated by state legislatures or nominating conventions, and Adams received the endorsement of the New England legislatures.  The regional strength of each candidate played an important role in the election; Adams was popular in New England, Clay and Jackson were strong in the West, and Jackson and Crawford competed for the South.
In the 1824 presidential election, Jackson won a plurality in the Electoral College, taking 99 of the 261 electoral votes, while Adams won 84, Crawford won 41, and Clay took 37. Calhoun, meanwhile, won a majority of the electoral vote for vice president.  Adams nearly swept the electoral votes of New England and won a majority of the electoral vote in New York, but he won a total of just six electoral votes from the slave states. Most of Jackson's support came from slave-holding states, but he also won New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and some electoral votes from the Northwest. As no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, the House was required to hold contingent election under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment. The House would decide among the top three electoral vote winners, with each state's delegation having one vote; thus, unlike his three rivals, Clay was not eligible to be elected by the House.
Adams knew that his own victory in the contingent election would require the support of Clay, who wielded immense influence in the House of Representatives. Though they were quite different in temperament and had clashed in the past, Adams and Clay shared similar views on national issues. By contrast, Clay viewed Jackson as a dangerous demagogue, and he was unwilling to support Crawford due to the latter's health issues.  Adams and Clay met prior to the contingent election, and Clay agreed to support Adams in the election.  Adams also met with Federalists such as Daniel Webster, promising that he would not deny governmental positions to members of their party.  On February 9, 1825, Adams won the contingent election on the first ballot, taking 13 of the 24 state delegations. Adams won the House delegations of all the states in which he or Clay had won a majority of the electoral votes, as well as the delegations of Illinois, Louisiana, and Maryland.  Adams's victory made him the first child of a president to serve as president himself.  After the election, many of Jackson's supporters claimed that Adams and Clay had reached a "Corrupt Bargain" in which Adams promised Clay the position of Secretary of State in return for Clay's support.