John Quincy Adams ( (listen); July 11, 1767
– February 23, 1848) was an American statesman
who served as the sixth President of the United
States from 1825 to 1829.
He served as the eighth United States Secretary
of State immediately before becoming president.
During his long diplomatic and political career,
Adams also served as an ambassador, United
States Senator, and member of the United States
House of Representatives.
He was the eldest son of John Adams, who served
as president from 1797 to 1801.
Initially a Federalist like his father, he
won election to the presidency as a member
of the Democratic-Republican Party, and in
the mid-1830s became affiliated with the Whig
Party.
Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams spent
much of his youth in Europe, where his father
served as a diplomat.
After returning to the United States, Adams
established a successful legal practice in
Boston.
In 1794, President George Washington appointed
Adams as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands,
and Adams would serve in high-ranking diplomatic
posts until 1801, when Thomas Jefferson took
office as president.
Federalist leaders in Massachusetts arranged
for Adams's election to the United States
Senate in 1802, but Adams broke with the Federalist
Party over foreign policy and was denied re-election.
In 1809, Adams was appointed as the U.S. ambassador
to Russia by Democratic-Republican President
James Madison.
Adams held diplomatic posts for the duration
of Madison's presidency, and he served as
part of the American delegation that negotiated
an end to the War of 1812.
In 1817, newly-elected President James Monroe
selected Adams as his secretary of state.
In that role, Adams negotiated the Adams–Onís
Treaty, which provided for the American acquisition
of Florida.
He also helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine,
which became a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy.
The presidential election 1824 was contested
by Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford,
and Henry Clay, all of whom were members of
the Democratic-Republican Party.
As no candidate won a majority of the electoral
vote, the House of Representatives held a
contingent election to determine the president,
and Adams won that contingent election with
the support of Clay.
President Adams called for an ambitious agenda
that included federally-funded infrastructure
projects, the establishment of a national
university, and engagement with the countries
of Latin America, but many of his initiatives
were defeated in Congress.
During Adams's presidency, the Democratic-Republic
Party polarized into two major camps: one
group, known as the National Republican Party,
supported President Adams, while the other
group, known as the Democratic Party, was
led by Andrew Jackson.
The Democrats proved to be more effective
political organizers than Adams and his National
Republican supporters, and Jackson decisively
defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election.
Rather than retiring from public service,
Adams won election to the House of Representatives,
where he would serve from 1831 to his death
in 1848.
He joined the Anti-Masonic Party in the early
1830s before becoming a member of the Whig
Party, which united those opposed to President
Jackson.
During his time in Congress, Adams became
increasingly critical of slavery and of the
Southern leaders whom he believed controlled
the Democratic Party.
He was particularly opposed to the annexation
of Texas and the Mexican–American War, which
he saw as a war to extend slavery.
He also led the repeal of the "gag rule,"
which had prevented the House of Representatives
from debating petitions to abolish slavery.
Historians generally concur that Adams was
one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries
of state in American history, but they tend
to rank him as an average president.
== Early life, education, and early career
==
John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767,
to John and Abigail Adams (née Smith) in
a part of Braintree, Massachusetts that is
now Quincy.
He was named for his mother's maternal grandfather,
Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts,
is named.
Young Adams was educated by private tutors
– his cousin James Thaxter and his father's
law clerk, Nathan Rice.
He soon began to exhibit his literary skills,
and in 1779 he initiated a diary which he
kept until just before he died in 1848.
Until the age of ten, Adams grew up on the
family farm in Braintree, largely in the care
of his mother.
Though frequently absent due to his participation
in the American Revolution, John Adams maintained
a correspondence with his son, encouraging
him to read works by authors like Thucydides
and Hugo Grotius.
With his father's encouragement, Adams would
also translate classical authors like Virgil,
Horace, Plutarch, and Aristotle.In 1778, Adams
and his father departed for Europe, where
John Adams would serve as part of American
diplomatic missions in France and the Netherlands.
During this period, Adams studied French,
Greek, and Latin, and attended several schools,
including Leiden University.
In 1781, Adams traveled to Saint Petersburg,
Russia, where he served as the secretary of
American diplomat Francis Dana.
He returned to the Netherlands in 1783, and
accompanied his father to Great Britain in
1784.
Though Adams enjoyed Europe, he and his family
decided he needed to return to the United
States to complete his education and eventually
launch a political career.Adams returned to
the United States in 1785 and earned admission
as a member of the junior class of Harvard
College the following year.
He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and excelled
academically, graduating second in his class
in 1787.
After graduating from Harvard, he studied
law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport,
Massachusetts from 1787 to 1789.
Adams initially opposed the ratification of
the United States Constitution, but he ultimately
came to accept the document, and in 1789 his
father was elected as the first Vice President
of the United States.
In 1790, Adams opened his own legal practice
in Boston.
Despite some early struggles, he experienced
moderate success as an attorney and was able
to establish his financial independence from
his parents.
== Early political career (1793–1817) ==
=== Early diplomatic career and marriage ===
Adams initially avoided becoming directly
involved in politics, instead focusing on
building his legal career.
In 1791, he wrote a series of pseudonymously-published
essays in which he argued that Britain provided
a better governmental model than France.
Two years later, he published another series
of essays in which he attacked Edmond-Charles
Genêt, a French diplomat who sought to undermine
President George Washington's policy of neutrality
in the French Revolutionary Wars.
In 1794, Washington appointed Adams as the
U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands; Adams
considered declining the role but ultimately
took the position at the advice of his father.
While abroad, Adams continued to urge neutrality,
arguing that the United States would benefit
economically by staying out of the ongoing
French Revolutionary Wars.
His chief duty as the ambassador to the Netherlands
was to secure and maintain the loans that
were essential to U.S. finances.
On his way to the Netherlands, he met with
John Jay, who was then negotiating the Jay
Treaty with Great Britain.
Adams supported the Jay Treaty, but it proved
unpopular with many in the United States,
contributing to a growing partisan split between
the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton
and the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas
Jefferson.Adams spent the winter of 1795–1796
in London, where he met Louisa Catherine Johnson,
the second daughter of American merchant Joshua
Johnson.
In April 1796, Louisa accepted Adams's proposal
of marriage.
Adams's parents disapproved of his decision
to marry a woman who had grown up in England,
but he informed his parents that he would
not reconsider his decision.
Adams initially wanted to delay his wedding
to Louisa until he returned to the United
States, but they were married in All Hallows-by-the-Tower
in July 1797.
Shortly after the wedding, Joshua Johnson
fled England to escape his debtors, and Adams
did not receive the dowry that Johnson had
promised him, much to the embarrassment of
Louisa.
Nonetheless, Adams noted in his own diary
that he had no regrets about his decision
to marry Louisa.
In 1796, Washington appointed Adams as the
U.S. ambassador to Portugal.
Later in that same year, John Adams defeated
Jefferson in the 1796 presidential election.
