Ada: Adams, John Quincy, through Adams, William

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


ADAMS, John Quincy, 1767-1848, Massachusetts, sixth U.S. President (1825-1829), U.S. Congressman (1831-1848), U.S. Secretary of State, lawyer, anti-slavery leader, activist, abolitionist, son of second U.S. President John Adams.  Opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1819, which allowed the expansion of slavery in southern states.  Fought against the “Gag Rule” in Congress, which prevented discussion of the issue of slavery in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The Gag Rule was revoked in 1844. 

(Adams, 1874; Bemis, 1956; Cable, 1971; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 238, 243-244, 367-370; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, p. 57, 80, 82, 96, 98, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 164, 168, 208; Goodell, 1852; Hammond, 2011, pp. 25, 175, 176, 240, 248, 272, 273, 276, 380; Mason, 2006, pp. 3., 90, 93, 98, 165, 185, 187, 190, 200, 205, 214-222, 263n31, 383n32, 289n47; Miller, 1996; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 3, 6, 8, 10, 18-19, 24, 33, 39, 45, 137, 197, 248; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 260-267; Remini, 2002; Richards, 1986; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 40-41, 49, 45, 132, 153-154, 305; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 24-28; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928);

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 84-92.)

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY (July 11, 1767- February 23, 1848), eldest son of John and Abigail (Smith) Adams, was born at Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. With little early schooling he accompanied his father to France in 1778, already keeping a journal which developed into one of the most famous of diaries. He had a short training in French and Latin in an academy at Passy. Returning to America he went to France again in 1779 and attended the Latin School at Amsterdam. He matriculated into Leyden University in January 1781, but soon went to St. Petersburg as secretary to Francis Dana, United States minister to Russia. In 1783 he returned to The Hague and resumed his classics under Dumas, the editor of Vattel, again to be called away to serve as secretary to his father during the peace negotiations. On the father's appointment to the London mission the son determined to return to America, entered Harvard College a junior sophister, graduated in 1787, studied law at Newburyport under Theophilus Parsons, afterwards chief justice of Massachusetts, and was admitted to practice July 15, 1790. Law as a profession did not attract him and he readily turned to political discussion. In 1791 he wrote, under the name of "Publicola," a reply to Paine's Rights of Man, and the authorship was ascribed to his father in London and Edinburgh reissues. He contributed to and translated for a French newspaper in Boston and in a series of essays signed "Marcellus," "Columbus," and "Barneveld," he so dealt with Genet and neutrality as to attract the notice of Washington, who commissioned him (May 30, 1794) minister to the Netherlands. He arrived at his post as the French occupied the country, but remained to study, observe, and report upon European conditions. On July 26, 1797, while in England on diplomatic business he married Louisa Catherine, daughter of Joshua Johnson, of a Maryland family. He was named for the mission in Portugal, but his destination was changed to Berlin, where he negotiated a treaty and found abundant leisure for reading. He made a visit to Silesia and printed a volume of letters describing it. His foreign mission ended in September 1801, he resumed his law practice in Boston. He was nominated for Congress, but was defeated on November 3, 1802, by W. Eustis, who received a majority of 59 votes in a total of 3,699. Though without party affiliations, Adams had been previously elected to the state Senate in April 1802. On the first opportunity he showed his want of respect for party lines by proposing in caucus that two or three of the governor's council be "of opposite politics to our own, by way of conciliatory procedure," but his suggestion was rejected. In February 1803 he was elected to the United States Senate, with Timothy Pickering as a colleague, and took his seat in October while the bill for taking possession of Louisiana was under consideration. On October 26 he asked its supporters where in the Constitution they found authority for vesting in persons appointed by the President the military, civil, and judicial powers exercised "by the existing government of Louisiana." He proposed to amend the bill "consistently with the Constitution," but his motion, not being in order, could not be considered. On November 3 he voted in favor of an appropriation for carrying into effect the purchase treaty, which other Federalist senators opposed, and on January 10, 1804 he introduced two resolutions against taxing the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent, neither of which was accepted by the Senate. He also opposed a bill for the temporary government of the territory. He was never reconciled to the course of legislation taken at that time, but believed the acquisition of Louisiana to have been "accomplished by a flagrant violation of the Constitution."

His report on Senator John Smith, who was implicated in the Burr plot, his attitude on the impeachment of Judge Pickering, his apparent support of the administration in regard to British aggressions against neutrals and the affair of the Chesapeake, and finally his votes on the Embargo of 1807, where he chose to favor embargo as an alternative to war, proved his want of party allegiance and aroused the full hostility of Pickering. The latter denounced him at home, secured a premature election of a new senator from Massachusetts, and thus forced Adams to resign, on June 8, 1808. He was now regarded by the Federalists as an apostate, was shunned by his old associates, and shared in the odium heaped upon his father, He had in 1806 been appointed to the chair of rhetoric and oratory in Harvard College and even in that position was made to feel the dislike of his social equals. During his term as senator the tendency of the Federalists to condone the insults and injuries inflicted upon American commerce, that peace might be kept with Great Britain, had led Adams to draw away from that party; and its secret maneuvers, with Pickering as a leader, to form closer relations, if not more, with England shocked his devotion to the Union. Unable to induce the Federalists of Boston to pledge full support to the government after the affair of the Chesapeake, he accomplished his end in a meeting of Republicans. Yet he was not a Republican nor a full supporter of the administration, and refused an offer from Republicans of a nomination to Congress. An independent, he was regarded with suspicion by both parties.

When Madison became president he nominated Adams to be minister at St. Petersburg, and in October 1809 the new minister was at his post. His experience at other capitals proved of service in Russia, the only country of Europe which refused to comply with the commercial decrees of Napoleon and thus the only outlet for the trade of the United States. On friendly terms with the Tsar, respected by his diplomatic colleagues, participating in the social life of the capital though without being able properly to reciprocate favors, he widened his knowledge and, even against the English representative, furthered the interests of his country with results that were to be gratefully remembered fifty years later. During his absence (February 1811) he was nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, an appointment which he immediately declined. He saw Russia invaded by Napoleon because of her refusal to close her ports and he saw the United States declare war against Great Britain at the very time when Russia was combining with that nation against France. An offer from Russia to mediate the differences between England and the United States led to the appointment of peace commissioners by the latter, and Adams, James A. Bayard, and Albert Gallatin were named (April 17, 1813) and dispatched, too hastily, it proved, as Great Britain had not agreed to the mediation, and the Senate rejected Gallatin (July 19, 1813). Growing weary of the war, Great Britain expressed a willingness to negotiate, but not under Russian mediation, and the United States again named the same agents and added to the mission Jonathan Russell and Henry Clay (January 18, 1814). In a commission composed of such incongruous personalities differences in opinion were certain to arise. Adams was the first in authority by his appointment, but he required Gallatin's tact and criticism to temper his too ardent sensibility and in the end the credit for success may be divided between those two members. The British commissioners were by no means the equal in ability of the Americans, and by their demands and arrogant manner of making them created a situation unfavorable to agreement. Adams drafted the papers of the American commissioners and complained somewhat overmuch that his colleagues revised them in a hostile spirit. Clay specially irritated him, for they differed in temperament as well as in interests. To Adams the fisheries were immeasurably important; to Clay the navigation of the Mississippi. Clay favored a continuance of war, Adams looked for peace. The course of the negotiation and the pa rt played by each commissioner are related in Adams's diary. While failing to obtain all their instructions called for, they succeeded in making peace (December 24, 1814) and either postponed undetermined questions or provided for their settlement in future instruments.

Adams was in Paris on the return of Napoleon and during the greater part of the "Hundred Days." He was made minister to the Court of St. James's, thus repeating the father's experience in being the fir s t minister to that court after a war, and, still in succession, took part in discussing a commercial treaty. For two years Adams had abundant opportunity to complete his diplomatic education. N ever quite congenial with the English, he carried on negotiations with the cabinet of the King on questions still at issue between the two countries, without reaching agreement. He lived at Ealing, in the neighborhood of London, and took but little part in the social life around him, though he formed many agreeable connections, and educated his sons in English schools. Official functions he endured, rather than enjoyed, and he indulged his tastes as a reader and student.

He was invited by Monroe, in March 1817, to be secretary of state in his cabinet and took up his duties September 22. No more congenial office could have fallen to him, and his previous training and experience eminently fitted him to fill it. Politically, it was a period of calm. The war for independence and the organization of a federal government had been accomplished; a new generation, with new problems, had come forward and Adams, though inheriting and easily imbibing prejudices, brought to the conduct of his office wide experience and knowledge, great industry, and political independence. At times, it is true, his direct method seemed aggressive and unnecessarily forceful in cabinet discussion. He soon learned, too, that the apparent "era of good feeling" was largely neutralized by a contest among many for the presidency, in success ion to Monroe. Clay had opposed Adams's appointment to the State Department, deeming that he had himself better claims and he opposed the administration because of his disappointment. Crawford and Calhoun, in the cabinet, laid their plans for succession and the last four years of Monroe's term were passed in maneuvering for political position.

The questions before the Department of State were many and of grave moment. The revolting Spanish colonies in America fitted out many privateers in the United States, a practice defended by Clay, who severely criticized both Monroe and Adams for their more cautious and correct policy. The Floridas, still Spanish territory, afforded a refuge for Indians and malefactors, and Spain could not protect the United States from raids and retreats, accompanied by murder and rapine. Jackson, placed in command, went against the Seminole Indians, pursued them into Spanish territory, hanged some of them, executed two British subjects, deposed one governor and named another, and left a garrison in occupation. Thus to invade the territory of a nation in time of peace created serious liabilities. Monroe and all his cabinet, except Adams, believed the general had exceeded his instructions and had done what could not in law be defended. Calhoun would have punished him. Adams took the ground that, as Spain had proved incapable of policing her territories, the United States was obliged to act in self-defense, and so far and so ably justified Jackson's conduct as to silence protests either from Spain or Great Britain. Congress debated the question, with Clay as the leading opponent of Jackson, but would not disapprove of what Jackson had done. It was strange that Jackson’s later hatred of Adams, his ablest defender, should have been greater than his hatred of Clay and Calhoun, his critics.

The most delicate and important negotiation conducted by Adams was the treaty for the cession of the Floridas by Spain. Not only were the western bounds of the territory in doubt, but the delays and trickiness of Spanish diplomacy complicated the agreement. Huge grants of land to court favorites, not mentioned, or concealed by false dates, nearly trapped Adams in serious errors. He had secured(1818)a postponement of the Oregon question by an agreement with Great Britain for a joint occupation for ten years, and to obtain Florida and quiet Spanish claims he gained an acknowledgment from Spain of a line of boundary to the South Sea, a proposal wholly his, in which he took natural pride. Giving up Texas with the consent, if not at the instance of Monroe, he obtained a treaty of cession (1819) which later was declared by his opponents a deliberate sacrifice of territory. Jackson approved of the treaty, and Clay again opposed what had been done, but without success.

