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.
Petition day at the House— My appeal from the decision of the Speaker had been postponed to this day,
and was now at the motion of Hawes postponed again till Thursday next—
The States are called over for Petitions— Maine had scarcely been gone
through, when a Message from the President was announced, and by unanimous consent was
immediately read. It was the final statement of the dispute with France
with the latest correspondence between our Chargé d’Affaires Barton, and the Duke de Broglie, and between our
Secretary of State Forsyth, and
the French Chargé d’Affaires Pageot until these diplomatic subalterns were on both
sides recalled— Immediately after the Message was read M’Keon of New-York started up and sent a
paper of Resolutions to the Clerk. The Speaker said some disposal must first be made
of the Message There was a call for the reading of the Correspondence
and it was read— John Y. Mason,
Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations moved the reference of
the Message and Documents to that Committee which was done. M’Keon
insisted upon offering his Resolutions, but the House would not permit
them even to be read— He gave notice amidst loud calls of order that his
Resolutions were to approve the course of the President, and that he
should take the earliest possible opportunity to present them. At the
motion of Hawes twenty thousand
extra copies of the Message and Correspondence were ordered to be
printed— The call for Petitions was then resumed— When the turn of
Massachusetts came, I presented first a petition from sundry persons,
sent to me under a blank cover, praying for the construction of a
Harbour, at the Mouth of the river St.
Joseph in the Territory of Michigan which was referred to the Committee
of Commerce— Then a Petition from 366 inhabitants of Weymouth in my own
Congressional District praying for the abolition of Slavery and the
Slave trade in the District of Columbia— Hammond of South Carolina interrupted me and moved that
the Petition be not received— He had no right to interrupt me and the
Speaker said I was entitled to the floor— Pinckney of South-Carolina then intreated me to allow a
motion to postpone the question of the receipt of the Petition, so that
the reception of other Petitions might have free course this day to
which I consented, and for which he thanked me. The question of
reception 167was then postponed, and I presented
another petition to the same effect of 158 Ladies, Citizens of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts for I said I had not yet brought myself to
doubt whether females were Citizens— The question upon the reception of
this Petition was also postponed— A great number of other Petitions with
the same prayer were presented by many members; and all were postponed
on motions of Hammond that they should not be received and by a new
motion by Gideon Lee of New-York
that the motion not to receive be laid on the table— The Speaker varied
the manner of putting the question, some time that it should not be, and
sometimes whether it should be received, and finally put it upon the
preliminary question; which he has decided is debateable; but that a
motion to lay it on the table is in order and that is not debatable—
M’Kennan of Pennsylvania on
presenting an abolition petition moved its reference to a select
Committee; and upon the motion to lay that motion on the table, called
for the yeas and nays— Wise moved a
call of the House which was refused—the yeas and nays for laying on the
table were 177 to 37. and I was obliged to vote with the affirmatives,
by the consent I had given that the petitions presented by me should be
so disposed of— The States and territories were all called through for
Petitions, and Resolutions from the Legislature of Indiana were
presented instructing their Senators and requesting their
Representatives to vote against the admission of Michigan into the
Union, unless they agree to the boundary line claimed by Ohio— I wasted
part of this Evening in reading part of the Dissertation N. upon the
Congress of Nations, in writing eight lines for Miss Seely’s Album, and in useless
reflections upon irremediable evils.