When the elder Adams became president, he
appointed his son as the U.S. ambassador to
Prussia.
Though concerned that his appointment would
be criticized as nepotistic, Adams accepted
the position and traveled to the Prussian
capital of Berlin with his wife and his younger
brother, Thomas Boylston Adams.
The State Department charged Adams with developing
commercial relations with Prussia and Sweden,
but President Adams also asked his son to
write him frequently about affairs in Europe.
In 1799, Adams negotiated a new trade agreement
between the United States and Prussia, though
he was never able to complete an agreement
with Sweden.
He frequently wrote to family members in the
United States, and in 1801 his letters about
the Prussian region of Silesia were published
in a book titled Letters on Silesia.
In the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson
defeated John Adams, and both Adams left office
in early 1801.
=== Senator ===
On his return to the United States, Adams
re-established a legal practice in Boston,
and in April 1802 he was elected to the Massachusetts
Senate.
In November of that same year he ran unsuccessfully
for the United States House of Representatives.
In February 1803, the Massachusetts legislature
elected Adams to the United States Senate.
Though somewhat reluctant to affiliate with
any political party, Adams joined the Federalist
minority in Congress.
Like his Federalist colleagues, he opposed
the impeachment of Associate Justice Samuel
Chase, an outspoken supporter of the Federalist
Party.Adams had strongly opposed Jefferson's
1800 presidential candidacy, but he gradually
became alienated from the Federalist Party.
His disaffection was driven by the party's
declining popularity, disagreements over foreign
policy, and Adams's hostility to Timothy Pickering,
a Federalist Party leader whom Adams viewed
as overly favorable to Britain.
Unlike other New England Federalists, Adams
supported the Jefferson administration's Louisiana
Purchase and generally favored expansionist
policies.
Adams was the lone Federalist in Congress
to vote for the Non-importation Act of 1806,
which was designed to punish Britain for its
attacks on American shipping in the midst
of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars.
Adams became increasingly frustrated with
the unwillingness of other Federalists to
condemn British actions, including impressment,
and he moved closer to the Jefferson administration.
After Adams supported the Embargo Act of 1807,
the Federalist-controlled Massachusetts legislature
elected Adams's successor several months before
the end of his term, and Adams resigned from
the Senate shortly thereafter.While a member
of the Senate, Adams served as a professor
of logic at Brown University and as the Boylston
Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard
University.
Adams's devotion to classical rhetoric shaped
his response to public issues, and he would
remain inspired by those rhetorical ideals
long after the neo-classicalism and deferential
politics of the founding generation were eclipsed
by the commercial ethos and mass democracy
of the Jacksonian Era.
Many of Adams's idiosyncratic positions were
rooted in his abiding devotion to the Ciceronian
ideal of the citizen-orator "speaking well"
to promote the welfare of the polis.
He was also influenced by the classical republican
ideal of civic eloquence espoused by British
philosopher David Hume.
Adams adapted these classical republican ideals
of public oratory to the American debate,
viewing its multilevel political structure
as ripe for "the renaissance of Demosthenic
eloquence."
His Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory (1810)
looks at the fate of ancient oratory, the
necessity of liberty for it to flourish, and
its importance as a unifying element for a
new nation of diverse cultures and beliefs.
Just as civic eloquence failed to gain popularity
in Britain, in the United States interest
faded in the second decade of the 19th century,
as the "public spheres of heated oratory"
disappeared in favor of the private sphere.
=== Minister to Russia ===
After resigning from the Senate, Adams was
ostracized by Massachusetts Federalist leaders,
but he declined Democratic-Republican entreaties
to seek office.
In 1809, he argued before the Supreme Court
of the United States in the case of Fletcher
v. Peck, and the Supreme Court ultimately
agreed with Adams's argument that the Constitution's
Contract Clause prevented the state of Georgia
from invalidating a land sale to out-of-state
companies.
Later that year, President James Madison appointed
Adams as the first United States Minister
to Russia in 1809.
Though Adams had only recently broken with
the Federalist Party, his support of Jefferson's
foreign policy had earned him goodwill with
the Madison Administration.
Adams was well-qualified for the role after
his experiences in Europe generally and Russia
specifically.
After a difficult passage through the Baltic
Sea, Adams arrived in the Russian capital
of St. Petersburg in October 1809.
He quickly established a productive working
relationship with Russian official Nikolay
Rumyantsev, and eventually befriended Tsar
Alexander I of Russia.
Adams continued to favor American neutrality
between France and Britain in the midst of
the Napoleonic War.
Louisa was initially distraught at the prospect
of living in Russia, but she became a popular
figure at the Russian court.
From his diplomatic post, Adams observed the
French Emperor Napoleon's invasion of Russia,
which ended in defeat for the French.
In February 1811, Adams was nominated by President
Madison as an Associate Justice of the United
States Supreme Court.
The nomination was unanimously confirmed by
the Senate, but Adams declined appointment,
partly because he was reluctant to commit
to a career focused on law rather than politics
and diplomacy.
=== Treaty of Ghent and ambassador to Britain
===
Adams had long feared that the United States
would enter a war it could not win against
Britain, and by early 1812 he saw such a war
as inevitable due to the constant British
attacks on American shipping and the British
practice of impressment.
In mid-1812, the United States declared war
against Britain, beginning the War of 1812.
Tsar Alexander attempted to mediate the conflict
between Britain and the United States, and
President Madison appointed Adams, Secretary
of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, and Federalist
Senator James A. Bayard to a delegation charged
with negotiating an end to the war.
Gallatin and Bayard arrived in St. Petersburg
in July 1813, but the British declined Tsar
Alexander's officer of mediation.
Hoping to commence the negotiations at another
venue, Adams left Russia in April 1814.
Negotiations finally began in mid-1814 in
Ghent, where Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard were
joined by two additional American delegates,
Jonathan Russell and former Speaker of the
House Henry Clay.
Adams, the nominal head of the delegation,
got along well with Gallatin, Bayard, and
Russell, but he occasionally clashed with
Clay.The British delegation initially treated
the United States as a defeated power, demanding
the creation of an Indian barrier state from
American territory near the Great Lakes.
The American delegation unanimously rejected
this offer, and their negotiating position
was bolstered by the American victory in the
Battle of Plattsburgh.
By November 1814, the government of Lord Liverpool
decided to seek an end to hostilities with
the U.S. on the basis of status quo ante bellum.
Adams and his fellow commissioners had hoped
for similar terms, despite the fact that a
return to the status quo would mean the continuation
of British practice of impressment.
The treaty was signed on December 24, 1814.
The United States did not gain any concessions
from the treaty, but could boast that it had
survived a war against the strongest power
in the world.
Following the signing of the treaty, Adams
traveled to Paris, where he witnessed first-hand
the Hundred Days of Napoleon's restoration.In
May 1815, Adams learned that President Madison
had appointed him as the U.S. ambassador to
Britain.