While the Spanish treaty was in the making Missouri applied for statehood and a struggle arose on the exclusion of slavery. Adams approved of the Missouri Compromise and believed the measure excluded slavery in territories and in states formed from territory north of the dividing line. He saw clearly that the principle involved momentous possibilities, and might even lead to the dissolution of the Union. To him the controversy over Missouri was the "title-page to a great tragic volume." His opposition to slavery was pronounced and in his diary he pictured a life devoted to the problem of emancipation as "nobly spent or sacrificed."

The Spanish colonies in America obtained recognition of their independence from Monroe in March 1822. Already Adams had questioned the claims of Great Britain on the Pacific Ocean, and soon after, in contesting a Russian ukase regarding the same ocean, he laid down the principle that "the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments." Russia acquiesced. Great Britain feared that the United States would take Cuba and that France, if allowed to interpose in Spain, might control the Spanish empire in America. Acting on a suggestion of Adams that the interests of the United States and Great Britain were the same, Canning proposed a joint declaration against a forcible subjection  of the colonies to Spain and against acquisition by cession or conquest of American territory by any European power. Both Jefferson and Madison favored this proposal, though it recognized the leadership of England and opposition to the Holy Alliance; but Adams wished to remonstrate against interference of European powers by force with South America, to disclaim all interference with Europe, and to make an American policy. The President's message of December 2, 1823, embodied those principles. Striking out his own references to European questions, such as the invasion of Spain by France and the Greek revolt, Monroe asserted that the American continents "are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power"; that "any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere" would be regarded as "dangerous to our peace and safety," and "we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them [the late Spanish possessions], or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." Known as the Monroe Doctrine, and with credit equally divided between the President and the Secretary, it has proved of great importance in the history of American diplomacy.

As the time of the presidential election approached Adams was one of four candidates. His office had by custom come to be regarded as the stepping-stone to the presidency, but in his term of service he had done little directly to advance his prospects by conciliating his rivals or the politicians. He stood upon his public services, and was the only Northern candidate. When the returns were known Jackson had received 99 votes; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; and Clay, 37. Adams's support had come from New York and New England. With Crawford broken in health the decision in the House rested with Clay and his pronounced dislike of Jackson made a support of Adams natural. Adams, receiving the votes of thirteen states to Jackson's seven, was declared elected. The contest left a long train of consequences materially affecting the later careers of the two candidates, and Adams himself wished that a nearer approach to unanimity could have been reached, even had it been necessary for him to refuse the office in order to permit a new choice. Before the House had acted it was charged that Clay had entered into a corrupt bargain with Adams by which Adams would be president and Clay secretary of state. Though without any basis of truth the charge gained plausibility when Clay was appointed secretary. In the hands of Jackson and his followers it became a weapon which served to check Clay's success during his life and to defeat Adams in 1828. Three years before that election Jackson was again nominated for the presidency by the legislature of his State; he accepted and announced his platform, the essence of which was the denunciation of the alleged bargain between Clay and Adams.

President Adams in his inaugural stated his broad plan of internal improvements, and, in his annual message, his ideas of directing government powers to promote the arts and sciences, a national university, astronomical observatories, and scientific enterprises, in short, to whatever would improve the people. Not only were Northern strict constructionists astonished at the proposal that the federal government should exercise such extensive powers but Southerners were alarmed, fearing slavery might be abolished under them. Opposition in Congress took shape and was first directed against the proposed Panama mission the sending of commissioners to attend a congress of the republics, lately Spanish colonies. In the course of the debate John Randolph uttered his famous characterization of the "coalition of  Blifil and Black George-the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the blackleg." Adams's own faith in any success from the Congress was not strong and he gauged the weakness of the republics better than did Clay. In the end circumstances prevented the United States from being represented.

The mid-term elections of 1827 to Congress gave, for the first time in the history of the government, a large majority against the administration. By the union of the Crawford and Jackson forces the South was consolidating its influence against Adams. with no great difference in policy to justify contests of parties the agitation for political vantage turned upon personalities. Adams removed no man for political opinion or even for political activity against himself, and so little of the politician did he have in his make-up that he wished to retain Crawford in the cabinet and to appoint Jackson to the War Department. He refused to break with McLean, the postmaster general, though cognizant of his activities in behalf of Jackson. Such restraint in the exercise of a power to secure followers by the use of patronage alienated friends and encouraged enemies. During his administration only twelve removals from office were made, yet in 1826 he was arraigned for abuse of patronage and an effort was made to transfer a good share of the appointments from the President to congressmen. Few campaigns have equalled that of 1828 for its license and bitter personalities. For want of a party of his own to check the attacks of the well-organized opposition, Adams and his policy of centralized government were defeated. In the electoral college he received only 83 votes while to Jackson were given 178.

He returned to Massachusetts, where the old-time Federalists showed much the same opposition to him that they had shown to his father. By the publication of a Jefferson letter in the last days of the campaign Giles of Virginia fixed upon Adams the charge of giving Jefferson knowledge of the disunion proposals by the leaders of the party in 1804. To a demand for names and particulars by thirteen leading Federalists of Massachusetts Adams made a reply which did not satisfy, and the questioners published a letter (expressive of their deep resentment against him) which they believed to be conclusive (see Correspondence between John Quincy Adams and Several Citizens of Massachusetts, 1829). Keenly feeling the attitude and language of his opponents, among whom were some of the most influential men in the state, he prepared a reply, which was first published in 1877 (Documents Relating to New England Federalism, ed. by Henry Adams). As a controversial document it stands high and as an explanation of the somewhat obscure movements of Pickering and others, it must be accepted as final.

Retiring to Quincy, ostracized by the Federalists and deeming his defeat an unjust return for his long public service, Adams expected to repeat the years of practical banishment endured by his father. Books, of which he had collected many in Europe, offered some refuge from memories of the past, his farm required attention, and he planned writing history or biography. Before he could fall upon any settled and engrossing task, however, he was asked to be the representative in Congress from the Plymouth district. without definite party support he was elected to the Twenty-second Congress (March 4, 1831) by a large majority and was returned for eight successive Congresses-a period of seventeen years lacking ten days. At the time of his election no member had sat in the House who possessed such varied experience and appropriate qualities. He was familiar with the inside political history of forty years abroad and at home. His remarkable memory of events was supplemented by a remarkable diary, the general accuracy of which could hardly be questioned, however colored it might be by temperament and prejudice. Industrious and conscientious in the discharge of his public duties in Congress, he served on many important committees and prepared reports which covered many questions of public policy. As a debater he was listened to with respect and, when aroused, with nearly as great fear; for his integrity was unquestioned, his information vast and ready, and his utterances direct, forceful, and at times tipped with gall. Altogether he entered upon years of influence and combat which made his congressional service unique and quite the most important part of his career.

His first appointment, chairman of the committee on manufactures, which he held for ten years, brought him into indirect connection with South Carolina nullification. For Calhoun he had no warm feeling, having received no support from him in Monroe's cabinet and only opposition in the presidency; but he thought that some concessions in the protective tariff might be made to placate South Carolina. Though it was not his committee that devised tariffs, he presented from it a minority report censuring the course of the administration. Jackson's proclamation he commended, but he believed in the event too much had been yielded to the nullifiers by a compromise which postponed instead of deciding the issue. To him any compromise on that particular question would lead to "final and irretrievable dissolution of the Union," an ever present thought in his view of public affairs.

In the discussion of the question of slavery Adams did not take a prominent part before 1835 and even then leadership was thrust upon him by force of circumstances. In 1805 he had proposed to lay a duty upon imported slaves, but only four senators had voted with him. As secretary of state he had dealt with the suppression of the slave-trade and not with the ques tion of slavery. Atrocious as he considered that traffic, he considered the right of search by foreign officers of American vessels upon the seas in time of peace a still greater evil (Memoirs, VI, 37). When Haiti had become free and could be recognized in 1826, as president he had acted with caution and had found reasons for withholding an acknowledgment of independence. Clay's influence h ad led him to evade the question in the propose d Panama Congress, as both Haiti and Cuba furnished "near and dangerous examples, against the contagion of which "all means necessary to the security" of the United States should be employed. Now in Congress the question assumed a new form. In the first weeks of his first session he had presented petitions on slavery. In 1834 the attempts of the upholders of slavery to suppress the right of petition had been successful. For Congress to refuse to receive appeals from individuals and associations was bad enough from any point of view; to treat with contempt resolutions from the legislature of a State, no matter what the subject, involved an extraordinary exercise of power, even more indefensible. Adams, whether armed with resolutions of the legislature of Massachusetts, or with his "bundles" of petitions, kept the question before the House, greatly exasperating the majority, who were always ready to enforce the gag principle.

When president he had made a fruitless attempt to obtain Texas from Mexico by cession; but now when the annexation of Texas was first brought forward he opposed it and in a speech delivered May 25, 1836--"by far the most noted speech that I ever made," he wrote in the following year-he "opened the whole subject of the Mexican, Indian, negro, and English war." A Spanish translation was printed in Mexico and Miss Martineau used it in her volume upon America. On the general reception given to it, assailed in the South and West and applauded in the North and East, he felt that his opportunity had come. "This [the extension of slavery] is a cause upon which I am entering at the last stage of life, and with the certainty that I cannot advance in it far; my career must close, leaving the cause at the threshold. To open the way for others is all that I can do. The cause is good and great"(Memoirs, IX, 298). His position, the same as that he had taken on the admission of Louisiana, was on the broadest lines. In June 1838, it was expressed in the following language: "That the power of annexing the people of a foreign government to this Union has not been delegated to the Congress nor to any Department of the Government of the United States, but has been reserved to the people. That any attempt by Act of Congress or by treaty to annex the republic of Texas to this Union would be a usurpation of power, which it would be the right and the duty of the free people of the Union to resist and annul" (Memoirs, V, 20). On that proposition he occupied the "morning hour" from June 16 to July 7, 1838, preventing a vote on annexation; and in 1843 he united with twelve other members of Congress in a protest declaring that annexation would mean the dissolution of the Union (Niles' Register, LXIV, 173-75). Territory, they held, could be acquired by treaty, but there was no power to transfer a man from one country to another without his consent. Adams embodied the conviction that the Texas question involved the sacrifice of Northern freedom to slavery and the South, and the purchase of Western support by the plunder of the public lands. His opposition to annexation and to the war with Mexico brought to him petitions against annexation as well as on slavery in the District of Columbia and on slavery in general and they came to him in increasing numbers. His management of these "incendiary papers" was at first guided by the unanimous support of the Massachusetts members of the House of Representatives (Memoirs, IX, 443), but he acted more and more independently.

