John Quincy Adams’s (JQA) diary, which was inspired by his father John Adams (JA) and started as a travel journal, initiated a lifelong writing obsession. In 1779, twelve-year-old JQA made his second trip abroad to accompany his father’s diplomatic mission. While in Europe, he attended various schools and traveled to St. Petersburg as an interpreter during Francis Dana’s mission to Russia. He subsequently served as JA’s secretary at Paris during the final months before the Anglo-American Definitive Peace Treaty was signed in September 1783. Two years later, JQA returned to the US. After graduating from Harvard College in 1787, he moved to Newburyport to read law under Theophilus Parsons and in 1790 he established a legal practice in Boston. JQA’s skill as a writer brought him public acclaim, and in 1794 President George Washington nominated him as US minister resident to the Netherlands.
John Quincy Adams (JQA) entered diplomatic service in September 1794 as US minister resident to the Netherlands. He married Louisa Catherine Johnson (LCA) in July 1797 after a fourteen-month engagement, and their three sons were born in this period. During his father John Adams’s (JA) presidency they moved to Berlin where, as US minister plenipotentiary, JQA signed a new Prussian-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce. JQA returned to the US in 1801 and entered politics, elected first to the Massachusetts senate in 1802 and then to the US Senate in 1803. His contentious relationship with fellow Federalist members over his support of some Democratic-Republican policies led to his removal from office. In May 1808 the Federalist-controlled Massachusetts legislature voted to replace him at the end of his term, prompting JQA’s resignation in June. Between 1806 and 1809 he also served as the first Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard.
John Quincy Adams (JQA) returned to diplomatic service in August 1809 as the US’s first minister plenipotentiary to Russia. In St. Petersburg JQA was well-liked by Emperor Alexander I and closely followed the battles of the Napoleonic Wars then raging across Europe. When the US declared war on Great Britain in 1812, Adams watched from afar as the conflict dragged on for two years. In April 1814, he traveled to Ghent, Belgium, as part of the US delegation to negotiate an end to the war with England; the Treaty of Ghent was signed on Christmas Eve. Subsequently appointed US minister to the Court of St. James’s in May 1815, JQA served in London for the next two years.
John Quincy Adams (JQA) served as the US secretary of state during James Monroe’s presidency. Adams’s duties included organizing and responding to all State Department correspondence and negotiating agreements beneficial to the US. His achievements as secretary of state include the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which established the US border with Canada along the 49th parallel, and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 (Transcontinental Treaty), which resulted in the US acquisition of Florida. JQA also formulated the policy that became known as the Monroe Doctrine, in which the US called for European non-intervention in the western hemisphere, specifically in the affairs of newly independent Latin American nations. As Monroe’s presidency came to an end, JQA was among the top candidates in the 1824 presidential election. When no candidate earned the necessary majority, the House of Representatives decided the election in JQA’s favor in February 1825.
John Quincy Adams (JQA) was inaugurated as the sixth president of the US on 4 March 1825 and began his administration with an ambitious agenda of improvements for American society. His presidency was embattled. Supporters of Andrew Jackson, who believed their candidate had unfairly lost the 1824 election, worked ceaselessly to foil JQA’s plans. Domestically, JQA refused to replace civil servants with partisan supporters, and his administration became involved in disputes between the Creek Nation and the state of Georgia. JQA’s foreign policy also suffered, as partisan bickering in Congress failed to provide timely funding for US delegates to attend the 1826 Congress of Panama. Political mudslinging in advance of the 1828 presidential election was particularly fierce, and by mid-1827 JQA knew he would not be reelected.
In 1831 John Quincy Adams (JQA) became the only former president to subsequently serve in the US House of Representatives. As the chairman of the House Committee on Manufactures, he helped compose the compromise tariff bill of 1832. He traveled to Philadelphia as part of a committee that investigated the Bank of the United States, drafting a minority report in support of rechartering the bank after disagreeing with the committee’s majority report. JQA regularly presented the antislavery petitions he received from across the country, and he vehemently opposed the passage of the Gag Rule in 1836 that prevented House discussion of petitions related to slavery. He opposed the annexation of Texas, and in 1838 he delivered a marathon speech condemning the evils of slavery. JQA also chaired the committee that oversaw the bequest of James Smithson, which was used to establish the Smithsonian Institution.
During his final years of service in the US House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams (JQA) continued to oppose the Gag Rule that prevented House discussion of petitions related to slavery. In 1839 he joined the defense team for the Africans who revolted aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad. The Supreme Court declared the Amistad Africans free on 9 March 1841 after JQA delivered oral arguments in their favor. In 1842 JQA faced a censure hearing and ably defended himself against charges from southern congressmen. He introduced a successful resolution that finally led to the repeal of the Gag Rule in 1844. JQA voted against both the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the US declaration of war with Mexico in 1846. He collapsed on the floor of the House on 21 February 1848 and died two days later.
