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.
r Roth the
late Chargé d’Affaires of France, requesting for the Baron Hyde de Neuville an
Audience of the President, at which he was desirous of presenting to him
the persons attached to his legation. I called at the Presidents, and he fixed to-morrow one
O’Clock for the Audience— I attended an Evening party at Mr Brown’s,
the Senator from Louisiana— Mrs Adams being unwell could
not go— There was much conversation upon the proceedings in the House of
Representatives which were said to have been extremely violent and
disorderly. The two houses met in convention to open the electoral
Votes, and to declare the persons chosen as President and Vice-President
for the four years ensuing the third of March next. They met in the Hall
of the House of Representatives, and proceeded in regular form,
according to the mode prescribed by the Constitution of the United
States, the Law of 1. March 1792. that of 26 March 1804 and the joint
Resolution reported by the Committee of the two Houses, (which had
however been accepted by the House of Representatives only this morning,
after sharp debate, and twice taking of yeas and nays) till the votes of
Missouri, came to be counted—when Arthur
Livermore, a member from New-Hampshire rose and objected
to the counting of the votes of Missouri, because Missouri is not a
State of this Union— Immediately John
Randolph and John
Floyd, both members from Virginia started up together, and
began to speak— John Williams a
Senator from Tennessee then moved that the Senate should withdraw to
their own chamber which they did. A measure well devised to defeat the
impetuosity of the unruly members of the House— The House then became
exceedingly tumultuous— Floyd in the face of the Resolution adopted upon
the Report of the joint-Committee, by a large majority of the House,
moved that Missouri is one of the States of this
Union, and that her votes ought to be received and counted— After much
disturbance and confusion, Clay got
rid of this Resolution by moving that it should lie on the table; and
then moving that a message be sent to the Senate informing them that the
House were now ready to proceed in continuing the
enumeration of the of the electoral votes according to the joint
Resolution— The Senate accordingly returned; the votes of Missouri were
counted, and the result was declared by the President of the Senate in the alternative— That if the
votes of Missouri were counted there would be 231 votes for James Monroe
as President, and 218 votes for 520Daniel D.
Tompkins as Vice President; and if not counted that there
would be 228 votes for James Monroe as President, and 215 for Daniel D.
Tompkins as Vice-President; but that in either event they were both
elected to their respective Offices. He therefore declared them to be so
elected— The two Houses then separated and the Senate again returned to
their chamber; upon which Randolph moved in the House moved two
Resolutions— One, that the electoral votes had been counted, of the
State of Missouri, and formed a part of the majorities by which the
President and Vice-President had been elected— And the other, that the
result of the election had not been declared by the presiding officer
conformably to the Constitution and the Law, and therefore that the
whole proceedings had been irregular and illegal— This motion after a
very disorderly debate was disposed of by a motion which was carried to
adjourn— Floyd and Randolph, were for bringing Missouri into the Union
by Storm, and for bullying the majority of the House into a minority—
The only result produced by them was disorder and tumult— Clay who has
infinitely more pliability, dodged the question,
and succeeded in making both houses of Congress dodge it with him— But among the means of his success was one
of those disingenuous tricks by which he carried the Missouri question,
last winter— Then, it was by superseding as Speaker, a motion of John
Randolph to reconsider a vote of the preceding day, on a point of order
to give time for the reading of the Journal; and directing the Clerk, in that interval to
carry the Resolution, passed the preceding day to the Senate, so that
when after the reading of the Resolution
Journal, Randolph renewed his motion to reconsider, it could not be
received, the Resolution being no longer in possession of the House—
This day it was by reporting to the House the Resolution from the joint
Committee of both Houses, for the proceedings on the presidential
election, differently from what it had been agreed to in the Committee
and adopted by the Senate— The real Resolution was that at the joint
meeting “the President of the Senate should be the presiding Officer”—
Clay of his own head altered the Report of the joint Resolution to the
House, to read “the President of the Senate shall be the presiding
Officer of the Senate, seated on the right of the Speaker of the House,
who shall be the presiding officer of the House,” and so the Resolution
passed the House— It neither did nor could have so passed the Senate.
But this was Clay’s expedient of dodging that
question of collision between the two Houses with regard to the
presiding Officer— And it is one of the pregnant evidences of Clay’s
overbearing influence, that this unprincipled fraud although discovered
and noticed in the house was neither censured there, nor resented by the
Senate— Floyd, and Randolph continued to interrupt the proceedings even
after the Senate came the second time into joint meeting the second time; but Clay by mere dint of
superior influence with his own which was also their party finally
baffled them and put them down— The business of the day was
accomplished— The President and Vice-President of the ensuing
Presidential term were declared; but if the election had been a
contested one, and the reception or rejection of the Missouri votes
would have turned the scale, I think there would have been no
declaration of a President and Vice-President before the 4th. of March, and the whole Union would have
been unhinged— This was the ninth Presidential election, since the
existence of the present Constitution of the United States, and is
already the second instance of a crisis in the election— On former
occasion it happened at the very tug of conflict between two national
parties for the mastery. Now it happened, at an aera far more
extraordinary— When that party conflict had performed its entire
revolution and that unanimity of choice which began with George Washington had come round
again in the person of James Monroe. In the survey of our national
history this latter unanimity is much more remarkable than the first— To
this last unanimity there is the exception of a single vote given by
William Plumer of
New-Hampshire, and that vote, to my surprize and mortification was for
me. If there was an electoral vote in the Union which I thought sure for
Mr Monroe, it was that of Mr Plumer— I deeply regretted the loss of
Mr Plumer’s vote, because it implied his
disapprobation of the principles of Administration and although by
giving the vote for me, he obviously exempted my share in the
administration from any essential portion of the censure, I could take
no pleasure in that approbation, 521which though bestowed on me, was denied to
the whole Administration. My earnest desire has been that the
Administration should be prosperous and satisfactory to the Nation, and
in this no consideration relative to myself has entered; other than the
anxiety to discharge faithfully my own portion of the public duty— The
conduct of the Administration has been upon the whole wise, honest and
patriotic; and it has been blessed with good Fortune; for which I can
never be sufficiently grateful. Its great trials however are reserved
for its ensuing term of four years. Its dangers are in its internal
divisions; which have been hitherto partly disguised and concealed, and
which a happy current of Events has overborne— They are now becoming
manifest, and assuming a formidable aspect. May an overruling Providence
turn them eventually to the welfare of the Country; and the improvement
of public happiness and virtue— The Messages from the President, with
the Spanish Ratification of the Florida Treaty, and with Meade’s Memorial, and my Report upon
it were received by the Senate this Morning— Meade in the mean time had
printed his memorial, with alterations from that which he had presented
to the President, and with an appendage of citations from writers on the
Laws of Nations, and distributed copies to every member of the Senate—
He also sent several copies of the printed Memorial, to the President;
and one to the Department of State, with a Letter noticing the
corrections made in it of the Manuscript Memorial—