Wearied if not frightened by the number of petitions relating to slavery, some of which had been presented through Adams, the House entertained a proposition (December 1836) that no such petitions should be read, printed, committed, or in any way acted upon by the House. This took final shape in the rule that all such petitions should, without reading or printing, or any other action of the House upon them, be laid upon the table. As a motion to lay on the table admitted no debate, all discussion was precluded. Each year, from 1836 to 1844, Adams opposed without success the adoption of this rule. Such a "gag" on free discussion, he charged, was a direct violation of the Constitution, of the rules of the House, of the rights of his constituents, and, as he said in after years, of his right to freedom of speech as a member of the House. On December 3, 1844, the "gag" resolution was at last defeated. While the right of petition was to Adams the real issue, he became the channel through which petitions on slavery streamed in large numbers. He was not an abolitionist, and suffered from the attacks of the abolitionists as well as from their opponents; but he recognized, as few of his day did, that a denial of the right to discuss a public question of such character threatened the continuance of the Union. Further, he early expressed (1836) the conviction that should the South become the se at of a war, "civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of the Congress[ would]extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with" (Register of Debates in Congress, Volume XII, pt. IV, p. 4047), a sweeping proposition which implied an assertion of an even strong er power; viz., that slavery could be abolished by the exercise of the treaty-making power (1841) and still la ter, that in a state of war the military authority-president or commander of the army-might order the universal emancipation of slaves (April 14, 1842. See C. F. Adams, "John Quincy Adams and Emancipation through Martial Law" in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2nd series, Volume XV). To check Adams's continued presentation of petitions, Southern members proposed to discipline and even to expel him, but he proved capable of holding his positions and of putting his critics in the wrong. Thus in February 1837 he asked if the gag resolution would cover a petition he had received from twenty-two persons who declared themselves to be slaves, and in the confusion that followed various motions from censure to expulsion were offered. When permitted to speak, Adams, by stating that the petition favored slavery, turned the tables on his opposers, who rounded out a somewhat ridiculous policy of suppression by gravely proposing to censure Adams for ''creating an impression and leaving the House under that impression" that the petition in question was for the abolition of slavery (Letters from John Quincy Adams to his Constituents, 1837, p. 16); also for "giving color to the idea that slaves have the right of petition" and for being ready to serve as their organ (Ibid., p. 19). The petition was probably a hoax, intended to embarrass Adams. His final speech silenced his critics and proved his ability to meet, almost single-handed, the forces of the South.

His course in the House showed what was regarded at the time as strange inconsistency. He debated and voted with complete independence, to the great confusion of those who counted upon his support. When assurance was made by those in charge of the bill for the admission of Arkansas as a State that no proposition concerning slavery would be made in the debate, Adams remarked that if no other member would offer such a proposal he would, and kept his promise. The fact that he had not been on speaking terms with President Jackson and had received insult at his hands did not prevent his supporting him-"at the hazard of my own political destruction" in Jackson's quarrel with France, in his controversy with South Carolina, and in other critical periods of his administration. Yet he opposed Jackson's bank policy, submitting a minority report in protest against the proceedings of the committee of inquiry of which he was a member. A speech upon Jackson's removal of the public moneys from the Bank of the United States was not delivered but was published and served its purpose. From the committee on manufactures he also submitted (February 1833) a report which reviewed the claims of the South for the protection of slavery, the proposed disposal of the public lands, and the doctrine of nullification. To none of these would he yield a particle. Only one other member of the committee signed this report.

His personal influence and ability to deal with a crisis were shown in December 1839, when the House assembled to find itself unable to organize because of the arbitrary action of its clerk. So equally were parties divided in it that the members from New Jersey, whose election was contested, would decide the political complexion of the House, the Speaker, and the committees. The clerk, himself the clerk of the last House, without authority to do anything but list the members offering proper credentials, and depending for his own reelection on the issue of the contest, refused to name the contested seats, producing a state of complete inaction difficult to meet. After three days of futile effort, Adams appealed to the members to organize and stated his determination himself to put to the meeting the question of ordering the clerk to read the names of the New Jersey members holding the governor's credentials. He was elected chairman, and for eleven days presided over a body not yet formally organized and torn by a partisan difference, on which depended the large rewards of committee appointments and their influence on legislation. Belonging to no party and entirely familiar with parliamentary practice, he controlled the stormy sessions and brought the extraordinary situation to a successful issue.

When the Whigs controlled the House in the Twenty-seventh Congress Adams was made chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for which he was eminently fitted. He could not escape attack, however, and his position in the matter of the Creole, a vessel captured by its cargo of slaves and taken to Nassau, where the slaves were set free by the authorities, invited it. A petition from Georgia for his removal engaged the House for some days; the Southern members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs resigned from it, unwilling, as they said, to serve with a chairman in whom they had no confidence, and others appointed asked to be excused. If the objectors planned to replace Caleb Cushing in the chairmanship, they failed; but Adams was not reappointed to that committee in the next Congress.

In January and March 1841, for the first time since 1809, Adams appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States. On the earlier occasion he had argued in defense of certain rights in which many of his fellow citizens had much property at stake; on the later he presented an elaborate argument vindicating the right to freedom of the Armistad captives, fifty-three negroes who had been taken at sea by a vessel of the United States, after they had revolted, killed the captain, and obtained possession of the vessel in which they and their masters were sailing for their destination. They were charged with murder and piracy. The Spanish owners claimed the negroes, the Spanish minister claimed both ship and negroes under the treaty of 1795, and the United States officer called for salvage. The United States circuit court held that it had no jurisdiction of a crime committed on the high seas in a Spanish vessel, but would not release the negroes claimed as property by the Spaniards. Adams was asked to defend the slaves and made an argument which Justice Story described as "extraordinary, for its power, for its bitter sarcasm, and its dealing with topics far beyond the record and points of discussion" (W. W. Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story, 1851, II, 348). The decision of the Court declared the negroes to be free. Adams's published argument was a plea for justice, but it also served once more to express his views upon slavery.

In 1842 another occasion arose in the House of Representatives for action against Adams. He had presented (January 24) a petition from citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying that for sectional reasons the Union of the States be peaceably dissolved, and moved its reference to a select committee with instructions to report against it. The document may be regarded as a satire on the proposed dissolution of the Union. Days were spent in discussing resolutions prepared in a caucus of Southern members and presented by Marshall of Kentucky, stating that Adams had disgraced his country, might well be expelled from the national councils, and should receive their "severest censure." After eleven days of excitement, with A dams as the center of the storm, he offered to drop the subject if the resolution of censure were tabled, ending a scene that was dramatic and sensational and ending also all attempts to suppress the offender by threats of censure.

Science had interested him, though he was too absorbed in public duties to be able to pursue the study. When in Russia he had given some attention to Russian weights and measures and, shortly after becoming secretary of state, the Senate (March 1817) called upon him for a full report. The House did not act until December 1819, when it made the same requisition. On receiving the Senate's call Adams began a report, but had made little progress before that of the Hou se was received. Devoting six months to the subject he completed the document-"a fearful and oppressive task"-and in February 1821 it was printed by Congress. Elaborate and thorough for the time and containing definite recommendations for permanent and universal uniformity of standards, it remained without influence in legislation or in advancing an agreement among nations on the subject. It was reprinted in 1871 and is still of value for reference. In another direction he left a permanent record. He was chairman of the committee to report upon the power of Congress to accept the fund left by the Englishman, James Smithson, to the United States, to establish at Washington an institution for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge." Adams not only reported that Congress was competent to accept the bequest, but he made recommendations for employing it and was instrumental in preventing its diversion to local and temporary objects. He wished to establish in the United States "the most complete astronomical observatory in the world," but Congress was unwilling to act. From the receipt of the fund in 1838 until 1846 Adams jealously watched the proposed uses, made four elaborate reports upon its disposition, provided for restoring the fund when wasted by bad investment in state bonds, and saw success in the end-a permanent fund and a national observatory. In the Smithsonian Institution his foresight and labor have been justified. It was in recognition of his efforts to encourage the study of astronomy that he was invited in 1843 to lay the corner-stone of the Cincinnati Observatory.

On September 17, 1842, Adams gave to his constituents a full statement of his conduct during his service in Congress in the form of an examination of the administration under the successive presidents in that time (Address of John Quincy Adams to his Constituents of the Twelfth Congressional District). It embodied his conception of what the South and the slave power had done or wished to do, and how far their policy had been aided by a sacrifice of principle by the North. Entirely characteristic in form and expression it contains an excellent picture of the great political acts of twelve years by a leading actor in them. It was the last political paper prepared by Adams and may serve as his political testament. A minority report supporting resolves of the legislature of Massachusetts which proposed to amend the Constitution of the United States so as to abolish the representation of slaves was made by him in April 1844, signed also by Giddings. Occasional addresses, of more or less political cast, and debates in Congress on the annexation of Texas and the Oregon question, occupied his attention and called out his accustomed vigor and acumen. On November 19, 1846, he was stricken with paralysis while walking in the streets of Boston, but recovered sufficiently to take his seat in the House on February 16, 1847. A year later, February 21, 1848, shortly after responding to the call of his name he fell in a second stroke and, carried to the Speaker's room in the Capitol, he died there on the evening of February 23 without having recovered consciousness. Mrs. Adams died on May 15, 1852.

Of unquestioned patriotism, Adams believed that the nation should contribute to the happiness of all, and that no nation should "regulate its conduct by the exclusive or even the paramount consideration of its own interest." He saw and criticized the faults of policy or administration even more readily than he praised conduct that was based on the performance of duty. From his early years he studied political institutions, especially those of his own country, applying his knowledge to national and international questions as they came before him. Too much engrossed by immediate problems, he did not formulate a policy and thus appears inconsistent in his conduct, as if swerved by temporary considerations. Yet it was recognized in his day that one sentiment ran through all his life, an intense love of freedom for all men, and an invincible belief in the inalienable rights of man. The American Constitution was to him but a stage in the political development of those rights, not creating but accepting them, and must itself, therefore, be interpreted as a means rather than an end. As his father had done before him, he went back to natural law for the origin of rights, and, because the Constitution embodied "compromises," he accepted and defended it only so far as its principles rested upon natural right. In his long and bitter controversy over slavery this conception of the Constitution and its failure to embody the higher forms of freedom and rights of man gave him a weapon of great power. "Slavery and democracy," he wrote, "especially a democracy founded, as ours is, on the rights of man-would seem to be incompatible with each other; and yet, at this time, the democracy of the country is supported chiefly, if not entirely, by slavery."

In the contest with the slave power he acted almost alone. Independence of party was a "duty" imposed upon him, for his service belong ed to the nation. Even as a representative in Congress from Massachusetts he was not influenced by the peculiar interests of that State, unless support of a protective tariff ca n be instanced to the contrary, a tariff that in form was framed for the whole country. To him a majority meant nothing, unless it acted oppressively-and he worked for the individual or a number, for the slave or the free man, for women or men, with the same zeal and detachment, intent only on defending the cause he had at heart. No other man of his day came to represent as he did the essence of the right of petition, and his persistence and courage won admiration even from those who thought him a madman or incendiary, and condemned his methods and the principle for which he was contending.

