John Quincy Adams Frontpage

American President Frontpage

Reared for public service, John Quincy Adams became one of the nation's preeminent secretaries of state, but he proved to be the wrong man for the presidency. Aloof, stiff-necked, and ferociously independent, he failed to develop the support he needed in Washington, even among his own party. Faced throughout his term with organized opposition from the Democrats -- who were committed to limiting Adams to a single term and replacing him with Andrew Jackson -- Adams refused to forge the political alliances necessary to push his ideas into policy. His father, President John Adams, had also ignored the political side of the office, and he served only one term. History repeated itself with his son: John Quincy Adams lost his reelection bid to Jackson in 1828.

John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, the son of a father who served in the Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence. When the boy was ten, John Adams was posted to Europe as a special envoy of the Revolutionary American government, and John Quincy accompanied him.


Worldly Upbringing

For the boy, it was an incredible introduction to the courts of Europe and the practice of diplomacy. For seven and a half years, John Quincy lived in Paris, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, and London. He was a student at the University of Leiden for about a year when, because of his excellence in French, he was asked to serve as secretary and translator for Francis Dana, posted as emissary to St. Petersburg from 1781 to 1783. Young Adams returned to Paris to serve as secretary to his father through the negotiation of peace ending the American Revolutionary War and, in 1785, returned home to complete his education at Harvard College. He graduated two years later.

Admitted to the bar in 1790, Adams practiced law in Boston -- with surprisingly little success, considering that his father was vice president of the United States. In 1794, President Washington appointed him minister to the Netherlands, where he served with distinction. He also reencountered the woman he would marry, Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of an American merchant living abroad. Adams had first met her in France when he was twelve. For months, Adams visited her family nightly, always leaving when the daughters sat down at the piano to play and sing -- he hated the sound of the female voice in song. Despite his taste in music and the reservations of his father, the President, who did not think his son should have a foreign-born wife, the two were married in 1797.


Political Trials and Tribulations

After an assignment as the minister to Prussia, Adams returned home and won election to the Massachusetts legislature. In 1803, the legislature appointed him to the United States Senate -- Senators were not chosen by popular vote until 1913. As a senator, he supported Thomas Jefferson in the Louisiana Purchase and was the only Federalist in either house to do so. In 1808, the Federalist-dominated Massachusetts legislature repaid his independence by declining to return him to the Senate. He then switched his allegiance to the Republican Party.

Adams's loss of his Senate seat launched the first great phase of his career. President James Madison named him the first U.S. minister to Russia, after which he was assigned to head the five-person delegation empowered to negotiate a peace agreement ending the War of 1812. The treaty, universally seen as a victory for the young American nation, was signed on December 24, 1814, and Adams was posted to the English court for two years.

With the election of James Monroe to the presidency, Adams came home to become secretary of state. He played a major role in formulating the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European nations not to meddle in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. During his eight years as secretary of state, he built a powerful and efficient American diplomatic service.


Bitter Fight for the White House

Four men campaigned for the presidency in 1824: former Secretary of War William H. Crawford of Georgia, House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky, Tennessee's General Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams. Crawford won the Republican congressional caucus nomination. This was a landmark election, the first in which popular vote actually mattered. Sixteen states had moved to choose presidential electors by popular vote while six still left the choice up to the state legislature. After a fierce campaign, Jackson took a plurality in the popular vote, followed, in order, by Adams, Clay, and Crawford. In the electoral college, however, Jackson had thirty-two votes fewer than he needed to prevail. Acting under the Twelfth Amendment, the House of Representatives met to select the President. Speaker of the House Clay threw his support behind Adams and gave him the election by a single vote. Soon thereafter, Adams named Clay secretary of state. It was a bad beginning. Jackson resigned from the Senate and vowed to unseat Adams in 1828.

Adams believed strongly that it was constitutional and appropriate for the federal government to sponsor broad programs to improve American society and prosperity. He backed Henry Clay's proposed "American System," envisioning a national marketplace in which North and South, town and country were tied together by trade and exchange. To realize this vision, Adams proposed to Congress an ambitious program involving the construction of roads, canals, educational institutions, and other initiatives. Lacking congressional allies, Adams was unable to maneuver most of these programs into law. Congress also blocked many of his foreign initiatives. His support of the so-called Abominable Tariff of 1828, which protected American interests but caused higher prices, cost him popularity among the voters.

By 1828, Andrew Jackson had been campaigning for three years. He characterized Adams's election as a "corrupt bargain" typical of the elitist eastern "gamesters," such as Adams and Clay. Following a campaign marred by vicious personal attacks -- Jackson's wife was called an adulteress) -- Jackson won in a landslide.


Post-White House Career

After his defeat, John Quincy Adams ran for Congress from his home district. He accepted the nomination on two conditions: that he would never solicit their votes and that he would follow his conscience at all times. He served nine consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, earning the nickname "Old Man Eloquent" because of his extraordinary speeches in opposition to slavery. Historically, Adams has won more acclaim for this long congressional career than for his earlier presidency. He suffered a stroke on the floor of the House on February 21, 1848, and died two days later.