With the aid of Clay and Gallatin, Adams negotiated
a limited trade agreement with Britain.
Following the conclusion of the trade agreement,
much of Adams's time as ambassador was spent
helping stranded American sailors and prisoners
of war.
In pursuit of national unity, newly-elected
President James Monroe decided a Northerner
would be optimal for the position of Secretary
of State, and he chose the respected and experienced
Adams for the role.
Having spent several years in Europe, Adams
returned to the United States in August 1817.
== Secretary of State (1817–1825) ==
Adams served as Secretary of State throughout
Monroe's eight-year presidency, from 1817
to 1825.
Taking office in the aftermath of the War
of 1812, Adams thought that the country had
been fortunate in avoiding territorial losses,
and he prioritized avoiding another war with
a European power, particularly Britain.
He also sought to avoid exacerbating sectional
tensions, which had been a major issue for
the country during the War of 1812.
One of the major challenges confronting Adams
was how to respond to the power vacuum in
Latin America that arose from Spain's weakness
following the Peninsular War.
In addition to his foreign policy role, Adams
held several domestic duties, including overseeing
the 1820 Census.Monroe and Adams agreed on
most of the major foreign policy issues: both
favored neutrality in the Latin American wars
of independence, peace with Great Britain,
denial of a trade agreement with the French,
and expansion, peacefully if possible, into
the North American territories of the Spanish
Empire.
The president and his secretary of state developed
a strong working relationship, and while Adams
often influenced Monroe's policies, he respected
that Monroe made the final decisions on major
issues.
Monroe met regularly with his five-person
cabinet, which initially consisted of Adams,
Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford,
Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Secretary
of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield, and Attorney
General William Wirt.
Adams developed a strong respect for Calhoun,
but believed that Crawford was unduly focused
on succeeding Monroe in 1824.During his time
as ambassador to Britain, Adams had begun
negotiations over several contentious issues
that had not been solved by the War of 1812
or the Treaty of Ghent.
In 1817, the two countries agreed to the Rush–Bagot
Treaty, which limited naval armaments on the
Great Lakes.
Negotiations between the two powers continued,
resulting in the Treaty of 1818, which defined
the Canada–United States border west of
the Great Lakes.
The boundary was set at the 49th parallel
to the Rocky Mountains, while the territory
to the west of the mountains, known as Oregon
Country, would be jointly occupied.
The agreement represented a turning point
in United Kingdom–United States relations,
as the U.S. turned its attention to its southern
and western borders and British fears over
American expansionism waned.
=== Adams–Onís Treaty ===
When Adams took office, Spanish possessions
bordered the United States to the South and
West.
In the South, Spain retained control of Florida,
which the U.S. had long sought to purchase.
Spain struggled to control the Native American
tribes active in Florida, and some of those
tribes raided U.S. territory.
In the West, New Spain bordered the territory
acquired by the U.S. in the Louisiana Purchase,
but no clear boundary had been established
between U.S. and Spanish territory.
After taking office, Adams began negotiations
with Luis de Onís, the Spanish minister to
the United States, for the purchase of Florida
and the settlement of a border between the
U.S. and New Spain.
The negotiations were interrupted by an escalation
of the Seminole War, and in December 1818
Monroe ordered General Andrew Jackson to enter
Florida and retaliate against Seminoles that
had raided Georgia.
Exceeding his orders, Jackson captured the
Spanish outposts of St. Marks and Pensacola
and executed two Englishmen.
While the rest of the cabinet was outraged
by Jackson's actions, Adams defended them
as necessary to the country's self-defense,
and he eventually convinced Monroe and most
of the cabinet to support Jackson.
Adams informed Spain that Jackson had been
compelled to act by Spain's failure to police
its own territory, and he advised Spain to
either secure the region or sell it to the
United States.
The British, meanwhile, declined to risk their
recent rapprochement with the United States,
and did not make a major diplomatic issue
out of Jackson's execution of two British
nationals.Negotiations between Spain and the
United States continued, and Spain agreed
to cede Florida.
The determination of the western boundary
of the United States proved more difficult.
American expansionists favored setting the
border at the Rio Grande River, but Spain,
intent on protecting its colony of Mexico
from American encroachment, insisted on setting
the boundary at the Sabine River.
At Monroe's direction, Adams agreed to the
Sabine River boundary, but he insisted that
Spain cede its claims on Oregon Country.
Adams was deeply interested in establishing
American control over the Oregon Country,
partly because he believed that control of
that region would spur trade with Asia.
The acquisition of Spanish claims to the Pacific
Northwest also allowed the Monroe administration
to pair the acquisition of Florida, which
was chiefly sought by Southerners.
with territorial gains favored primarily by
those in the North.
After extended negotiations, Spain and the
United States agreed to the Adams–Onís
Treaty, which was ratified in February 1821.
Adams was deeply proud of the treaty, though
he privately was concerned by the potential
expansion of slavery into the newly-acquired
territories.
In 1824, the Monroe administration would further
bolster U.S. claims to Oregon by reaching
the Russo-American Treaty of 1824, which set
the southern border of Russian Alaska at the
parallel 54°40′ north.
=== Monroe Doctrine ===
As the Spanish Empire continued to fracture
during Monroe's second term, Adams and Monroe
became increasingly concerned that the "Holy
Alliance" of Prussia, Austria, and Russia
would seek to bring Spain's erstwhile colonies
under their control.
In 1822, following the conclusion of the Adams–Onís
Treaty, the Monroe administration recognized
the independence of several Latin American
countries, including Argentina and Mexico.
In 1823, British Foreign Secretary George
Canning suggested that the U.S. and Britain
should work together to preserve the independence
of these fledgling republics.
The cabinet debated whether or not to accept
the offer, but Adams opposed it.
Instead, Adams urged Monroe to publicly declare
U.S. opposition to any European attempt to
colonize or re-take control of territory in
the Americas, while also committing the U.S.
to neutrality with respect to European affairs.
In his December 1823 annual message to Congress,
Monroe laid out the Monroe Doctrine, which
was largely built upon Adams's ideas.
In issuing the Monroe Doctrine, the United
States displayed a new level of assertiveness
in international relations, as the doctrine
represented the country's first claim to a
sphere of influence.
It also marked the country's shift in psychological
orientation away from Europe and towards the
Americas.
Debates over foreign policy would no longer
center on relations with Britain and France,
but would instead focus on western expansion
and relations with Native Americans.
The doctrine became one of the foundational
principles of U.S. foreign policy.
== 1824 presidential election ==
Immediately upon becoming Secretary of State,
Adams emerged as one of Monroe's most likely
successors, as the last three presidents had
all served in the role at some point before
taking office.
As the 1824 election approached, Henry Clay,
John C. Calhoun (who later dropped out of
the race), and William H. Crawford appeared
to be Adams's primary competition to succeed
Monroe.