His many writings and speeches contain much that is autobiographical and much that is historical, for he dwelt on past and present history, and both utilized his own experience to the full and rested upon documents. His state papers and controversies suffered from the wealth of reference which his early studies, wide reading, extraordinary memory and application supplied. His readiness in debate and his bitterness of speech, which seemed at times almost too strongly colored by vindictiveness, made his attack something to be feared. Fond of combat and of controversy, his career was marked by an assertiveness amounting to pugnacity. Conscientious to a fault, he left no argument without exhausting its possibility. From his early days surrounded by enemies, as he believed, his gift of contention was developed and leaned toward offense. Yet he kept himself under restraint in the face of great provocation. He avoided the mean and tricky: he was always an honorable foe. No man judged his own acts more severely than he, and his diary, described as a "treasury of damnations," dealt with his own thoughts and acts more contritely than the occasion demanded. Harsh as his judgments on men and deeds appear, they show an ability to touch upon character and motives that makes them in part true. He had a deeply religious feeling and became a Unitarian, but never worked out a system of theology, any more than he did a system of politics. Only in his great fight on freedom did he approach a philosophy of the latter subject.

To him his generation gave the title of "the old man eloquent." Yet Theodore Parker thought him "seldom eloquent" and what oratorical ability he had to be of late development. In his manner of speaking there was little dignity and no grace, though sometimes there was a terrible energy and fire and " invective was his masterpiece of oratoric skill." Emerson, who heard him in his later years, spoke of his reputation as a fine reader: "No man could rea d the Bible with such powerful effect" (Works, 1904, VIII, 122). Of the fine voice broken by age he declared that the "wonders he could achieve with that cracked and disobedient organ showed what power might have belonged to it in early manhood" (Ibid.).

Simple in his tastes, and disliking the exposure to flattery that high position in the state brings, Adams was known as a man of social talent, a good talker, admired for his richness of recollection and apt illustration. Even his enemies, of whom he had an abundance, recognized that side of him and wondered. His family letters are of a quality different from his public papers, and his admiration for his father and his ambitions for his son, Charles Francis Adams, led to free confidences which reveal a softer and more lovable nature and a conscience that smote him when he thought himself most obliged to oppose or punish. Theodore Parker, not sparing in his opinion of others, wrote on the death of Adams, "The one great man since Washington, whom America had no cause to fear" (Works, 1908, Volume VII).

The more important writings of John Quincy Adams are: Memoirs, 12 volumes, edited by Charles Francis Adams (1874-77); Life in a New England Town, diary as a l a w student, 1787-88, edited by Charles Francis Adams, Jr.(1903); Documents R elating to New England Federalism, edited by Henry Adams (1877); Writings, edited by W. C. Ford, 7 volumes (1913); Oration at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1802 (reproduced, 1820); Letters on Silesia (London, 1804; Paris, trans. by J. Dupuy, 1807); Inaugural Oration (1806); Letter to H. G. Otis (1808); American Principles, a Review of the Works of Fisher Ames (1809); Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, 2 volumes (1810); Correspondence, 1811-14 (1913); Report on Weights and Measures (1821); Duplicate Letters, the Fisheries and the Mississippi (1822; 2nd ed., Louisville, 1823); Correspondence between John Quincy Adams and Several Citizens of Massachusetts, concerning the Charge of a Design to Dissolve the Union (1829); Eulogy on James Monroe (1831); Dermot MacMorrogh, or the Conquest of Ireland (1832); Letters to Wm. L. Stone ... upon the Subject of Masonry and Anti-masonry (1833); Letters to Edward Livingston [on Freemasonry] (1833); Oration on Lafayette, December 31, 1834 (1835); Eulogy on James Madison (1836); Letters to his Constituents (1837); Character of Hamlet: a letter to J. H. Hackett (1839); Speech upon Right of Petition, June-July, 1838; Jubilee of the Constitution (1839); China Question (1841); New England Confederacy of MDCXLIII (1843); Oration, Cincinnati Astronomical Society (1843); Letters on the Masonic Institution (1847); Poems of Religion and Society (1848); and Orations, 4th of July, at Boston, 1793; Quincy, 1831; and Newburyport, 1837.

[W. H. Seward, Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams (1849); Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams (1858); John T. Morse, John Quincy Adams (1882).]

W.C.F.  

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ADAMS, John Quincy, sixth president of the United States, born in Braintree, Massachusetts, 11 July, 1767; died in Washington, D. C., 23 February, 1848. He was named for his mother's grandfather, John Quincy. In his eleventh year he accompanied his father to France, and was sent to school near Paris, where his proficiency in the French language and other studies soon became conspicuous. In the following year he returned to America, and back again to France with his father, whom, in August, 1780, he accompanied to Holland. After a few months at school in Amsterdam, he entered the university of Leyden. Two years afterward John Adams's secretary of legation, Francis Dana, was appointed minister to Russia, and the boy accompanied him as private secretary. After a stay of fourteen months, as Catharine's government refused to recognize Mr. Dana as minister, young Adams left St. Petersburg and travelled alone through Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany to France, spending six months in the journey. Arriving in Paris, he found his father busy with the negotiation of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and was immediately set to work as secretary, and aided in drafting the papers that “dispersed all possible doubt of the independence of his country.” In 1785, when his father was appointed minister to England, he decided not to stay with him in London, but to return at once to Massachusetts in order to complete his education at Harvard college. For an American career he believed an American education to be best fitted. Considering the immediate sacrifice of pleasure involved, it was a remarkably wise decision in a lad of eighteen. But Adams's character was already fully formed; he was what he remained throughout his life, a Puritan of the sternest and most uncompromising sort, who seemed to take a grim enjoyment in the performance of duty, especially when disagreeable. Returning home, he was graduated at Harvard college in 1788, and then studied law in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterward chief justice of Massachusetts. In 1791 he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and began the practice of law, the tedium of which he relieved by writing occasional articles for the papers. Under the signature of “Publicola” he criticised some positions taken by Thomas Paine in his “Rights of Man”; and these articles, when republished in England, were generally attributed to his father. In a further series of papers, signed “Marcellus,” he defended Washington's policy of neutrality; and in a third series, signed “Columbus,” he discussed the extraordinary behavior of Citizen Genet, whom the Jacobins had sent over to browbeat the Americans into joining France in hurling defiance at the world. These writings made him so conspicuous that in 1794 Washington appointed him minister to Holland, and two years later made an appointment transferring him to Portugal. Before he had started for the latter country his father became president of the United States and asked Washington's advice as to the propriety of promoting his own son by sending him to Berlin. Washington in strong terms recommended the promotion, declaring that in his opinion the young man would prove to be the ablest diplomat in the American service. In the fall of 1797 Mr. Adams accordingly took up his residence at the capital of Prussia. Shortly before this he had married Miss Louisa Johnson, a niece of Thomas Johnson, of Maryland. During his residence at Berlin Mr. Adams translated Wieland's “Oberon” into English. In 1798 he was commissioned to make a commercial treaty with Sweden. In 1800 he made a journey through Silesia, and wrote an account of it, which was published in London and afterward translated into German and French. When Jefferson became president, Mr. Adams's mission terminated. He resumed the practice of law in Boston, but in 1802 was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and next year was chosen to the senate of the United States instead of Timothy Pickering. The federalist party was then rent in twain by the feud between the partisans of John Adams and those of Hamilton, and the reception of the younger Adams in the senate was far from flattering. Affairs grew worse when, at the next vacancy, Pickering was chosen to be his uncongenial colleague. Mr. Adams was grossly and repeatedly insulted. Any motion he might make was sure to be rejected by the combined votes of republicans and Hamiltonians, though frequently the same motion, made soon afterward by somebody else, would be carried by a large majority. A committee of which he was a member would make and send in its report without even notifying him of its time and place of meeting. At first Mr. Adams was subjected to such treatment merely because he was the son of his father; but presently he rendered himself more and more amenable to it by manifesting the same independence of party ties that had made his father so unpopular. Independence in politics has always been characteristic of the Adams family, and in none has this been more strongly marked than in John Quincy Adams. His first serious difference with the federalist party was occasioned by his qualified approval of Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana, a measure that was bitterly opposed and fiercely censured by nearly all the federalists, because it was feared it would add too much strength to the south. A much more serious difference arose somewhat later, on the question of the embargo. Questions of foreign rather than of domestic policy then furnished the burning subjects of contention in the United States. Our neutral commerce on the high seas, which had risen to very considerable proportions, was plundered in turn by England and by France, until its very existence was threatened. In May, 1806, the British government declared the northern coast of Europe, from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe, to be blockaded. By the Russian proclamation of 1780, which was then accepted by all civilized nations except Great Britain, such paper blockades were illegal; but British ships none the less seized and confiscated American vessels bound to any port on that coast. In November Napoleon issued his Berlin decree making a paper blockade of the whole British coast, whereupon French cruisers began seizing and confiscating American vessels on their way from British to French ports. Two months later England issued an order in council, forbidding neutrals to trade between any of her enemy's ports; and this was followed by orders decreeing fines or confiscation to all neutral ships daring to violate the edict. In December, 1807, Napoleon replied with the Milan decree, threatening to confiscate all ships bound to England, or which should have paid a fine to the British government or submitted to search at the hands of a British commander. All these decrees and orders were in flagrant violation of international law, and for a time they made the ocean a pandemonium of robbery and murder. Their effect upon American commerce was about the same as if both England and France had declared war against the United States. Their natural and proper effect upon the American people would have been seen in an immediate declaration of war against both England and France, save that our military weakness was then too manifest to make such a course anything but ridiculous. Between the animus of the two bullies by whom we were thus tormented there was little to choose; but in two respects England's capacity for injuring us was the greater. In the first place, she had more ships engaged in this highway robbery than France, and stronger ones; in the second place, owing to the difficulty of distinguishing between Americans and Englishmen, she was able to add the crowning wickedness of kidnapping American seamen. The wrath of the Americans was thus turned more against England than against France; and never perhaps in the revolutionary war had it waxed stronger than in the summer of 1807, when, in full sight of the American coast, the “Leopard” fired upon the “Chesapeake,” killed and wounded several of her crew, and violently carried away four of them. For this outrage the commander of the “Leopard” was promoted in the British service. In spite of all these things, the hatred of the federalists for France was so great that they were ready to put up with insult added to injury rather than attack the power that was warring against Napoleon. So far did these feelings carry them that Mr. John Lowell, a prominent federalist of Boston, was actually heard to defend the action of the “Leopard.” Such pusillanimity incensed Mr. Adams. “This was the cause,” he afterward said, “which alienated me from that day and forever from the councils of the federal party.” He tried to persuade the federalists of Boston to hold a meeting and pledge their support to the government in any measures, however serious, that it might see fit to adopt in order to curb the insolence of Great Britain. But these gentlemen were too far blinded by party feeling to respond to the call; whereupon Mr. Adams attended a republican meeting, at which he was put upon a committee to draft and report such resolutions. Presently the federalists bowed to the storm of popular feeling and held their meeting, at which Mr. Adams was also present and drafted resolutions. For his share in the proceedings of the republicans it was threatened that he should “have his head taken off for apostasy.” It was never of much use to threaten Mr. Adams. An extra session of congress was called in October to consider what was to be done. Mr. Jefferson's government was averse to war, for which the country was ill prepared, and it was thought that somewhat milder measures might harass England until she would submit to reason. For a year and a half a non-importation act had been in force; but it had proved no more effective than the non-importation agreements of 1768 and 1774. Now an embargo was laid upon all the shipping in American ports. The advantage of such a measure was very doubtful; it was damaging ourselves in the hope of damaging the enemy. The greatest damage fell upon the maritime states of New England, and there the vials of federalist wrath were poured forth with terrible fury upon Mr. Jefferson and the embargo. But the full measure of their ferocity was reserved for Mr. Adams, who had actually been a member of the committee that reported the bill, and had given it his most earnest support. All the choicest epithets of abuse were showered upon him; few men in our history have been more fiercely berated and reviled. His term of service in the senate was to expire on 3 March, 1809. In the preceding June the Massachusetts legislature chose Mr. Lloyd to succeed him, a proceeding that was intended and accepted as an insult. Mr. Adams instantly resigned, and Mr. Lloyd was chosen to fill the remainder of his term. In the course of the next month the republicans of his congressional district wished to elect him to the house of representatives, but he refused. In 1806 Mr. Adams had been appointed professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Harvard college, and in the intervals of his public duties had delivered lectures there, which were published in 1810, and for a time were held in esteem. 

