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.
- Wright John C
- Findlay of Ohio.
- Pendleton— D
o - Rush— Richard
- Mercer Major
- Fendall Philip R.
- Huntt D
r - Clarke—
The flight of time, leaves me far in the rear of all my occupations
Mr
Wright was a member of several former Congresses from the
State of Ohio; but is now here with the two
friends whom he introduced to me, in attendance upon the
Supreme Court of the United States. Mr Rush called and was
conversing with me upon his late Mission to borrow money, for the three
Cities of this District in Europe; in which he has been successful—but
we were interrupted by Major
Mercer’s coming in— Mr Rush
succeeded by applying to the House of the Crommelin’s and against the
opposition of the Barings in England, and of the Willink’s at Amsterdam— Major Mercer
had heard, and much admired the recent Speech of Mr
Webster, in defence of the Eastern Section of the Union—
Fendall sent me General Dearborn’s book upon the
Commerce of the Black-Sea, and brought a New-York newspaper for my Son
John— Fendall is now the Editor
of the National Journal and George
Waterston the publisher— The property of the Paper has
been purchased from Peter Force,
who retires from the Establishment— My morning was almost wholly take up
by visitors, and I wrote to Nathl. Curtis, and Mrs
Boylston. Mrs Adams was confined to her
bed, with an inflammatory sore throat Dr Huntt was here; and was
followed by Mr
Clarke with a number of leaches which my wife applied to
her throat— I was several hours engaged in seeking accounts of the
Campaign in Turkey of 1828. from the National Journal from July to
December of that year— The scantiness of materials is vexatious, and the
files both of the Department of State and of Baron, are provokingly deficient— I
read this morning to the 20th. Letter of the
third Book of the Epistles to Atticus—written while Cicero was in banishment, upon the negation obtained
against him by Clodius. He was
at Thessalonica, at the house of Cneius
Plancius the Quaestor who received and harboured him. The
Letters are written in great dejection of Spirit; and in a querulous
tone not altogether Roman, nor philosophical. But his house at Rome and
his two villas at Tusculum and Formiae had been destroyed. He was
proscribed as a criminal and Clodius had introduced into his Law,
provisions interdicting the People themselves from ever repealing it.
And by a diabolical 365refinement of malignity, the
ground upon which his house stood had by a religious solemnity been
consecrated to Liberty. In these Letters written during his exile there
is no mixture of Greek.