Crawford favored state sovereignty and a strict
constructionist view of the Constitution,
while Clay, Calhoun, and Adams embraced federally-funded
internal improvements, high tariffs, and the
Second Bank of the United States, which was
also known as the national bank.
Because the Federalist Party had nearly collapsed
in the aftermath of the War of 1812, all of
the major presidential candidates were members
of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Adams felt that his own election as president
would vindicate his father, while also allowing
him to pursue an ambitious domestic policy.
Though he lacked the charisma of his competitors,
Adams was widely respected and benefited from
the lack of other prominent Northern political
leaders.Adams's top choice for the role of
vice president was General Andrew Jackson;
Adams noted that "the Vice-Presidency was
a station in which [Jackson] could hang no
one, and in which he would need to quarrel
with no one."
However, as the 1824 election approached,
Jackson jumped into the race for president.
While the other candidates based their candidacies
on their long tenure as congressmen, ambassadors,
or members of the cabinet, Jackson's appeal
rested on his military service, especially
in the Battle of New Orleans.
The congressional nominating caucus had decided
upon previous Democratic-Republican presidential
nominees, but it had become largely discredited
by 1824.
Candidates were instead nominated by state
legislatures or nominating conventions, and
Adams received the endorsement of the New
England legislatures.
The regional strength of each candidate played
an important role in the election; Adams was
popular in New England, Clay and Jackson were
strong in the West, and Jackson and Crawford
competed for the South.
In the 1824 presidential election, Jackson
won a plurality in the Electoral College,
taking 99 of the 261 electoral votes, while
Adams won 84, Crawford won 41, and Clay took
37.
Calhoun, meanwhile, won a majority of the
electoral vote for vice president.
Adams nearly swept the electoral votes of
New England and won a majority of the electoral
vote in New York, but he won a total of just
six electoral votes from the slave states.
Most of Jackson's support came from slave-holding
states, but he also won New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and some electoral votes from the Northwest.
As no candidate won a majority of the electoral
vote, the House was required to hold contingent
election under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment.
The House would decide among the top three
electoral vote winners, with each state's
delegation having one vote; thus, unlike his
three rivals, Clay was not eligible to be
elected by the House.Adams knew that his own
victory in the contingent election would require
the support of Clay, who wielded immense influence
in the House of Representatives.
Though they were quite different in temperament
and had clashed in the past, Adams and Clay
shared similar views on national issues.
By contrast, Clay viewed Jackson as a dangerous
demagogue, and he was unwilling to support
Crawford due to the latter's health issues.
Adams and Clay met prior to the contingent
election, and Clay agreed to support Adams
in the election.
Adams also met with Federalists like Daniel
Webster, promising that he would not deny
governmental positions to members of their
party.
On February 9, 1825, Adams won the contingent
election on the first ballot, taking 13 of
the 24 state delegations.
Adams won the House delegations of all the
states in which he or Clay had won a majority
of the electoral votes, as well as the delegations
of Illinois, Louisiana, and Maryland.
Adams's victory made him the first child of
a president to serve as president himself.
After the election, many of Jackson's supporters
claimed that Adams and Clay had reached a
"Corrupt Bargain" in which Adams promised
Clay the position of Secretary of State in
return for Clay's support.
== Presidency (1825–1829) ==
=== Inauguration ===
Adams was inaugurated on March 4, 1825.
He took the oath of office on a book of constitutional
law, instead of the more traditional Bible.
In his inaugural address, he adopted a post-partisan
tone, promising that he would avoid party-building
and politically-motivated appointments.
He also proposed an elaborate program of "internal
improvements": roads, ports, and canals.
Though some worried about the constitutionality
of such federal projects, Adams argued that
the General Welfare Clause provided for broad
constitutional authority.
While his predecessors had engaged in projects
like the building of the National Road, Adams
promised that he would ask Congress to authorize
many more such projects.
=== Administration ===
Adams presided over a harmonious and productive
cabinet that he met with on a weekly basis.
Like Monroe, Adams sought a geographically-balanced
cabinet that would represent the various party
factions, and he asked the members of the
Monroe cabinet to remain in place for his
own administration.
Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey stayed on
as Secretary of the Navy, William Wirt kept
his post of Attorney General, and John McLean
of Ohio continued to serve as the Postmaster
General, an important position that was not
part of the cabinet.
Adams's first choices for Secretary of War
and Secretary of the Treasury were Andrew
Jackson and William Crawford, respectively,
but each declined to serve in the administration.
Adams instead selected James Barbour of Virginia,
a prominent supporter of Crawford, to lead
the War Department.
Leadership of the Treasury Department went
to Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, who would
become a prominent advocate of internal improvements
and protective tariffs within the administration.
Adams chose Henry Clay as Secretary of State,
angering those who believed that Clay had
offered his support in the 1824 election for
the most prestigious position in the cabinet.
Though Clay would later regret accepting the
position since it reinforced the "Corrupt
Bargain" accusation, Clay's strength in the
West and interest in foreign policy made him
a natural choice for the top cabinet position.
=== Domestic affairs ===
==== Ambitious agenda ====
In his 1825 annual message to Congress, Adams
presented a comprehensive and ambitious agenda.
He called for major investments in internal
improvements as well as the creation of a
national university, a naval academy, and
a national astronomical observatory.
Noting the healthy status of the treasury
and the possibility for more revenue via land
sales, Adams argued for the completion of
several projects that were in various stages
of construction or planning, including a road
from Washington to New Orleans.
He also proposed the establishment of a Department
of the Interior as a new cabinet-level department
that would preside over these internal improvements.
Adams hoped to fund these measures primarily
through Western land sales, rather than increased
taxes or public debt.
The domestic agenda of Adams and Clay, which
would come to be known as the American System,
was designed to unite disparate regional interests
in the promotion of a thriving national economy.Adams's
programs faced opposition from various quarters.
Many disagreed with his broad interpretation
of the constitution and preferred that power
be concentrated in state governments rather
than the federal government.
Others disliked interference from any level
of government and were opposed to central
planning.
Some in the South feared that Adams was secretly
an abolitionist and that he sought to suborn
the states to the federal government.
Most of the president's proposals were defeated
in Congress.
Adams's ideas for a national university, national
observatory, and the establishment of a uniform
system of weights and measures never received
congressional votes.
His proposal for the creation of a naval academy
won the approval of the Senate, but was defeated
in the House; opponents objected to the naval
academy's cost and worried that the establishment
of such an institution would "produce degeneracy
and corruption of the public morality."
Adams's proposal to establish a national bankruptcy
law was also defeated.
Unlike other aspects of his domestic agenda,
Adams won congressional approval for several
ambitious infrastructure projects.
Between 1824 and 1828, the United States Army
Corps of Engineers conducted surveys for a
bevy of potential roads, canals, railroads,
and improvements in river navigation.