One of Mr. Madison's first acts on succeeding to the presidency in 1809 was to nominate Mr. Adams minister to Russia. Since Mr. Dana's failure to secure recognition in 1782, the United States had had no minister in that country, and the new mission was now to be created. The senate at first declined to concur in creating the mission, but a few months later the objectors yielded, and Mr. Adams's nomination was confirmed. He was very courteously received by Alexander I., and his four years and a half in Russia passed very pleasantly. His diary gives us a vivid account of the Napoleonic invasion and its disastrous ending. In the autumn of 1812 the czar offered his services as mediator between the United States and Great Britain. War had only been declared between these powers three months before, but the American government promptly accepted the proposal, and, in the height of the popular enthusiasm over the naval victories of Hull and Decatur, sent Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard to St. Petersburg to act as commissioners with Mr. Adams. The British government refused to accept the mediation of Russia, but proposed instead an independent negotiation, to which the United States agreed, and the commissioners were directed to meet at Ghent. Much time was consumed in these arrangements, while we were defeating England again and again on the sea, and suffering in return some humiliating reverses on land, until at last the commissioners met at Ghent, in August, 1814. Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were added to the American commission, while England was represented by Lord Gambier, Dr. Adams, and Mr. Goulburn. After four months of bitter wrangling, from which no good result could have been expected, terms of peace were suddenly agreed upon in December. In warding off the British attempts to limit our rights in the fisheries Mr. Adams played an important part, as his father had done in 1782. The war had been a drawn game, neither side was decisively victorious, and the treaty apparently left things much as before. Nothing was explicitly done to end the pretensions of England to the right of search and the impressment of seamen, yet the naval victories of the United States had taught the British a lesson, and these pretensions were never renewed. The treaty was a great disappointment to the British people, who had hoped to obtain some advantages, and Mr. Adams, for his share in it, was reviled by the London press in a tone which could not but be regarded as a compliment to his powers. After the conclusion of the treaty he visited Paris and witnessed the return of Napoleon from Elba and the exciting events that followed up to the eve of Waterloo. Here his wife and children joined him, after a tedious journey from St. Petersburg, not without distress and peril by the way. By this time Mr. Adams had been appointed commissioner, with Clay and Gallatin, to negotiate a new commercial treaty with England. This treaty was completed on 13 July, 1815; but already, on 26 May, when Mr. Adams arrived in London, he had received the news of his appointment as minister to England. The series of double coincidences in the Adams family between missions to England and treaties with that power is curious. First John Adams is minister, just after his share in the treaty that concluded the revolutionary war, then his son, just after the treaty that concluded the war of 1812-'15, and then the grandson is minister during the civil war and afterward takes part in the treaty that disposed of the Alabama question. 

After an absence of eight years, John Quincy Adams was called back to his native land to serve as secretary of state under President Monroe. A new era in American politics was dawning. The war which had just been concluded has sometimes been called our second war of independence; certainly the year 1815, which saw the end of the long strife between France and England, marks an important era in American history. Our politics ceased to be concerned mainly with foreign affairs. So suddenly were men's bones of political contention taken away from them that Monroe's presidency is traditionally remembered as the “era of good feeling.” So far as political parties were concerned, such an epithet is well applied; but as between prominent individuals struggling covertly to supplant one another, it was anything rather than an era of good feeling. Mr. Adams's principal achievement as secretary of state was the treaty with Spain, whereby Florida was ceded to the United States in consideration of $5,000,000, to be applied to the liquidation of outstanding claims of American merchants against Spain. By the same treaty the boundary between Louisiana and Mexico was established as running along the Sabine and Red rivers, the upper Arkansas, the crest of the Rocky mountains, and the 42d parallel. Mr. Adams defended the conduct of General Jackson in invading Spanish Florida and hanging Arbuthnot and Ambrister. He supported the policy of recognizing the independence of the revolted colonies of Spanish America, and he was the principal author of what is known as the “Monroe Doctrine,” that the American continent is no longer open to colonization by European powers. His official report on weights and measures showed remarkable scientific knowledge. Toward the close of Monroe's first term came up the first great political question growing out of the purchase of Louisiana: Should Missouri be admitted to the union as a slave-state, and should slavery be allowed or prohibited in the vast territory beyond? After the Missouri compromise had passed through congress, and been submitted to President Monroe for his signature, two questions were laid before the cabinet. First, had congress the constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory? and, secondly, in prohibiting slavery “forever” in the territory north of Mason and Dixon's line, as prolonged beyond the Mississippi river, did the Missouri bill refer to this district only so long as it should remain under territorial government, or did it apply to such states as might in future be formed from it? To the first question the cabinet replied unanimously in the affirmative. To the second question Mr. Adams replied that the term “forever” really meant forever; but all his colleagues replied that it only meant so long as the district in question should remain under territorial government. Here for the first time we see Mr. Adams taking that firm stand in opposition to slavery which hereafter was to make him so famous. 

Mr. Monroe's second term of office had scarcely begun when the question of the succession came into the foreground. The candidates were John Quincy Adams, secretary of state; William H. Crawford, secretary of the treasury; John C. Calhoun, secretary of war; and Henry Clay, speaker of the house of representatives. Shortly before the election General Jackson's strength began to loom up as more formidable than the other competitors had supposed. Jackson was then at the height of his popularity as a military hero, Crawford was the most dexterous political manager in the country. Clay was perhaps the most persuasive orator. Far superior to these three in intelligence and character, Mr. Adams was in no sense a popular favorite. His manners were stiff and disagreeable; he told the truth bluntly, whether it hurt or not; and he never took pains to conciliate any one. The best of men in his domestic circle, outside of it he had few warm friends, but he seemed to have a talent for making enemies. When Edward Everett asked him if he was “determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the presidency as the successor of Mr. Monroe,” he replied that he “should do absolutely nothing,” and from this resolution he never swerved. He desired the presidency as much as any one who was ever chosen to that high office; but his nature was such that unless it should come to him without scheming of his own, and as the unsolicited expression of popular trust in him, all its value would be lost. Under the Circumstances, it was a remarkable evidence of the respect felt for his lofty character and distinguished services that he should have obtained the presidency at all. The result of the election showed 99 votes for Jackson. 84 for Adams, 41 for Crawford, 37 for Clay. Mr. Calhoun, who had withdrawn from the contest for the presidency, received 182 votes for the vice-presidency, and was elected. The choice of the president was thrown into the house of representatives, and Mr. Clay now used his great influence in favor of Mr. Adams, who was forthwith elected. When Adams afterward made Clay his secretary of state, the disappointed partisans of Jackson pretended that there had been a bargain between the two, that Adams had secured Clay's assistance by promising him the first place in the cabinet, and thus, according to a usage that seemed to be establishing itself, placing him in the line of succession for the next presidency. The peppery John Randolph characterized this supposed bargain as “a coalition between Blifil and Black George, the Furitan and the blackleg.” There never was a particle of foundation for this reckless charge, and it has long since been disproved. 

During Monroe's administration the Federalist party had become extinct. In the course of John Quincy Adams's administration the new division of parties into Whigs and Democrats began to grow up, the Whigs favoring internal improvements, the national bank, and a high tariff on importations, while the Democrats opposed all such measures on the ground that they were incompatible with a strict construction of the constitution. In its relation to such questions Mr. Adams's administration was Whig, and thus arrayed against itself not only all the southern planters, but also the ship-owners of New England and the importers of New York. But a new and powerful tendency now came in to overwhelm such an administration as that of Adams. The so-called “spoils system” was already germinating, and the time had come when it could be put into operation. Mr. Adams would have nothing to say to such a system. He would not reward the men who worked for him, and he would not remove from office the men who most vigorously opposed him. He stood on his merits, asked no favors and granted none; and was, on the whole, the most independent president we have had since Washington. Jackson and his friends promised their supporters a share in the government offices, in which a “clean sweep” was to be made by turning out the present incumbents. The result of the election of 1828 showed that for the time Jackson's method was altogether the more potent; since he obtained 178 electoral votes, against 83 for Adams. 

The close of his career as president was marked by an incident that increased the odium in which Mr. Adams was held by so many of the old federalist families of Boston. In the excitement of the election the newspapers devoted to Jackson swarmed with mischievous paragraphs designed to injure Adams's reputation. Among other things it was said that, in 1808, he had suspected some of the federalist leaders of entertaining a scheme for carrying New England out of the union, and, fearing that such a scheme would be promoted by hatred of the embargo, and that in case of its success the seceded states would almost inevitably be driven into alliance with Great Britain, he communicated his suspicions to President Jefferson and other leading republicans. These tales, published by unscrupulous newspapers twenty years after the event, grossly distorted what Mr. Adams had actually said and done; and thirteen eminent Massachusetts federalists addressed to him an open letter, demanding that he should bring in a bill of particulars supported by evidence. Adams replied by stating the substance of what he had really said, but declining to mention names or to point out the circumstances upon which his suspicion had been based. In preserving this reticence he was actuated mainly by unwillingness to stir up a furious controversy under circumstances in which it could do no good. But his adversaries made the mistake of attributing his forbearance to dread of ill consequences to himself, a motive by which, it is safe to say, Mr. Adams was never influenced on any occasion whatever. So the thirteen gentlemen returned to the attack. Mr. Adams then wrote out a full statement of the case, completely vindicating himself, and bringing forward more than enough evidence to justify any such suspicions as he had entertained and guardedly stated. After finishing this pamphlet he concluded not to publish it, but left it among his papers. It has lately been published by Prof. Henry Adams, in his “Documents relating to New England Federalism,” and is not only of great historical importance, but is one of the finest specimens of political writing to be found in the English language. 