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Wellesley-Pole, and enclosed to J. A. Smith that to Lord Castlereagh. Wrote a short Letter to my Mother. My wife received a Letter
from Madame Fusil, requesting to
see her. The journal occupied me great part of the day. We dined at half
past five, and at half past seven left home, and were at the Queen’s Palace, Buckingham House,
precisely at nine. An accident had happened to the Duke of Orleans’s Carriage at the
front iron grate, so that the gate was shut, and we were obliged to go
in at the side entry— Within half an hour, the Queen appeared, arm in
arm with the Prince Regent— She went round the circle, and spoke a few
words to each person. The Dukes of Kent
and Cambridge were the only brothers
of the Regent, there. The Duke of
York was absent, I know not why. The Duchess was there. He
had been at the dinner. The Duke of
Clarence is yet confined by illness. Cumberland is at variance with the
Queen, because she will not see his
wife; and Sussex at variance with the Regent for Politics and
perhaps other causes. the Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth
were there— Prince Leopold, but not
the Princess Charlotte. The Duke and Duchess and
Princess Sophia of Gloucester— The Duke and Duchess of
Orleans. The Duke of
Bourbon— The foreign Ambassadors and Ministers, and about
two hundred of the nobility and gentry of the Country, of both sexes.
Mr
Neumann the Austrian Secretary of Embassy, asked me, if I
had any answer to the proposal concerning the Ships at Trieste and
Venice— I had none— He said he had an answer to my enquiries about
muskets; that they could be obtained without difficulty; but it was
thought best that it should be by the way of commerce. I asked if he
could mention the price— He said he would let me know it, nearabouts in
a few days— I enquired of Count
Lieven, the Russian Ambassador, whether it was true, as
was intimated in some of the Newspapers, that the new British Armament,
under Lord Exmouth, fitted out
against the Barbary Powers, had been sent in consequence of the interest
taken in the affair by the Emperor
Alexander, and by his influence— The Count asked me to
call at his house at eleven O’Clock to-morrow Morning; which I promised.
I mentioned to the Marquis d’Osmond the
French Ambassador, that I had received an answer from the
United States, to an Application made at the request of his predecessor
the Duke de la Châtre, to
stop the transfer of certain Stocks, purchased here by a frenchman; a
fraudulent cashier of a Commercial house, who had absconded with its
funds. The Marquis asked me to write him a line about it.— I enquired of
Mr
Chester, the Assistant Master of the Ceremonies, and of
the Chevalier de Freire, the
Portuguese Minister, whether there was any settled principle of
precedence at this Court, between Foreign Ministers of the second order,
and persons of distinction natives of this Country— Chester equivocated,
and evaded answering. He said that on occasions of etiquette, the
Ambassadors and foreign Ministers were always considered as a Corps by
themselves. A special place was assigned for them all together; and that
was always, as near as possible to the king— Mr Freire had no more settled notion upon the subject— Chester
ultimately admitted that there was no settled etiquette in the case.—
The practice, as I have found it, is this. They give precedence to
Ambassadors, next after the blood royal.— When there are several
Ambassadors and Ministers of the second order, they put them together as
a Corps; the Envoys then immediately succeed the Ambassadors, and thus
precede the nobility— But when there are only Ministers of the second
Order, all the Ministers of State, all the household Lords, and all the
peers of the realm, take precedence of them, and have it assigned to
them— The Lord Mayor marked this
at his dinner last week, by assigning to me the place next to Lord Darnley; and before his Son,
Lord Clifton, who is not a
peer.— That is the principle—though by particular occasions and
incidents, they sometimes place the foreign Ministers before Peers— They
placed me so at the Fishmongers dinner— Probably because the Peers
present, were considered as members of the Company, and at home. The
general practice here is conformable to that in the other European
Governments that I have known— In Russia, where all rank is graduated
upon the Military scale our Ambassador ranks with a Field Marshal, and
an Envoy or Minister Plenipotentiary with a lieutenant-General.— Mrs Wellesley Pole told me she had received
my note, but did not know where Madam Fusil lived— The Duke of Wellington took leave of
Mr and Mrs
Pole, just as I was speaking to them— He told me he should
go to-morrow Morning for Paris— Count
Munster at my request introduced me to the Duke of
Cambridge—who recollected that he had formerly known me at Berlin, in
1801. He told me that he was happy that Peace between this Country and
America was restored; and hoped the good understanding would continue—
Viscount Sidmouth
earnestly recommended to me to see their dockyard at Portsmouth, which
he said he had visited with much satisfaction last week; but when I 52hinted a doubt whether I could obtain admission he
told me not very confidently that he thought there would be no
difficulty— The Earl of Limerick as
usual conversed freely with me— This is an Irish nobleman who last
Summer was created a Peer of the United Kingdom by the title of Lord
Foxford— He has strong Irish and Republican propensities, which are
overpowered by his honours and preferments and other courtly shackles—
He told me that his uncle had been
Speaker of the Irish House of Commons in 1783. when they made the great
stand for the Independence of Ireland— That he himself had been a very
turbulent fellow formerly— But that now they treated him so well, that
he was quiet and well satisfied— He said that if America had been
treated so she might have been kept forever; but there never was a
Country so foolishly thrown away as she had been— Mr
Greville spoke to me of the new Packet that sails between
Milford-Haven and Waterford, and his wife the Countess of Mansfield, told me about
her brother Lord Cathcart, the Ambassador in Russia—what an
extraordinary favourite he was of the Emperor’s—who had dined with him
at his house—an honour which he had never done to any other Ambassador;
and who occasionally paid him Evening visits, as Lord Cathcart lives in a very
domestic manner with his family. These scraps of conversation and others
more insignificant consumed the Evening— The Queen after going round the
circle retired to her Card party; and most of the company to the Japan
chamber, where refreshments were served. About twelve we came away, and
after waiting full half an hour at the side-entry, found the Carriage at
the front door— Home at two in the Morning.