Adams presided over major repairs and further
construction on the National Road, and shortly
after he left office the National Road extended
from Cumberland, Maryland to Zanesville, Ohio.
The Adams administration also saw the beginning
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; the construction
of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and the
Louisville and Portland Canal around the falls
of the Ohio; the connection of the Great Lakes
to the Ohio River system in Ohio and Indiana;
and the enlargement and rebuilding of the
Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina.
Additionally, the first passenger railroad
in the United States, the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, was constructed during Adams's presidency.
Though many of these projects were undertaken
by private actors, the government often provided
money or land to aid the completion of such
projects.
=== Formation of political parties ===
In the immediate aftermath of the 1825 contingent
election, Jackson was gracious to Adams.
Nevertheless, Adams's appointment of Clay
rankled Jackson, who received a flood of letters
encouraging him to run.
In 1825, Jackson accepted the presidential
nomination of the Tennessee legislature's
for the 1828 election.
Though he had been close with Adams during
Monroe's presidency, Vice President Calhoun
was also politically alienated from the president
by the appointment of Clay, since that appointment
established Clay as the natural heir to Adams.
Adams's ambitious December 1825 annual message
to Congress further galvanized the opposition,
with important figures such as Francis Preston
Blair of Kentucky and Thomas Hart Benton of
Missouri breaking with the Adams administration.
By the end of the first session of the 19th
United States Congress, an anti-Adams congressional
coalition consisting of Jacksonians (led by
Benton and Hugh Lawson White), Crawfordites
(led by Martin Van Buren and Nathaniel Macon),
and Calhounites (led by Robert Y.
Hayne and George McDuffie) had emerged.
Aside from Clay, Adams lacked strong supporters
outside of the North, and Edward Everett,
John Taylor, and Daniel Webster served as
his strongest advocates in Congress.
Supporters of Adams began calling themselves
National Republicans, while supporters of
Jackson began calling themselves Democrats.
In the press, they were often described as
"Adams Men" and "Jackson Men."In the 1826
elections, Adams's opponents picked up seats
throughout the country, as allies of Adams
failed to coordinate among themselves.
Pro-Adams Speaker of the House John Taylor
was replaced by Andrew Stevenson, a Jackson
supporter; as Adams himself noted, the U.S.
had never before seen a Congress that was
firmly under the control of political opponents
of the president.
After the elections, Van Buren and Calhoun
agreed to throw their support behind Jackson
in 1828, with Van Buren bringing along many
of Crawford's supporters.
Though Jackson did not articulate a detailed
political platform in the same way that Adams
did, his coalition was united in opposition
to Adams's reliance on government planning.
Adams, meanwhile, clung to the hope of a non-partisan
nation, and he refused to make full use of
the power of patronage to build up his own
party structure.
==== Tariff of 1828 ====
During the first half of his administration,
Adams avoided taking a strong stand on tariffs,
partly because he wanted to avoid alienating
his allies in the South and New England.
After Jacksonians took power in 1827, they
devised a tariff bill designed to appeal to
Western states while instituting high rates
on imported materials important to the economy
of New England.
It is unclear whether Van Buren, who shepherded
the bill through Congress, meant for the bill
to pass, or if he had deliberately designed
it in such a way that would force Adams and
his allies to oppose it.
Regardless, Adams signed the Tariff of 1828,
which became known as the "Tariff of Abominations"
by opponents.
Adams was denounced in the South, but he received
little credit for the tariff in the North.
==== Indian policy ====
Adams sought the gradual assimilation of Native
Americans via consensual agreements, a priority
shared by few whites in the 1820s.
Yet Adams was also deeply committed to the
westward expansion of the United States.
Settlers on the frontier, who were constantly
seeking to move westward, cried for a more
expansionist policy that disregarded the concerns
of Native Americans.
Early in his term, Adams suspended the Treaty
of Indian Springs after learning that the
Governor of Georgia, George Troup, had forced
the treaty on the Muscogee.
Adams signed a new treaty with the Muskogee
in January 1826 that allowed the Muskogee
to stay but ceded most of their land to Georgia.
Troup refused to accept its terms, and authorized
all Georgian citizens to evict the Muscogee.
A showdown between Georgia and the state government
was only averted after the Muscogee agreed
to a third treaty.
Though many saw Troup as unreasonable in his
dealings with the federal government and the
Native Americas, the administration's handling
of the incident alienated those in the Deep
South who favored immediate Indian removal.
=== Foreign affairs ===
==== Trade and claims ====
One of the major foreign policy goals of the
Adams administration was the expansion of
American trade.
His administration reached reciprocity treaties
with a number of nations, including Denmark,
the Hanseatic League, the Scandinavian countries,
Prussia, and the Federal Republic of Central
America.
The administration also reached commercial
agreements with the Kingdom of Hawaii and
the Kingdom of Tahiti.
Agreements with Denmark and Sweden opened
their colonies to American trade, but Adams
was especially focused on opening trade with
the British West Indies.
The United States had reached a commercial
agreement with Britain in 1815, but that agreement
excluded British possessions in the Western
Hemisphere.
In response to U.S. pressure, the British
had begun to allow a limited amount of American
imports to the West Indies in 1823, but U.S.
leaders continued to seek an end to Britain's
protective Imperial Preference system.
In 1825, Britain banned U.S. trade with the
British West Indies, dealing a blow to Adams's
prestige.
The Adams administration negotiated extensively
with the British to lift this ban, but the
two sides were unable to come to an agreement.
Despite the loss of trade with the British
West Indies, the other commercial agreements
secured by Adams helped expand overall volume
of U.S. exports.
==== Latin America ====
With the exception of an unsuccessful attempt
to purchase Texas from Mexico, President Adams
did not seek to expand into Latin America
or North America.
Adams and Clay instead sought engagement with
Latin America in order to prevent it from
falling under the British Empire's economic
influence.
As part of this goal, the administration favored
sending a U.S. delegation to the Congress
of Panama, an 1826 conference of New World
republics organized by Simón Bolívar.
Clay and Adams hoped that the conference would
inaugurate a "Good Neighborhood Policy" among
the independent states of the Americas.
However, the funding for a delegation and
the confirmation of delegation nominees became
entangled in a political battle over Adams's
domestic policies, with opponents such as
Van Buren impeding the process of confirming
a delegation.
Van Buren saw the Panama Congress as an unwelcome
deviation from the more isolationist foreign
policy established by President Washington,
while many Southerners opposed involvement
with any conference attended by delegates
of Haiti, a republic that had been established
through a slave revolt.
Though the U.S. delegation finally won confirmation
from the Senate, it never reached the Congress
of Panama due to the Senate's delay.
=== 1828 presidential election ===
The Jacksonians formed an effective party
apparatus that adopted many modern campaign
techniques.
Rather than focusing on issues, they emphasized
Jackson's popularity and the supposed corruption
of Adams and the federal government.
Jackson himself described the campaign as
a "struggle between the virtue of the people
and executive patronage."