Although now an ex-president, Mr. Adams did not long remain in private life. The greatest part of his career still lay before him. Owing to the mysterious disappearance of William Morgan, who had betrayed some of the secrets of the Masonic order, there was in some of the northern states a sudden and violent prejudice against the Freemasons and secret societies in general. An “anti-mason party” was formed, and by its votes Mr. Adams was, in 1831, elected to congress, where he remained, representing the same district of Massachusetts, until his death in 1848. He was shortly afterward nominated by the anti-masons for the governorship of Massachusetts, but was defeated in the legislature, there being no choice by the people. In congress he occupied a perfectly independent attitude. He was one of those who opposed President Jackson's high-handed treatment of the bank, but he supported the president in his firm attitude toward the South Carolina nullifiers and toward France. In 1835, as the French government delayed in paying over the indemnity of $5,000,000 which had been agreed upon by the treaty of 1831 for plunder of American shipping in the Napoleonic wars, Jackson threatened, in case payment should be any longer deferred, to issue letters of marque and reprisal against French commerce. This bold policy, which was successful in obtaining the money, enlisted Mr. Adams's hearty support. He defended Jackson as he had defended Jefferson on the occasion of the embargo; and this time, as before, his course was disapproved in Massachusetts, and he lost a seat in the U. S. senate. He had been chosen to that office by the state senate, but the lower house did not concur, and before the question was decided the news of his speech in favor of reprisals turned his supporters against him. He was thus left in the house of representatives more independent of party ties than ever, and was accordingly enabled to devote his energies to the aid of the abolitionists, who were now beginning to appear conspicuously upon the scene. At that time it was impossible for the opponents of slavery to effect much. The only way in which they could get their case before congress was by presenting petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Unwilling to receive such petitions, or to allow any discussion on the dreaded question, congress in 1836 enacted the cowardly “gag-rule,” that “all petitions, memorials, resolutions, or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table; and that no further, action whatever shall be had thereon.” After the yeas and nays had been ordered on this, when Mr. Adams's name was called he rose and said: “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the constitution of the United States, the rules of this house, and the rights of my constituents.” The house sought to drown his words with loud shrieks and yells of “Order!” “Order!” but he raised his voice to a shout and defiantly finished his sentence. The rule was adopted by a vote of 117 to 68, but it did more harm than good to the pro-slavery party. They had put themselves in an untenable position, and furnished Mr. Adams with a powerful weapon which he used against them without mercy. As a parliamentary debater he has had few if any superiors; in knowledge and dexterity there was no one in the house who could be compared with him; he was always master of himself, even at the white heat of anger to which he often rose; he was terrible in invective, matchless at repartee, and insensible to fear. A single-handed fight against all the slave-holders in the house was something upon which he was always ready to enter, and he usually came off with the last word. Though the vituperative vocabulary of the English language seemed inadequate to express the hatred and loathing with which the pro-slavery party regarded him, though he was more than once threatened with assassination, nevertheless his dauntless bearing and boundless resources compelled the respect of his bitterest opponents, and members from the south, with true chivalry, sometimes confessed it. Every session he returned to the assault upon the gag-rule, until the disgraceful measure was rescinded in 1845. This part of Mr. Adams's career consisted of a vast number of small incidents, which make a very interesting and instructive chapter in American history, but can not well be epitomized. He came to serve as the rallying-point in congress for the ever-growing anti-slavery sentiment, and may be regarded, in a certain sense, as the first founder of the new republican party. He seems to have been the first to enunciate the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln afterward rested his great proclamation of emancipation. In a speech in congress in 1836 he said: “From the instant that your slave-holding states become the theatre of war—civil, servile, or foreign—from that instant the war powers of the constitution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with.” As this principle was attacked by the southern members, Mr. Adams from time to time reiterated it, especially in his speech of 14 April, 1842, on the question of war with England and Mexico, when he said: " Whether the war be civil, servile, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations: I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, slavery among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the states where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the president of the United States, but the commander of the army has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves.”  

After the rescinding of the gag-rule Mr. Adams spoke less frequently. In November, 1846, he had a shock of paralysis, which kept him at home four months. On 21 February, 1848, while he was sitting in the house of representatives, came the second shock. He was carried into the speaker's room, where he lay two days, and died on the 23d. His last words were: “This is the last of earth; I am content.” See “Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams,” by William H. Seward (Auburn, 1849); “Life of John Quincy Adams,” by Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1858); “Diary of John Quincy Adams,” edited by Charles F. Adams, 12 vols., 8vo (Philadelphia, 1874-'7); and “John Quincy Adams,” by John T. Morse, Jr. (Boston, 1882). 

The steel portrait of Mr. Adams, facing page 24, is from a picture by Marchant, in the possession of the New York Historical Society. The mansion represented on page 26 is the Adams homestead at Quincy, in which the presidents lived, now the summer residence of Charles Francis Adams.  Source: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 17-23.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ADAMS, John Quincy, sixth president of the United States, born in Braintree, Massachusetts, 11 July, 1767; died in Washington, D. C., 23 February, 1848. He was named for his mother's grandfather, John Quincy. In his eleventh year he accompanied his father to France, and was sent to school near Paris, where his proficiency in the French language and other studies soon became conspicuous. In the following year he returned to America, and back again to France with his father, whom, in August, 1780, he accompanied to Holland. After a few months at school in Amsterdam, he entered the university of Leyden. Two years afterward John Adams's secretary of legation, Francis Dana, was appointed minister to Russia, and the boy accompanied him as private secretary. After a stay of fourteen months, as Catharine's government refused to recognize Mr. Dana as minister, young Adams left St. Petersburg and travelled alone through Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany to France, spending six months in the journey. Arriving in Paris, he found his father busy with the negotiation of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and was immediately set to work as secretary, and aided in drafting the papers that “dispersed all possible doubt of the independence of his country.” In 1785, when his father was appointed minister to England, he decided not to stay with him in London, but to return at once to Massachusetts in order to complete his education at Harvard college. For an American career he believed an American education to be best fitted. Considering the immediate sacrifice of pleasure involved, it was a remarkably wise decision in a lad of eighteen. But Adams's character was already fully formed; he was what he remained throughout his life, a Puritan of the sternest and most uncompromising sort, who seemed to take a grim enjoyment in the performance of duty, especially when disagreeable. Returning home, he was graduated at Harvard college in 1788, and then studied law in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterward chief justice of Massachusetts. In 1791 he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and began the practice of law, the tedium of which he relieved by writing occasional articles for the papers. Under the signature of “Publicola” he criticised some positions taken by Thomas Paine in his “Rights of Man”; and these articles, when republished in England, were generally attributed to his father. In a further series of papers, signed “Marcellus,” he defended Washington's policy of neutrality; and in a third series, signed “Columbus,” he discussed the extraordinary behavior of Citizen Genet, whom the Jacobins had sent over to browbeat the Americans into joining France in hurling defiance at the world. These writings made him so conspicuous that in 1794 Washington appointed him minister to Holland, and two years later made an appointment transferring him to Portugal. Before he had started for the latter country his father became president of the United States and asked Washington's advice as to the propriety of promoting his own son by sending him to Berlin. Washington in strong terms recommended the promotion, declaring that in his opinion the young man would prove to be the ablest diplomat in the American service. In the fall of 1797 Mr. Adams accordingly took up his residence at the capital of Prussia. Shortly before this he had married Miss Louisa Johnson, a niece of Thomas Johnson, of Maryland. During his residence at Berlin Mr. Adams translated Wieland's “Oberon” into English. In 1798 he was commissioned to make a commercial treaty with Sweden. In 1800 he made a journey through Silesia, and wrote an account of it, which was published in London and afterward translated into German and French. When Jefferson became president, Mr. Adams's mission terminated. He resumed the practice of law in Boston, but in 1802 was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and next year was chosen to the senate of the United States instead of Timothy Pickering. The federalist party was then rent in twain by the feud between the partisans of John Adams and those of Hamilton, and the reception of the younger Adams in the senate was far from flattering. Affairs grew worse when, at the next vacancy, Pickering was chosen to be his uncongenial colleague. Mr. Adams was grossly and repeatedly insulted. Any motion he might make was sure to be rejected by the combined votes of republicans and Hamiltonians, though frequently the same motion, made soon afterward by somebody else, would be carried by a large majority. A committee of which he was a member would make and send in its report without even notifying him of its time and place of meeting. At first Mr. Adams was subjected to such treatment merely because he was the son of his father; but presently he rendered himself more and more amenable to it by manifesting the same independence of party ties that had made his father so unpopular. Independence in politics has always been characteristic of the Adams family, and in none has this been more strongly marked than in John Quincy Adams. His first serious difference with the federalist party was occasioned by his qualified approval of Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana, a measure that was bitterly opposed and fiercely censured by nearly all the federalists, because it was feared it would add too much strength to the south. A much more serious difference arose somewhat later, on the question of the embargo. Questions of foreign rather than of domestic policy then furnished the burning subjects of contention in the United States. Our neutral commerce on the high seas, which had risen to very considerable proportions, was plundered in turn by England and by France, until its very existence was threatened. In May, 1806, the British government declared the northern coast of Europe, from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe, to be blockaded. By the Russian proclamation of 1780, which was then accepted by all civilized nations except Great Britain, such paper blockades were illegal; but British ships none the less seized and confiscated American vessels bound to any port on that coast. In November Napoleon issued his Berlin decree making a paper blockade of the whole British coast, whereupon French cruisers began seizing and confiscating American vessels on their way from British to French ports. Two months later England issued an order in council, forbidding neutrals to trade between any of her enemy's ports; and this was followed by orders decreeing fines or confiscation to all neutral ships daring to violate the edict. In December, 1807, Napoleon replied with the Milan decree, threatening to confiscate all ships bound to England, or which should have paid a fine to the British government or submitted to search at the hands of a British commander. All these decrees and orders were in flagrant violation of international law, and for a time they made the ocean a pandemonium of robbery and murder. Their effect upon American commerce was about the same as if both England and France had declared war against the United States. Their natural and proper effect upon the American people would have been seen in an immediate declaration of war against both England and France, save that our military weakness was then too manifest to make such a course anything but ridiculous. Between the animus of the two bullies by whom we were thus tormented there was little to choose; but in two respects England's capacity for injuring us was the greater. In the first place, she had more ships engaged in this highway robbery than France, and stronger ones; in the second place, owing to the difficulty of distinguishing between Americans and Englishmen, she was able to add the crowning wickedness of kidnapping American seamen. The wrath of the Americans was thus turned more against England than against France; and never perhaps in the revolutionary war had it waxed stronger than in the summer of 1807, when, in full sight of the American coast, the “Leopard” fired upon the “Chesapeake,” killed and wounded several of her crew, and violently carried away four of them. For this outrage the commander of the “Leopard” was promoted in the British service. In spite of all these things, the hatred of the federalists for France was so great that they were ready to put up with insult added to injury rather than attack the power that was warring against Napoleon. So far did these feelings carry them that Mr. John Lowell, a prominent federalist of Boston, was actually heard to defend the action of the “Leopard.” Such pusillanimity incensed Mr. Adams. “This was the cause,” he afterward said, “which alienated me from that day and forever from the councils of the federal party.” He tried to persuade the federalists of Boston to hold a meeting and pledge their support to the government in any measures, however serious, that it might see fit to adopt in order to curb the insolence of Great Britain. But these gentlemen were too far blinded by party feeling to respond to the call; whereupon Mr. Adams attended a republican meeting, at which he was put upon a committee to draft and report such resolutions. Presently the federalists bowed to the storm of popular feeling and held their meeting, at which Mr. Adams was also present and drafted resolutions. For his share in the proceedings of the republicans it was threatened that he should “have his head taken off for apostasy.” It was never of much use to threaten Mr. Adams. An extra session of congress was called in October to consider what was to be done. Mr. Jefferson's government was averse to war, for which the country was ill prepared, and it was thought that somewhat milder measures might harass England until she would submit to reason. For a year and a half a non-importation act had been in force; but it had proved no more effective than the non-importation agreements of 1768 and 1774. Now an embargo was laid upon all the shipping in American ports. The advantage of such a measure was very doubtful; it was damaging ourselves in the hope of damaging the enemy. The greatest damage fell upon the maritime states of New England, and there the vials of federalist wrath were poured forth with terrible fury upon Mr. Jefferson and the embargo. But the full measure of their ferocity was reserved for Mr. Adams, who had actually been a member of the committee that reported the bill, and had given it his most earnest support. All the choicest epithets of abuse were showered upon him; few men in our history have been more fiercely berated and reviled. His term of service in the senate was to expire on 3 March, 1809. In the preceding June the Massachusetts legislature chose Mr. Lloyd to succeed him, a proceeding that was intended and accepted as an insult. Mr. Adams instantly resigned, and Mr. Lloyd was chosen to fill the remainder of his term. In the course of the next month the republicans of his congressional district wished to elect him to the house of representatives, but he refused. In 1806 Mr. Adams had been appointed professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Harvard college, and in the intervals of his public duties had delivered lectures there, which were published in 1810, and for a time were held in esteem. 

