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.
- Connell John
Germinating weather— Mr Thornton the Minister of the
foundery methodist chapel preached this morning, at the second
Presbyterian church, for Mr Wood— His text was from 1.
John 2.1—[“]If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ, the righteous. 2. And he is the propitiation for our sins: and
not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” A regular
calvinistic discourse of the old presbyterian school— Jesus is here an
Advocate with the father; being himself the propitiation for the sins of
the whole world— But if he is the advocate how can he be the judge? and
if he is the judge how can he be the propitiation? The rigid calvinists
consider the atonement by the death of the man Christ Jesus, as the
vital part of Christianity, and that whoever disbelieves it is no
Christian.— It is an example of what the human mind may be brought to
believe as a creed in conflict with common sense— It is too absurd to
bear one ray of the Sunbeam concentrated through the burning glass of
reason— There is an atonement for sin by the blood of Christ, proclaimed
in the New Covenant, and largely set forth in the Epistles of Paul. But it is not the calvinistic creed— Mr Thornton urged with great earnestness that
repentance could of itself have any efficacy to obtain the pardon of
sin— But what is sin? Lucretia
Motte to convince me that nothing less than the immediate
abolition of Slavery could satisfy her, said to me—why ’tis a Sin! Now if it be a Sin, has it been atoned for
by the blood of Christ? and if it has been atoned for, what need is
there either for the abolition of Slavery, or for repentance to take
away the Sin? The most incomprehensible thing to me in the calvinistic
atonement is how the crucifixion of Jesus more than 1800 years ago,
could atone for all the sins of all mankind from that time forth till
the end of the world— Mr Thornton said he
had promised Mr Wood that he would see to
his pulpit’s being supplied during his absence— And as Bishop Waugh would preach for him at
the foundery chapel this morning, he had concluded to take Mr Wood’s place himself— After the service,
walking home I witnessed a greeting between Mr Thornton, and Mr Penrose of Pennsylvania the
new Solicitor of the Treasury.— They had been old acquaintance at
Carlisle— After dinner at St. John’s Church,
Mr
Hawley read the Evening prayer for the 5th. Sunday in Lent, and preached from Job
31.14. “What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth,
what shall I answer him?” Well was it for Mr
Hawley that with this verse he did not take the one immediately before
and the one immediately after it. Mr John Connell was here this
evening, much improved in Spirits; but he says the President is in great perplexity
about the appointment of a Collector of the Customs at Philadelphia— The
President has been yesterday and this day confined to his bed with a
vernal chill— I received this evening a Letter from Mr Lewis
Tappan of New-York and another from Messrs.
Jocelyn, Leavitt and Tappan the Committee for
the Amistad captives, which furnishes matter for much deliberation, and
deliberate meditation for me.