Adams, meanwhile, refused to adapt to the
new reality of political campaigns, and he
avoided public functions and refused to invest
in pro-administration tools such as newspapers.
In early 1827, Jackson was publicly accused
of having encouraged his wife, Rachel, to
desert her first husband.
In response, followers of Jackson attacked
Adams's personal life, and the campaign turned
increasingly nasty.
The Jacksonian press portrayed Adams as an
out-of-touch elitist, while pro-Adams newspapers
attacked Jackson's past involvement in various
duels and scuffles, portraying him as too
emotional and impetuous for the presidency.
Though Adams and Clay had hoped that the campaign
would focus on the American System, it was
instead dominated by personalities of Jackson
and Adams.Vice President Calhoun joined Jackson's
ticket, while Adams turned to Secretary of
the Treasury Richard Rush as his running mate.
The 1828 election thus marked the first time
in U.S. history that a presidential ticket
composed of two Northerners faced off against
a presidential ticket composed of two Southerners.
In the election, Jackson won 178 of the 261
electoral votes and just under 56 percent
of the popular vote.
Jackson won 50.3 percent of the popular vote
in the free states, but 72.6 percent of the
vote in the slave states.
No future presidential candidate would match
Jackson's proportion of the popular vote until
Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 campaign, while
Adams's loss made him the second one-term
president, after his own father.
By 1828, only two states did not hold a popular
vote for president, and the total number of
votes in 1828 election was triple the number
of votes in the 1824 election.
This increase in votes was due not only to
the recent wave of democratization, but also
because of increased interest in elections
and the growing ability of the parties to
mobilize voters.
== Later congressional career (1830–1848)
==
=== Jackson administration, 1830–1836 ===
Adams considered permanently retiring from
public life after his 1828 defeat, and he
was deeply hurt by the suicide of his son,
George Washington Adams, in 1829.
He was appalled by many of the Jackson administration's
actions, including its embrace of the spoils
system.
Though they had once maintained a cordial
relationship, Adams and Jackson each came
to loathe the other in the decades after the
1828 election.
Adams grew bored of his retirement and still
felt that his career was unfinished, so he
ran for and won a seat in the United States
House of Representatives in the 1830 elections.
His election went against the generally held
opinion, shared by his own wife and youngest
son, that former presidents should not run
for public office.
Nonetheless, he would win election to nine
terms, serving from 1831 until his death in
1848.
Adams and Andrew Johnson are the only former
presidents to serve in Congress.
After winning election, Adams became affiliated
with the Anti-Masonic Party, partly because
the National Republican Party's leadership
in Massachusetts included many of the former
Federalists that Adams had clashed with earlier
in his career.
The Anti-Masonic Party originated as a movement
against Freemasonry, but it developed into
the country's first third party and embraced
a general program of anti-elitism.Returning
to Washington at the age of sixty-four, Adams
expected a light workload, but Speaker Andrew
Stevenson selected Adams chairman of the Committee
on Commerce and Manufactures.
Though he identified as a member of the Anti-Masonic
Party, Congress was broadly polarized into
allies of Jackson and opponents of Jackson,
and Adams generally aligned with the latter
camp.
Stevenson, an ally of Jackson, expected that
the committee chairmanship would keep Adams
busy defending the tariff even while the Jacksonian
majority on the committee would prevent Adams
from accruing any real power.
As chairman of the committee charged with
writing tariff laws, Adams became an important
player in the Nullification Crisis, which
stemmed largely from Southern objections to
the high tariff rates imposed by the Tariff
of 1828.
South Carolina leaders argued that states
could nullify federal laws, and they announced
that the federal government would be barred
from enforcing the tariff in their state.
Adams led passage of the Tariff of 1832, which
lowered rates somewhat, but not enough to
mollify the South Carolina nullifiers.
The crisis was ended when Clay and Calhoun
agreed to another tariff bill, the Tariff
of 1833, that furthered lower tariff rates.
Adams was appalled by the Nullification Crisis's
outcome, as he felt that the Southern states
had unfairly benefited from challenging federal
law.
After the crisis, Adams increasingly came
to believe that Southerners exercised an undue
degree of influence over the federal government,
largely through their control of Jackson's
Democratic Party.The Anti-Masonic Party nominated
Adams in the 1833 Massachusetts gubernatorial
election in a four-way race between Adams,
the National Republican candidate, the Democratic
candidate, and a candidate of the Working
Men's Party.
The National Republican candidate, John Davis,
won 40% of the vote, while Adams finished
in second place with 29%.
Because no candidate won a majority of the
vote, the state legislature decided the election.
Rather than seek election by the legislature,
Adams withdrew his name from contention, and
the legislature selected Davis.
Adams was nearly elected to the Senate in
1835 by a coalition of Anti-Masons and National
Republicans, but his support for Jackson in
a minor foreign policy matter annoyed National
Republican leaders enough that they dropped
their support for his candidacy.
After 1835, Adams never again sought higher
office, focusing instead on his service in
the House of Representatives.
=== Van Buren and Tyler administrations, 1837–1843
===
In the mid-1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party,
the National Republicans, and other groups
opposed to Jackson coalesced into the Whig
Party.
In the 1836 presidential election Democrats
put forward Martin Van Buren, while the Whigs
fielded multiple presidential candidates.
As he disdained all of the major party contenders
for president, Adams did not take part in
the campaign; Van Buren won the election.
Nonetheless, Adams became aligned with the
Whig Party in Congress.
Adams generally opposed the initiatives of
his President Van Buren, long a political
adversary, though they maintained a cordial
public relationship.The Republic of Texas
won its independence from Mexico in the Texas
Revolution of 1835–1836.
Texas had largely been settled by Americans
from the Southern United States, and many
of those settlers owned slaves despite an
1829 Mexican law that abolished slavery.
Many in the United States and Texas thus favored
the admission of Texas into the union as a
slave state.
Adams considered the issue of Texas to be
"a question of far deeper root and more overshadowing
branches than any or all others that agitate
the country," and he emerged as one of the
leading congressional opponents of annexation.
Adams had sought to acquire Texas when he
served as secretary of state, but he argued
that, because Mexico had abolished slavery,
the acquisition of Texas would the transform
the region from a free territory into a slave
state.
He also feared that the annexation of Texas
would encourage Southern expansionists to
pursue other potential slave states, including
Cuba.
Adams's strong stance may have played a role
in discouraging Van Buren from pushing for
the annexation of Texas during his presidency.Whig
nominee William Henry Harrison defeated Van
Buren in the 1840 presidential election, and
the Whigs gained control of both houses of
Congress for the first time.
Despite his low regard for Harrison as a person,
Adams was enthusiastic about the new Whig
administration and the end of the long-standing
Democratic dominance of the federal government.
However, Harrison died in April 1841 and was
succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, a
Southerner who, unlike Adams, Henry Clay,
and many other prominent Whigs, did not embrace
the American System.
