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.
Sun rose 4.22. Set 7:39.
This was the day of the great celebration of the completion of the
monument on Bunker hill; and never since the existence of the three
hills was there such a concourse of strangers upon their sides as has
been assembled on the banks of “Majestic Charles” this day— What a name
in the annals of mankind is Bunker hill?— What a day, was the 17th. of June 1775? and what a burlesque upon
them both is an oration upon them by Daniel Webster, and a pilgrimage of John Tyler and his Cabinet of
Slave-drivers, to desecrate the solemnity by their presence! And then a
dinner at Faneuil Hall in honour of a President of the United States
hated and despised by those who invited him to it, themselves as
cordially hated and despised by him. I have throughout my life had an
utter aversion to all pageants, and public dinners, and never attended
one, when I could decently avoid it— I was a student at Cambridge when
on the 17th. of June 1786. Charles river
bridge was opened— The colleges were emptied on that day of the Students
who flocked to witness the procession and the pageant— I passed the day
in the solitude of my Study, and dined almost alone in the Hall. I had
then no special motive for my absence— But now with the ideal
association of the thundering cannon which I heard and the smoke of
burning Charlestown which I saw on that awful day, combined with this
Pyramid of Quincy granite, and Daniel Webster spouting with a negro holding an umbrella over his
head, and John Tyler’s nose with a shadow outstreching that of
the monumental column; how could I have witnessed all this at once
without an unbecoming burst of indignation or of laughter? Daniel
Webster is a heartless traitor to the cause of human freedom. John Tyler
is a Slave-monger—what have these to do with the Quincy granite pyramid
on the brow of Bunker’s hill?— What have these to do, with a dinner in
Faneuil hall, but to swill like swine and grunt about the rights of
man?— I stayed at home and visited my seedling trees; and heard the
cannonades of the rising, the meridian and the setting Sun—and answered
a Letter from the Revd. Joseph Emerson dated at
New-London Connecticut making enquiries about a translation of Voltaire’s philosophical
dictionary, published under the name of John Quincy Adams, and secretly
circulating as he says, about the country, as my work— I saw the Sun set
from the front of Charles’s
house, at the extremity of his northwestern declination, and as I heard
the cannonade salute of the closing day, and saw the smoke ascending
from the side of the pyramid, the top of which was full in view; then
came in forcible impulse to my memory the cannonade, and the smoke and
the fire of the 17th. of June 1775— I waited
to see the revolving fire of the Boston Light house kindled, and then
returned to my peaceful home