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.
- Williams Thomas C.
- Sayles
- Livermore
- Lambert.
- Hughes Christopher
- Laird F. H. L
- Radcliff William
- M
rsThornton - M
rsTalbot - Mary Talbot—
Mr Thomas C
Williams came this morning, in behalf of his brother, who, he reminded me, was
here last Spring, a candidate for the appointment of Collector of the
Customs at Fall river, Massachusetts. The Office was not then vacant—
Phineas W. Leland was, and
yet is the incumbent; but his term of four years expires on the last day
of this month, and Mr Seth Williams renews
his application for the appointment— Messrs.
Sayles and Livermore of Boston and Mr Lambert of New-York, are
agents and delegates here from the woolen manufacturers of the North—
They came to consult and ask aid of me for that interest upon the
expected revisal of the Tariff— They were especially anxious to know my
opinion of the prospects of the manufactures before Congress at the
present Session. I could give them but cold comfort, and told them that
I had requested to be relieved from the Office of chairman of the
Committee of manufactures, after ten years of service in it, absolutely
despairing of the possibility of doing any good by continuing in it— And
I had no hope that any effective tariff either for protection or for
revenue, would be adopted by Congress at this Session— They said they
were not satisfied with the rate of duty upon broad cloths, proposed
either by the Bill of the Secretary of the
Treasury or by that of Mr Saltonstall—but the
duty which they would prefer would be of 75 cents the square yard—taking
the average of the price of the article at 3 dollars a square
yard—equivalent to 25 per cent ad valorem. At the house immediately
after the reading of the Journal Fillmore moved to go into Committee of the whole on the
state of the Union— Carried without a struggle, and the Navy
Appropriation Bill was taken up, and debated by M’Kay, Fillmore, Gwin and M’Keon till one O’Clock, when the question was taken on
Everett’s amendment to
M’Lellan’s amendment and
lost—and on M’Lellan’s amendment which was carried—sundry other
senseless amendments were offered and lost and the bill was reported to
the house— There Meriwether’s
amendment was carried by yeas and nays 112 to 89. and M’Lellan’s 100. to
94.— The bill passed by a vote of 171 to 36. I was just then called out
to speak to C. Hughes and on
returning to my seat found the house again in Committee of the whole on
the state of the Union, Underwood in the Chair upon the Bill, for the appointment
of a board to revise the rules and regulations for the navy, which after
debate was at my instance changed to a Resolution calling on the
Secretary of the Navy and
Attorney-General to prepare and
report such a plan to the House at the next Session— Army Appropriation
Bill— Committee rose. House adjourned. C Hughes—W. Radcliff—Mrs
Thornton
Mrs
Talbot and her
daughter.