One of Mr. Madison's first acts on succeeding to the presidency in 1809 was to nominate Mr. Adams minister to Russia. Since Mr. Dana's failure to secure recognition in 1782, the United States had had no minister in that country, and the new mission was now to be created. The senate at first declined to concur in creating the mission, but a few months later the objectors yielded, and Mr. Adams's nomination was confirmed. He was very courteously received by Alexander I., and his four years and a half in Russia passed very pleasantly. His diary gives us a vivid account of the Napoleonic invasion and its disastrous ending. In the autumn of 1812 the czar offered his services as mediator between the United States and Great Britain. War had only been declared between these powers three months before, but the American government promptly accepted the proposal, and, in the height of the popular enthusiasm over the naval victories of Hull and Decatur, sent Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard to St. Petersburg to act as commissioners with Mr. Adams. The British government refused to accept the mediation of Russia, but proposed instead an independent negotiation, to which the United States agreed, and the commissioners were directed to meet at Ghent. Much time was consumed in these arrangements, while we were defeating England again and again on the sea, and suffering in return some humiliating reverses on land, until at last the commissioners met at Ghent, in August, 1814. Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were added to the American commission, while England was represented by Lord Gambier, Dr. Adams, and Mr. Goulburn. After four months of bitter wrangling, from which no good result could have been expected, terms of peace were suddenly agreed upon in December. In warding off the British attempts to limit our rights in the fisheries Mr. Adams played an important part, as his father had done in 1782. The war had been a drawn game, neither side was decisively victorious, and the treaty apparently left things much as before. Nothing was explicitly done to end the pretensions of England to the right of search and the impressment of seamen, yet the naval victories of the United States had taught the British a lesson, and these pretensions were never renewed. The treaty was a great disappointment to the British people, who had hoped to obtain some advantages, and Mr. Adams, for his share in it, was reviled by the London press in a tone which could not but be regarded as a compliment to his powers. After the conclusion of the treaty he visited Paris and witnessed the return of Napoleon from Elba and the exciting events that followed up to the eve of Waterloo. Here his wife and children joined him, after a tedious journey from St. Petersburg, not without distress and peril by the way. By this time Mr. Adams had been appointed commissioner, with Clay and Gallatin, to negotiate a new commercial treaty with England. This treaty was completed on 13 July, 1815; but already, on 26 May, when Mr. Adams arrived in London, he had received the news of his appointment as minister to England. The series of double coincidences in the Adams family between missions to England and treaties with that power is curious. First John Adams is minister, just after his share in the treaty that concluded the revolutionary war, then his son, just after the treaty that concluded the war of 1812-'15, and then the grandson is minister during the civil war and afterward takes part in the treaty that disposed of the Alabama question. 
After an absence of eight years, John Quincy Adams was called back to his native land to serve as secretary of state under President Monroe. A new era in American politics was dawning. The war which had just been concluded has sometimes been called our second war of independence; certainly the year 1815, which saw the end of the long strife between France and England, marks an important era in American history. Our politics ceased to be concerned mainly with foreign affairs. So suddenly were men's bones of political contention taken away from them that Monroe's presidency is traditionally remembered as the “era of good feeling.” So far as political parties were concerned, such an epithet is well applied; but as between prominent individuals struggling covertly to supplant one another, it was anything rather than an era of good feeling. Mr. Adams's principal achievement as secretary of state was the treaty with Spain, whereby Florida was ceded to the United States in consideration of $5,000,000, to be applied to the liquidation of outstanding claims of American merchants against Spain. By the same treaty the boundary between Louisiana and Mexico was established as running along the Sabine and Red rivers, the upper Arkansas, the crest of the Rocky mountains, and the 42d parallel. Mr. Adams defended the conduct of General Jackson in invading Spanish Florida and hanging Arbuthnot and Ambrister. He supported the policy of recognizing the independence of the revolted colonies of Spanish America, and he was the principal author of what is known as the “Monroe Doctrine,” that the American continent is no longer open to colonization by European powers. His official report on weights and measures showed remarkable scientific knowledge. Toward the close of Monroe's first term came up the first great political question growing out of the purchase of Louisiana: Should Missouri be admitted to the union as a slave-state, and should slavery be allowed or prohibited in the vast territory beyond? After the Missouri compromise had passed through congress, and been submitted to President Monroe for his signature, two questions were laid before the cabinet. First, had congress the constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory? and, secondly, in prohibiting slavery “forever” in the territory north of Mason and Dixon's line, as prolonged beyond the Mississippi river, did the Missouri bill refer to this district only so long as it should remain under territorial government, or did it apply to such states as might in future be formed from it? To the first question the cabinet replied unanimously in the affirmative. To the second question Mr. Adams replied that the term “forever” really meant forever; but all his colleagues replied that it only meant so long as the district in question should remain under territorial government. Here for the first time we see Mr. Adams taking that firm stand in opposition to slavery which hereafter was to make him so famous. 

Mr. Monroe's second term of office had scarcely begun when the question of the succession came into the foreground. The candidates were John Quincy Adams, secretary of state; William H. Crawford, secretary of the treasury; John C. Calhoun, secretary of war; and Henry Clay, speaker of the house of representatives. Shortly before the election General Jackson's strength began to loom up as more formidable than the other competitors had supposed. Jackson was then at the height of his popularity as a military hero, Crawford was the most dexterous political manager in the country. Clay was perhaps the most persuasive orator. Far superior to these three in intelligence and character, Mr. Adams was in no sense a popular favorite. His manners were stiff and disagreeable; he told the truth bluntly, whether it hurt or not; and he never took pains to conciliate any one. The best of men in his domestic circle, outside of it he had few warm friends, but he seemed to have a talent for making enemies. When Edward Everett asked him if he was “determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the presidency as the successor of Mr. Monroe,” he replied that he “should do absolutely nothing,” and from this resolution he never swerved. He desired the presidency as much as any one who was ever chosen to that high office; but his nature was such that unless it should come to him without scheming of his own, and as the unsolicited expression of popular trust in him, all its value would be lost. Under the Circumstances, it was a remarkable evidence of the respect felt for his lofty character and distinguished services that he should have obtained the presidency at all. The result of the election showed 99 votes for Jackson. 84 for Adams, 41 for Crawford, 37 for Clay. Mr. Calhoun, who had withdrawn from the contest for the presidency, received 182 votes for the vice-presidency, and was elected. The choice of the president was thrown into the house of representatives, and Mr. Clay now used his great influence in favor of Mr. Adams, who was forthwith elected. When Adams afterward made Clay his secretary of state, the disappointed partisans of Jackson pretended that there had been a bargain between the two, that Adams had secured Clay's assistance by promising him the first place in the cabinet, and thus, according to a usage that seemed to be establishing itself, placing him in the line of succession for the next presidency. The peppery John Randolph characterized this supposed bargain as “a coalition between Blifil and Black George, the Furitan and the blackleg.” There never was a particle of foundation for this reckless charge, and it has long since been disproved. 

During Monroe's administration the Federalist party had become extinct. In the course of John Quincy Adams's administration the new division of parties into Whigs and Democrats began to grow up, the Whigs favoring internal improvements, the national bank, and a high tariff on importations, while the Democrats opposed all such measures on the ground that they were incompatible with a strict construction of the constitution. In its relation to such questions Mr. Adams's administration was Whig, and thus arrayed against itself not only all the southern planters, but also the ship-owners of New England and the importers of New York. But a new and powerful tendency now came in to overwhelm such an administration as that of Adams. The so-called “spoils system” was already germinating, and the time had come when it could be put into operation. Mr. Adams would have nothing to say to such a system. He would not reward the men who worked for him, and he would not remove from office the men who most vigorously opposed him. He stood on his merits, asked no favors and granted none; and was, on the whole, the most independent president we have had since Washington. Jackson and his friends promised their supporters a share in the government offices, in which a “clean sweep” was to be made by turning out the present incumbents. The result of the election of 1828 showed that for the time Jackson's method was altogether the more potent; since he obtained 178 electoral votes, against 83 for Adams. 