Adams saw Tyler as an agent of "the slave-driving,
Virginia, Jeffersonian school, principled
against all improvement."
After Tyler vetoed a bill to restore the national
bank, Whig congressmen expelled Tyler from
the party.
Adams was appointed chairman of a special
committee that explored impeaching Tyler,
and Adams presented a scathing report of Tyler
that argued that his actions warranted impeachment.
The impeachment process did not move forward,
though, in large part because the Whigs did
not believe that the Senate would vote to
remove Tyler from office.
=== Opposition to the Mexican-American War,
1844–1848 ===
Tyler made the annexation of Texas the main
foreign policy priority of the later stages
of his administration.
He attempted to win ratification of an annexation
treaty in 1844, but, to Adams's surprise and
relief, the treaty was rejected by the Senate.
The annexation of Texas became the central
issue of the 1844 presidential election, and
Southerners blocked the nomination of Van
Buren at the 1844 Democratic National Convention
due to the latter's opposition to annexation;
the party instead nominated James K. Polk,
an acolyte of Andrew Jackson.
Though he once again did not take part in
the campaigning, Adams was deeply disappointed
that Polk defeated his old ally, Henry Clay,
in the 1844 election.
He attributed the outcome of the election
partly to the Liberty Party, a small, abolitionist
third party that may have siphoned votes from
Clay in the crucial state of New York.
After the election, Tyler, whose term would
end in March 1845, once again submitted an
annexation treaty to Congress.
Adams strongly attacked the treaty, arguing
that the annexation of Texas would involve
the United States in "a war for slavery."
Despite Adams's opposition, both houses of
Congress approved the treaty, with most Democrats
voting for annexation and most Whigs voting
against it.
Texas thus joined the United States as a slave
state in 1845.Adams had served with James
K. Polk in the House of Representatives, and
Adams loathed the new president, seeing him
as another expansionist, pro-slavery Southern
Democrat.
Adams favored the annexation of the entirety
of Oregon Country, a disputed region occupied
by both the United States and Britain, and
was disappointed when President Polk signed
the Oregon Treaty, which divided the land
between the two claimants at the 49th parallel.
Polk's expansionist aims were centered instead
on the Mexican province of Alta California,
and he attempted to buy the province from
Mexico.
The Mexican government refused to sell California
or recognize the independence and subsequent
American annexation of Texas.
Polk deployed a military detachment led by
General Zachary Taylor to back up his assertion
that the Rio Grande River constituted the
Southern border of both Texas and the United
States.
After Taylor's forces clashed with Mexican
soldiers north of the Rio Grande, Polk asked
for a declaration of war in early 1846, asserting
that Mexico had invaded American territory.
Though some Whigs questioned whether Mexico
had really begun an aggressive war against
the United States, both houses of Congress
declared war, with the House voting 174-to-14
to approve the declaration.
Adams, who believed that Polk was seeking
to wage an offensive war in order to extend
the institution of slavery, was one of the
14 dissenting votes.
After the start of the war, he supported the
Wilmot Proviso, an unsuccessful legislative
proposal that would have banned slavery in
any territory ceded by Mexico.
After 1846, ill health increasingly affected
Adams, but he continued to oppose Mexican–American
War until his death 
in 1848.
=== Anti-slavery movement ===
In the 1830s, slavery emerged as an increasingly
polarizing issue in the United States.
A longtime opponent of slavery, Adams used
his new role in Congress to fight it, and
he became the most prominent national leader
opposing slavery.
After one of his reelection victories, he
said that he must "bring about a day prophesied
when slavery and war shall be banished from
the face of the earth."
He wrote in his private journal in 1820:
The discussion of this Missouri question has
betrayed the secret of their souls.
In the abstract they admit that slavery is
an evil, they disclaim it, and cast it all
upon the shoulder of…Great Britain.
But when probed to the quick upon it, they
show at the bottom of their souls pride and
vainglory in their condition of masterdom.
They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's
manners, because he has no habits of overbearing
like theirs and cannot treat negroes like
dogs.
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints
the very sources of moral principle.
It establishes false estimates of virtue and
vice: for what can be more false and heartless
than this doctrine which makes the first and
holiest rights of humanity to depend upon
the color of the skin?
In 1836, partially in response to Adams' consistent
presentation of citizen petitions requesting
the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, the House of Representatives imposed
a "gag rule" that immediately tabled any petitions
about slavery.
The rule was favored by Democrats and Southern
Whigs but was largely opposed by Northern
Whigs like Adams.
In late 1836, Adams began a campaign to ridicule
slave owners and the gag rule.
He frequently attempted to present anti-slavery
petitions, often in ways that provoked strong
reactions from Southern representatives.
Though the gag rule remained in place, the
discussion ignited by his actions and the
attempts of others to quiet him raised questions
of the right to petition, the right to legislative
debate, and the morality of slavery.
Adams fought actively against the gag rule
for another seven years, eventually moving
the resolution that led to its appeal in 1844.In
1841, at the request of Lewis Tappan and Ellis
Gray Loring, Adams joined the case of United
States v. The Amistad.
Adams went before the Supreme Court on behalf
of African slaves who had revolted and seized
the Spanish ship Amistad.
Adams appeared on 24 February 1841, and spoke
for four hours.
His argument succeeded; the Court ruled in
favor of the Africans, who were declared free
and returned to their homes.
=== Smithsonian Institution ===
Adams also became a leading force for the
promotion of science.
In 1829, British scientist James Smithson
died, and he left his fortune for the "increase
and diffusion of knowledge."
In Smithson's will, he stated that should
his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, die without
heirs, the Smithson estate would go to the
government of the United States to create
an "Establishment for the increase & diffusion
of Knowledge among men."
After the nephew died without heirs in 1835,
President Andrew Jackson informed Congress
of the bequest, which amounted to about US$500,000
($75,000,000 in 2008 U.S. dollars after inflation).
Adams realized that this might allow the United
States to realize his dream of building a
national institution of science and learning.
Adams thus became Congress's primary supporter
of the future Smithsonian Institution.The
money was invested in shaky state bonds, which
quickly defaulted.
After heated debate in Congress, Adams successfully
argued to restore the lost funds with interest.
Though Congress wanted to use the money for
other purposes, Adams successfully persuaded
Congress to preserve the money for an institution
of science and learning.
Congress also debated whether the federal
government had the authority to accept the
gift, though with Adams leading the initiative,
Congress decided to accept the legacy bequeathed
to the nation and pledged the faith of the
United States to the charitable trust on July
1, 1836.
Partly due to Adams's efforts, Congress voted
to establish the Smithsonian Institution in
1846.
A nonpolitical board of regents was established
to lead the institution, which included a
museum, art gallery, library, and laboratory.
=== Death ===
In 1846, the 78-year-old former president
suffered a stroke that left him partially
paralyzed.
