JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Over the years, members of the Adams family have served their country
well—as revolutionary leaders, Presidents, Cabinet and State Supreme Court
members, Ministers to foreign countries, legislators. John Quincy was the
second Adams to become President.
In 1824, no man was able to get a majority of votes in the Electoral
College, so the choice of a new President fell to the House of Representatives,
the lower house in the United States Congress. The House, despite popular
enthusiasm for Andrew Jackson, voted for the sound statesmanship of John Quincy
Adams.
Before becoming President, John Quincy Adams was probably the greatest
Secretary of State America ever had His training was without equal, for his
entire life was tied up with the beginnings of the American Republic. At the
age of seven, he and his mother, Abigail, watched the Revolutionary War battle
of Bunker Hill from a neighboring hill. He accompanied his father to Europe, on
two occasions; his early schooling took place in Pans, Leyden, Amsterdam,
Leipzig, London. When only fourteen, he became private secretary to the American
Minister to Russia. He studied Russian. French, German, Dutch, and Italian, as
well as Lszia and Greek. Serious as a youth, he soaked up knowledge everywhere.
When the Revotaboo ended, he accompanied his father to the peace-signing in
1783.
Young Adzms graduated from Harvard in two
years with high haaon. After three years of reading law, he esohfifed «Coes In
Boston at the age of twenty-three. Xexr. he wrote an excellent series of newspaper articles in answer to Thomas Paine’s “The Rights of Man.'
In 1794, the twenty-sevea-year-oki Adams was appointed by Radar Wathpn
to be American Afinas to HrihaLlVhca the aider Adams became President, he
hesitated to keep his own t in the foreign service. But George Washing- 1 wrote
him: “I give it as my decided opinion that Mr. [John Quincy] Adams is the most
valuable public character we have abroad. . . .” Not tül 1801, after his own
defeat for re-election, did President Adams order his son’s return from his
post in Prussia.
After Adams’ recall as Minister to Prussia, he was elected to the
Massachusetts Senate. There he was referred to by his party as “too
unmanageable.” He failed in a try for Congress; but in 1803 the State
Legislature sent him to the Senate in Washington. They discovered he was
“unmanageable” there too. If he thought it more in the kiterest of the nation
to vote Republican, he did so. When he voted for Jefferson’s embargo, the
politicians of his native state were so furious they named another man to
succeed him in office. Adams resigned, rather than finish his term under snch
conditions.
President Madison offered Adams a seat on the Supreme Court, but he
declined, feeling he was not fitted for such a post. But he did accept the
position of American Minister to Russia. He remained in Europe for almost eight
years, five of which were spent in the Russian capital.
John Quincy displayed brilliant reasoning power in securing an honorable
peace for America through the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812.
After the signing he was sent to London as American Minister. Soon after, he
reached the high point of his career as Secretary of State.
In this position he obtained Florida for the United States without loss
of American life or dignity. He also obtained agreement with England on joint
occupation of the Oregon country that led to America’s acquiring a claim to the
Pacific Northwest. Then followed the Monroe Doctrine.
The great Doctrine resulted from two outside threats. One was from
Russia, who wanted to extend her Alaskan possessions to rich, fur-trading
Oregon. The other was from the Holy Alliance— a group of European kings led by
the Russian Tsar who wanted to uphold monarchy and also help Spain recover her
lost colonies in Latin America. England, always struggling to keep the balance
of power on the Continent, became alarmed at the plans of the Holy Alliance to
use force in the newly-independent republics of Latin America. She feared that
Spain might turn over her old colonies to her long-time rival France. So the
clever British foreign minister, George Canning, proposed that the United
States and England unite in declaring a “hands off” policy in the Western
Hemisphere for all European powers. Monroe, supported by Jefferson and
Madison,presented Canning’s idea to his Cabinet. But John Quincy Adams realized
that England was concerned with her own security rather than the freedom of the
new republics. He insisted that, to preserve America’s reputation, the
declaration of policy must come from the United States alone. Thus, a proposal
originating with a British statesman became the basis of a policy that allowed
America to grow and develop without intervention from any country, including
England.
The Jackson forces, who disliked Adams and thought he had become
President through a “deal,” made his Administration more and more difficult. He
was finally defeated in 1828.
Adams became the first and only President to sit in Congress after
leaving the White House. He won his seat without conducting a campaign —a fixed
policy all his life in running for office. He was returned by his Plymouth
district, election after election. One day he fell ill in the House of
Representatives and was carried to the Speaker’s Room. Two days later, on
February 23, 1848, he died there.
Unfortunately, Nature seldom combines superior talents with winning
personal qualities. Like his father, John Quincy Adams did not attract people
to him. He was short and fat, and had an unpleasant voice. He was also very
critical of others. Interested in literature and the arts, he
was by nature a poor companion, a man who could not feel at ease with
others.
His nature was very much like that of the New England land from which he
came: forbidding, harsh and sometimes cold and unfriendly—yet, with it all,
solid and strong.