The close of his career as president was marked by an incident that increased the odium in which Mr. Adams was held by so many of the old federalist families of Boston. In the excitement of the election the newspapers devoted to Jackson swarmed with mischievous paragraphs designed to injure Adams's reputation. Among other things it was said that, in 1808, he had suspected some of the federalist leaders of entertaining a scheme for carrying New England out of the union, and, fearing that such a scheme would be promoted by hatred of the embargo, and that in case of its success the seceded states would almost inevitably be driven into alliance with Great Britain, he communicated his suspicions to President Jefferson and other leading republicans. These tales, published by unscrupulous newspapers twenty years after the event, grossly distorted what Mr. Adams had actually said and done; and thirteen eminent Massachusetts federalists addressed to him an open letter, demanding that he should bring in a bill of particulars supported by evidence. Adams replied by stating the substance of what he had really said, but declining to mention names or to point out the circumstances upon which his suspicion had been based. In preserving this reticence he was actuated mainly by unwillingness to stir up a furious controversy under circumstances in which it could do no good. But his adversaries made the mistake of attributing his forbearance to dread of ill consequences to himself, a motive by which, it is safe to say, Mr. Adams was never influenced on any occasion whatever. So the thirteen gentlemen returned to the attack. Mr. Adams then wrote out a full statement of the case, completely vindicating himself, and bringing forward more than enough evidence to justify any such suspicions as he had entertained and guardedly stated. After finishing this pamphlet he concluded not to publish it, but left it among his papers. It has lately been published by Prof. Henry Adams, in his “Documents relating to New England Federalism,” and is not only of great historical importance, but is one of the finest specimens of political writing to be found in the English language. 

Although now an ex-president, Mr. Adams did not long remain in private life. The greatest part of his career still lay before him. Owing to the mysterious disappearance of William Morgan, who had betrayed some of the secrets of the Masonic order, there was in some of the northern states a sudden and violent prejudice against the Freemasons and secret societies in general. An “anti-mason party” was formed, and by its votes Mr. Adams was, in 1831, elected to congress, where he remained, representing the same district of Massachusetts, until his death in 1848. He was shortly afterward nominated by the anti-masons for the governorship of Massachusetts, but was defeated in the legislature, there being no choice by the people. In congress he occupied a perfectly independent attitude. He was one of those who opposed President Jackson's high-handed treatment of the bank, but he supported the president in his firm attitude toward the South Carolina nullifiers and toward France. In 1835, as the French government delayed in paying over the indemnity of $5,000,000 which had been agreed upon by the treaty of 1831 for plunder of American shipping in the Napoleonic wars, Jackson threatened, in case payment should be any longer deferred, to issue letters of marque and reprisal against French commerce. This bold policy, which was successful in obtaining the money, enlisted Mr. Adams's hearty support. He defended Jackson as he had defended Jefferson on the occasion of the embargo; and this time, as before, his course was disapproved in Massachusetts, and he lost a seat in the U. S. senate. He had been chosen to that office by the state senate, but the lower house did not concur, and before the question was decided the news of his speech in favor of reprisals turned his supporters against him. He was thus left in the house of representatives more independent of party ties than ever, and was accordingly enabled to devote his energies to the aid of the abolitionists, who were now beginning to appear conspicuously upon the scene. At that time it was impossible for the opponents of slavery to effect much. The only way in which they could get their case before congress was by presenting petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Unwilling to receive such petitions, or to allow any discussion on the dreaded question, congress in 1836 enacted the cowardly “gag-rule,” that “all petitions, memorials, resolutions, or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table; and that no further, action whatever shall be had thereon.” After the yeas and nays had been ordered on this, when Mr. Adams's name was called he rose and said: “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the constitution of the United States, the rules of this house, and the rights of my constituents.” The house sought to drown his words with loud shrieks and yells of “Order!” “Order!” but he raised his voice to a shout and defiantly finished his sentence. The rule was adopted by a vote of 117 to 68, but it did more harm than good to the pro-slavery party. They had put themselves in an untenable position, and furnished Mr. Adams with a powerful weapon which he used against them without mercy. As a parliamentary debater he has had few if any superiors; in knowledge and dexterity there was no one in the house who could be compared with him; he was always master of himself, even at the white heat of anger to which he often rose; he was terrible in invective, matchless at repartee, and insensible to fear. A single-handed fight against all the slave-holders in the house was something upon which he was always ready to enter, and he usually came off with the last word. Though the vituperative vocabulary of the English language seemed inadequate to express the hatred and loathing with which the pro-slavery party regarded him, though he was more than once threatened with assassination, nevertheless his dauntless bearing and boundless resources compelled the respect of his bitterest opponents, and members from the south, with true chivalry, sometimes confessed it. Every session he returned to the assault upon the gag-rule, until the disgraceful measure was rescinded in 1845. This part of Mr. Adams's career consisted of a vast number of small incidents, which make a very interesting and instructive chapter in American history, but can not well be epitomized. He came to serve as the rallying-point in congress for the ever-growing anti-slavery sentiment, and may be regarded, in a certain sense, as the first founder of the new republican party. He seems to have been the first to enunciate the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln afterward rested his great proclamation of emancipation. In a speech in congress in 1836 he said: “From the instant that your slave-holding states become the theatre of war—civil, servile, or foreign—from that instant the war powers of the constitution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with.” As this principle was attacked by the southern members, Mr. Adams from time to time reiterated it, especially in his speech of 14 April, 1842, on the question of war with England and Mexico, when he said: " Whether the war be civil, servile, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations: I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, slavery among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the states where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the president of the United States, but the commander of the army has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves.”  

After the rescinding of the gag-rule Mr. Adams spoke less frequently. In November, 1846, he had a shock of paralysis, which kept him at home four months. On 21 February, 1848, while he was sitting in the house of representatives, came the second shock. He was carried into the speaker's room, where he lay two days, and died on the 23d. His last words were: “This is the last of earth; I am content.” See “Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams,” by William H. Seward (Auburn, 1849); “Life of John Quincy Adams,” by Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1858); “Diary of John Quincy Adams,” edited by Charles F. Adams, 12 vols., 8vo (Philadelphia, 1874-'7); and “John Quincy Adams,” by John T. Morse, Jr. (Boston, 1882). 

The steel portrait of Mr. Adams, facing page 24, is from a picture by Marchant, in the possession of the New York Historical Society. The mansion represented on page 26 is the Adams homestead at Quincy, in which the presidents lived, now the summer residence of Charles Francis Adams.  Source: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 17-23.

Chapter: “John Quincy Adams. - William H. Seward. - Salmon P. Chase,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.

On the 21st of February, 1848, John Quincy Adams was stricken with apoplexy in his seat in the House of Representatives. He was borne to the Speaker's room, where, two days afterward, the aged statesman died. It was, in his own touching words, his "last of earth," a striking but fitting close of a long and illustrious career. Indeed, had it been left for him to choose the mode of his departure, he could hardly have chosen a death in richer harmony with his life. On the very spot of his grandest triumphs, under the roof that had so often resounded with his ringing words, “the old man eloquent " passed away.
Though Mr. Adams was distinguished above all others in his earnest, persistent, and finally triumphant vindication of the right of petition and freedom of speech, he was not, at least until near the close of life, in hearty accord with Abolitionists, with whom he never affiliated, from whom he often received severe criticisms and censures, and to whom he sometimes applied words indicating little confidence in their plans, if in their purposes, of action. Yet he was a trusted leader in their great fight for freedom of speech, while it was his voice that first enunciated the doctrine --novel to all, and greatly distasteful to slaveholders--of the right of the government, under the war power, to emancipate the slaves; very right on which President Lincoln based the Proclamation of Emancipation.

As, however, he drew near the close of life, his views changed. If his abhorrence of slavery did not increase, his anxiety for the future of his country deepened, and he became more and more cognizant of the machinations of those who seemed determined either to make the government entirely subservient to the behests of the Slave Power or to destroy it. His long participation in public affairs, his intimate relations with public men his protracted observation of statesmen and their measures, his consummate knowledge of the schemings and the indirect purposes of too many, who, with fair professions, sought merely to promote their own personal and. partisan ends, protected him from, what deceived others, and prepared him to interpret both the utterances and the silences of those who spake as loudly and as intelligibly in his ear by the latter as by the former. John Minor Botts, in his history of the rise, progress, and disastrous failure of the great Rebellion, states that the policy and avowed purposes of Mr. Calhoun converted him, and that the open and brazen avowals that the acquisition of Texas was mainly sought to extend and perpetuate slavery made Mr. Adams an Abolitionist. Mr. Botts gives the substance of an interview, after he had expressed sentiments he had not been understood to entertain. Upon the adjournment of the House," he said,” we walked down together, and I took occasion to refer to his remarks, which I do not now precisely recollect, and said that I thought he did not intend to say all that his language could imply. ‘Yes,' he replied, ' I said it deliberately and purposely.' ‘But’ said I, ' Mr. Adams, you are not an Abolitionist.' ‘Yes, I am,' said he. ' I never have been one until now; but when I see the Constitution of my country struck down by the South for such purposes as are openly avowed, no alternative is left me. I must oppose them with all the means within my reach. I must fight the Devil with his own fire; and, to do this effectually, I am obliged to co-operate with the Abolition party, who have been hateful to me heretofore. If the South had consulted her true interest, and followed your counsel on the Twenty-first Rule and on the Texas­ question, their institutions would never have been endangered by the North; but, if matters are to take the shape foreshadowed by Mr. Calhoun and others of the Democratic party, then no one can foretell what may be the consequences.'”

Nor did Mr. Adams express his convictions in equivocal and mealy words. In August, 1847, he wrote to Governor Slade of Vermont that the existence of slavery was “a moral pestilence” which "preyed on the human race "; that it was "the great evil now suffered by the race of men,--an evil to be extinguished by the will of man himself and by the operations of that will." He declared his belief, that, “if the will of the free portion of this North American people could be organized for action, the people of the whole American Union would ipso facto become free." He avowed himself in favor of an improvement in "the popular education," which, he said, " shall administer to the soul of every male child born within the free portion of these States the principle of that oath which it is said the Carthaginian Hamilcar administered to his son Hannibal with reference to Rome, --eternal, inextinguishable hatred, not to Rome, nor any existing nation, but to slavery throughout the earth.'' 
“The revolution,'' he said, "to be effected in the North American confederacy, preliminary to the abolition of slavery throughout the earth, is in the will of the portion of the American people already free. They now suffer themselves to be told that slavery is nothing to them, and they sleep in bonds of voluntary servitude. How long they will so sleep it will be of no use for me to inquire. The day of their awakening is reserved for a future age."

Mr. Adams had witnessed for fifteen years the continued aggressions of the Slave Power and its continued successes. No wonder, then, that the venerable statesman looked not to the immediate future, but to a coming age, for that awakening of the people which was to precede and procure that breaking of those " bonds of voluntary servitude " he so much deplored, and of whose speedy rupture he was so hopeless. Indeed, his very hopelessness revealed a deeper insight into the nature, workings, and tenacity of the system than did the more positive and confident utterances and anticipations of those who criticised him for his lack of zeal and want of co-operation. There can be little doubt as to his position, had he lived to see the struggle which at once witnessed and attested that awakening, and which resulted in the destruction of what he so thoroughly deprecated and so evidently understood.

Source:  Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 161-164.


ADAMS, William, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40, 1840-42



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.