After a few months of rest, he made a full
recovery and resumed his duties in Congress.
When Adams entered the House chamber, everyone
"stood up and applauded."
On February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives
was discussing the matter of honoring U.S.
Army officers who served in the Mexican–American
War.
Adams had been a vehement critic of the war,
and as Congressmen rose up to say, "Aye!"
in favor of the measure, he instead yelled,
"No!"
He rose to answer a question put forth by
Speaker of the House Robert Charles Winthrop.
Immediately thereafter, Adams collapsed, having
suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
Two days later, on February 23, he died with
his wife at his side in the Speaker's Room
inside the Capitol Building in Washington,
D.C.; his only living child, Charles Francis,
did not arrive in time to see his father alive.
His last words were "This is the last of earth.
I am content."
He died at 7:20 p.m.His original interment
was temporary, in the public vault at the
Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
Later, he was interred in the family burial
ground in Quincy, Massachusetts, across from
the First Parish Church, called Hancock Cemetery.
After Louisa's death in 1852, his son had
his parents reinterred in the expanded family
crypt in the United First Parish Church across
the street, next to John and Abigail.
Both tombs are viewable by the public.
Adams's original tomb at Hancock Cemetery
is still there and marked simply "J.Q. Adams".
== Personal life ==
Adams and Louisa had three sons and a daughter.
Their daughter, Louisa, was born in 1811 but
died in 1812.
They named their first son George Washington
Adams (1801–1829) after the first president.
This decision upset Adams's mother, and, by
her account, his father as well.
Both George and their second son, John (1803–1834),
led troubled lives and died in early adulthood.
George, who had long suffered from alcoholism,
died in 1829 after going overboard on a steamboat;
it is not clear whether he fell or purposely
jumped from the boat.
John, who ran an unprofitable flour and grist
mill owned by his father, died of an unknown
illness in 1834.
Adams's youngest son, Charles Francis Adams,
was an important leader of the "Conscience
Whigs," a Northern, anti-slavery faction of
the Whig Party.
Charles Francis served as the Free Soil Party's
vice presidential candidate in the 1848 presidential
election and later became a prominent member
of the Republican Party.
=== Personality ===
Adams's personality was much like that of
his father, as were his political beliefs.
He always preferred secluded reading to social
engagements, and several times had to be pressured
by others to remain in public service.
Historian Paul Nagel states that, like Abraham
Lincoln after him, Adams often suffered from
depression, for which he sought some form
of treatment in early years.
Adams thought his depression was due to the
high expectations demanded of him by his father
and mother.
Throughout his life he felt inadequate and
socially awkward because of his depression,
and was constantly bothered by his physical
appearance.
He was closer to his father, whom he spent
much of his early life with abroad, than he
was to his mother.
When he was younger and the American Revolution
was going on, his mother told her children
what their father was doing, and what he was
risking, and because of this Adams grew to
greatly respect his father.
His relationship with his mother was rocky;
she had high expectations of him and was afraid
her children might end up dead alcoholics
like her brother.
His biographer, Nagel, concludes that his
mother's disapproval of Louisa Johnson motivated
him to marry Johnson in 1797, despite Adams's
reservations that Johnson, like his mother,
had a strong personality.Though in his youth
Adams wore a powdered wig he abandoned this
fashion and became the first president to
adopt a short haircut instead of long hair
tied in a queue and to regularly wear long
trousers instead of knee breeches.
It has been suggested that John Quincy Adams
had the highest I.Q. of any U.S. president.
Dean Simonton, a professor of psychology at
UC Davis, estimated his I.Q. score at 165.
== Legacy ==
Adams is widely regarded as one of the most
effective diplomats and secretaries of state
in American history, but scholars generally
rank him as an average president.
Adams is remembered as a man eminently qualified
for the presidency, yet hopelessly weakened
in his presidential leadership potential as
a result of the election of 1824.
Most importantly, Adams is remembered as a
poor politician in an era when politics had
begun to matter more.
He spoke of trying to serve as a man above
the "baneful weed of party strife" at the
precise moment in history when the Second
Party System was emerging with nearly revolutionary
force.
Biographer and historian William J. Cooper
notes that Adams "does not loom large in the
American imagination," but has received more
public attention since the late 20th century
due to his anti-slavery stances.
Cooper writes that Adams was the first "major
public figure" to publicly question whether
the United States could remain united so long
as the institution of slavery persisted.
Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes that Adams's
"intellectual ability and courage were above
reproach, and his wisdom in perceiving the
national interest has stood the test of time."
Historians have often included Adams among
the leading conservatives of his day.
Russell Kirk, however, sees Adams as a flawed
conservative who was imprudent in opposing
slavery.
=== Memorials ===
John Quincy Adams Birthplace is now part of
Adams National Historical Park and open to
the public.
Adams House, one of twelve undergraduate residential
Houses at Harvard University, is named in
honor of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and
other members of the Adams family who were
associated with Harvard.
In 1870, Charles Francis built the first presidential
library in the United States, to honor his
father.
The Stone Library includes over 14,000 books
written in twelve languages.
The library is located in the "Old House"
at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy,
Massachusetts.
Adams's middle name of Quincy has been used
by several locations in the United States,
including the town of Quincy, Illinois.
Adams County, Illinois and Adams County, Indiana
are also named after Adams.
Adams County, Iowa and Adams County, Wisconsin
were each named for either John Adams or John
Quincy Adams.
Some sources contend that in 1843 Adams sat
for the earliest confirmed photograph still
in existence of a U.S. president, although
others maintain that William Henry Harrison
had posed even earlier for his portrait, in
1841.
The original daguerreotype is in the collection
of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian
Institution.
=== Film and television ===
Adams occasionally is featured in the mass
media.
In the PBS miniseries The Adams Chronicles
(1976), he was portrayed by David Birney,
William Daniels, Marcel Trenchard, Steven
Grover and Mark Winkworth.
He was also portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in
the 1997 film Amistad, and again by Ebon Moss-Bachrach
and Steven Hinkle in the 2008 HBO television
miniseries John Adams; the HBO series received
criticism for needless historical and temporal
distortions in its portrayal.
== See also ==
List of abolitionists
List of United States political appointments
across party lines
List of Presidents of the United States by
previous experience
List of United States Congress members who
died in office (1790–1899)
Mendi Bible
== Pronunciation note ==
== References ==
=== Works cited ===
== Further reading ==
=== Secondary sources ===
=== Primary sources ===
== External links ==
White House biography
John Quincy Adams at Encyclopædia Britannica
United States Congress.
"John Quincy Adams (id: A000041)".
Biographical Directory of the United States
Congress.
The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital
Collection at the Massachusetts Historical
Society
"Life Portrait of John Quincy Adams", from
C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits,
April 18, 1999
Works by John Quincy Adams at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about John Quincy Adams at Internet
Archive
Works by John Quincy Adams at LibriVox (public
domain audiobooks)
