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.
- Shriver Thomas
- Shepherd of Norfolk
- Rundle George
- Harlan Gen
l. - Stanly Edward and M
rs.
“From short as usual and disturb’d repose[”] I was up this morning at 4.
O’Clock, and after the final preparations for departure, My wife, my Son John’s widow Mary Catherine, her daughter Mary-Louisa, Walter Hellen, Mrs John Adams’s half brother, and Miss Mary, Estelle Elizabeth Cutts at
precisely six O’Clock took seats in the Rail-road Cars for Baltimore—
The weather warm but pleasant— Among our fellow travellers not more than
30. was Robert Tyler the President’s son, who cold spoke to the
Ladies with me, but upon enquiry of some one whether he had spoken to
me, answered no, because I had abused his father. Captain Tyler’s two
sons, are to him, what nephews have usually been to the Pope—and among
his minor vices is nepotism— He has quartered both of them upon the
public for salaries, and made old Cooper, the broken down stage-player, father of his Son
Robert’s wife, a military store
keeper—The son John was so
distended with his dignity as Secretary that he had engraved on his
visiting cards “John Tyler junr. Private and
confidential Secretary of his Excellency John Tyler, President of the
United States.[”] Robert is as confidential as John, and both of them
divulged all his cabinet secrets to a man named Parmelee and John Howard
Payne, hired Reporters for Bennett’s Herald Newspaper at New-York, who by their
intimacy with these upstart Prince, crept into the familiarity of
domestic inmates at the President’s House— In just two hours this
morning, we reached Baltimore, and with only the time for transferring
our baggage from the crate of the Washington to that of the Philadelphia
train, we were in the Cars moving on to Wilmington, Delaware— While I
was standing on the Gangway through which the train of Cars pass at
Baltimore, Thomas Shriver
President of the Good Intent Stage Company, for Wheeling and Pittsburgh,
accosted by none and with words of much kindness, put into my hand an
advertising card of the Pilot and Good Intent Lines, with the following
manuscript endorsement—“Please Hon. J. Q. Adams free over the National
Road to Wheeling or Pittsburg on the Ohio River, in either of our lines
of Stages, signed Thomas Shriver, Presidt.
Good Intent Stage company”— He was a stranger to me, but warmly urged me
to visit the western Country where he said I had multitudes of
enthusiastic friends. Vanitas vanitatum— At 1. P.M. we landed from the
Cars at Wilmington, and proceeded in the Steamer to Philadelphia. Walked
from the wharf to Jones’s Union
Hotel, Chesnut Street— I strolled for two hours about the City to find
Mr George
Rundle’s at 101. Rittenhouse place, 101. North side of
Locust street between 9 and 10. South— I left my bridge certificates at
his house, and he afterwards called on me— Evening with Mr and
Mrs Stanly, Mr Shepherd of Norfolk
and Genl
Harlan.