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.
Caldwell.— I was roused as daylight came on by the consultations of a
tribe of Swallows nested on the edges of the roof of the portico
fronting the east under my open chamber-window, who made a noise equal
to that of the hum of men, on the royal exchange at London— I saw the
Sun-rise, partially beclouded, over the mountain forests beyond Lake
George We breakfasted at the lake-house kept by Mr Shirrell, and embarked, at a
landing at the foot of the garden before the house— We parted from the
landing, and shortly before noon at the head of Lake George, where it is
connected by a small brook with Lake Champlain— We rode in Carriages,
between two and three miles, to the ruins of the fort of Ticonderoga;
but on alighting to survey them were overtaken by a heavy shower, which
drove us from the ruined walls to an adjoining hotel where we stop’d and
dined— Lake George is 34 miles long, and at two or three places from
three to four miles wide; but on the average not more than one— Its
course is between two ranges of lofty mountains, ascending from the
border of the lake from 1200 to 2500 feet, covered with dark forests of
Oak and pine, but of trees neither remarkable for height or
circumference— On the sides of many of the mountains, there are frequent
spaces of precipices of 150 or 200 feet perpendicular like the wall of a
house or a fortress, some of them extending 800 or a thousand feet long
of solid rock—and there are several hundred, they say 365 islands
interspersed in wild confusion and infinite variety of form from one end
of the lake to the other. Some of them have fanciful names—others, of
their distance from the head of the lake, as 5 mile and 12 mile islands;
and others from memorable incidents in the two struggles for the
conquest of Canada in the seven years war and the war of the revolution—
Of the fort of Ticonderoga, nothing but outer dilapidated walls remain—
Here we dined and judge Burnet, an
ardent whig and intelligent, well bred and well educated politician,
introduced himself and several others to me and dined with us— At 3.
O’Clock the Steamer Whitehall came and took us up at the landing— This
was the lake Champlain Boat, Captain
Lyon, of Burlington Vermont, substituted for the William
Caldwell which had transported us over Lake George— In the Whitehall I
metth Congress; and although I had then so
little personal acquaintance with him that I did not now remember him;
yet we now became very familiar with each other, and had much
conversation especially as he had now with him a very pretty little
daughter about 7 years old. He landed however this afternoon— Just at
Sunset we reached Burlington in the State of Vermont, where Mr Brooks
and Mr
Grinnell, with the two young Ladies
landed and took a ride round the town— I remained on board the boat
where several of the inhabitants of the town, came and urged me
earnestly to give them a day— Among them Heman Allen in the 23 and 24th Congresses and Mr Marsh, the nominated
candidate for the present Congress