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.
- Mary E. E. Cutts
- Hawley Rev
d.William
Mr Gilbert
Livingston Thompson had called upon me yesterday, and
urgently requested me to bring before the Committee of foreign Affairs
the claims and complaints against the Commission of indemnities under
the convention of 1839 with Mexico.— The Commission expired last week
and left much of their business undone— I met the Committee of Foreign
Affairs at 10 this morning— All the members present—Adams, Cushing, Everett
Granger, E. D. White
Shepperd—Meriwether, Caruthers and Alexander H. H. Stuart.— There was
a Letter from the Secretary of
State, with an enclosure from David Porter, claiming extra-allowances, under another
name, for his son, which the 5th. auditor had rejected but
which the Secretary of State now acquiesces in— After some discussion
this claim was laid aside— The consideration of the report on Mrs
Meade’s claim was further postponed Dr
Baldwin’s memorial against the Mexican indemnity
commission, was then taken up, discussed, and postponed for future
consideration of what the Committee can do— I thought the chairman
should be directed to move in the house a call on the Department of
State for the proceedings of the Commission— But the Committee were for
not going so fast.— They thought it would be best to wait.— In the
house, Pendleton’s motion
to suspend the rules for his indignant resolution against dissolution
petitions, first came up and was lost for lack of a two thirds majority,
the vote being 104 to 65— Then followed attempts to introduce sundry
Resolutions, and after the remainder of the morning hour absorbed on the
retrenchment Committee’s report the house went into Committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, Briggs in the chair on the general appropriation Bill,
after two abortive attempts of Bidlack of Pennsylvania, to take up the apportionment
Bill. Garrett Davis with a
superabundant zeal for retrenchmen, grafted upon the Bill an amendment
to reduce the expense, and direct the mode of printing the Laws in
pamphlets and newspapers— The Chairman pronounced it not in order, as
surely it was not— But Davis appealed, and there was no quorum. The
Committee rose— A call of the house produced a Quorum. Briggs resumed
the Chair—debate followed till the Committee rose again and the house
adjourned— Miss Cutts was here this
evening—read 3 chapters of the Pickwick papers— Mr Hawley
here— Mr and Mrs Angier
went to the Drawing-room, which was splendid.— My wife is recovering.