This final post of 2023 will profile another of the historical characters in my novel, The Lafayette Circle. Although John Quincy Adams plays a relatively minor role in this tale of intrigue and mayhem in early 19th century America, he does provide the seed of the ideas that made the Marquis de Lafayette's 1824-1825 visit more than just a celebration of bonhomie between two nations.
Apprentice Diplomat
John Quincy Adams was fated to grow up and live in the shadow of his father, John, the accomplished lawyer, statesman, and politician who helped engineer the American Revolution and the foundation of America, becoming its second chief executive. Young John Quincy was born on 11 July 1767 at the family home in Braintree, Massachusetts, which is today's Quincy. His intensely patriotic and accomplished parents formed his early upbringing and schooled him in a classical education. The American Revolution seemingly unfolded before his eyes as he was among the many in and around Boston who watched nervously as the patriots battled lines of redcoats at Bunker Hill in 1775.
Exchange Student
Three years later, he left his mother to accompany his father on a diplomatic mission to Europe, which was the beginning of his real education. From 1778 to 1779, he studied at a private school in Paris, where he developed his fluency in French, the language of diplomats. Following this, he attended the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, learning some Dutch.
By 1781, he was accomplished enough in French for his father to arrange John Quincy a post as private secretary to one of America's foremost diplomats, Francis Dana, who had been named US Envoy to Russia's court at St. Petersburg. When Dana's mission proved unfruitful, he returned to Paris, where he served as a secretary to the American Commissioners during their negotiations with the British.
The Law and the Hague
When the Treaty of Paris was signed, he returned to the US to study at Harvard College and then Newburyport under the tutelage of Theophilus Parsons, where he read the law. By 1790, he was a member of the Bar in Boston. Adams went into private practice but also began penning pamphlets on political doctrine and foreign policy, in the latter case supporting President George Washington's firm stance on neutrality. This gained him an appointment as US minister to the Netherlands in 1794.
The wars of the French Revolution were raging, and the Hague was a capital full of diplomatic intrigue. Adams's dispatches and letters provided the Washington administration (which included his dad as Vice President) valuable information. He served a temporary post in London to help bring about the 1794 Jay Treaty—a pivotal and controversial foreign policy initiative.
The Diplomat
For his able service, in 1796, President Washington appointed him US Envoy to Portugal, but when Dad became the nation's second president, he switched his son's assignment to Prussia. But pleasure before business—Adams married Louisa Catherine Johnson, a diplomat's daughter whom he met in Paris when he was just twelve. She proved a charming and able partner to the rising young diplomat. They married in London before heading to Berlin, where he negotiated a treaty of amity and commerce with the Prussians. But in 1800, politics flipped on him with the election of Thomas Jefferson, who recalled Adams from his post.
Political Life
Adams returned to Boston, where state and federal politics became his new playground. By 1802, he was a member of the Massachusetts State Senate, which elected him a US Senator from Massachusetts in 1803. Battleground is actually a more accurate description. Adams was as acerbic as his father and did not favor "factions." He voted his conscience, and that often put him at odds with one party or the other. He grew estranged from his dad's Federalist Party, which by now had turned on him.
This all came to a head when he voted in support of Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act, a measure opposed by the New Englanders who valued Brtain as a trading partner. In 1808, the Massachusetts Senate voted him out of office, and he resigned. Adams aligned with the Republicans and took a position as professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard College.
Envoy to Russia
The world was at war with Napoleonic France, and President Madison needed an A player to sort things out. The highly experienced Adams was the right man, especially as he had broken with the Federalists. From that perch, the astute Adams watched the dissolution of Emporer Napoleon Bonaparte's Army in 1812 and the destruction of his empire over the following two years. Adams was at the Court of St. Petersburg just when Czar Alexander rose in stature as a leader in the coalition against Napoleon.
Treaty of Ghent
Meanwhile, war had broken out between the US and Great Britain, Russia's ally. Adams jumped onCzar Alexander's offer to mediate in the fall of 1812. The initiative, with Adams as one of the lead commissioners, fell through. However, a follow-up attempt in 1814 under Adams's leadership resulted in the Treaty of Ghent. This face-saving status quo ante arrangement changed little diplomatically or politically. Still, it gave the small US the morale-building confidence of having gone toe-to-toe with what was now the world hegemon.
Like Father, Like Son
After a short stint in Paris, which occurred during Napoleon's short return to power in 1815, he followed in Dad's footsteps. He went to London, where he and Henry Clay negotiated a "Convention to Regulate Commerce and Navigation." Soon afterward, he became US minister to Great Britain, as his father had been before him and as his son Charles was to be after him. His stay at the Court of St.James was short, as Adams returned to the United States in the summer of 1817 to become secretary of state in the cabinet of President James Monroe. This appointment was primarily due to his diplomatic experience but also due to the president's desire to have a sectionally well-balanced cabinet in what came to be known as the Era of Good Feelings.
Manifest Destiny
Adams's tenure as Secretary of State was, as one would expect, with someone groomed for the job since the age of fourteen—outstanding. He worked diligently with Spain to resolve the long-term dispute over America's western and southwestern borders. The Spanish Minister Onis agreed Spain would give up its claims to lands east of the Mississippi River. For his part, Adams decided the United States would forgo claims to Texas. The two settled on a boundary drawn from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Years of dispute were settled by the signing of what was called the Adams-Onis Transcontinental Treaty.
In 1818, he also settled the northern frontier dispute with Great Britain, establishing the 49th parallel all the way to the Rocky Mountains.
The Monroe Doctrine
Adams was a principal driver of the US policy on foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere. This is his key role in my novel, The Lafayette Circle. Instead of a joint US-British proclamation regarding European powers and the Spanish territories in America, he convinced President James Monroe to go it alone. The letter he helped craft to Congress in late 1823 and promulgated in 1824 was a stern warning to those hoping to pick up some loose change as the former colonies seemed ripe for the picking to certain powers. What later became known as The Monroe Doctrine was intended to protect the newly independent lands from recolonization and became the cornerstone of US foreign policy for more than one hundred years.
The Second President Adams
The 1824 election was a scene of chaos and political maneuvering, all within the parameters set forth by the US Constitution. With none of the four candidates (Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford) receiving the requisite number of electoral votes, the election was thrown to the House of Representatives to select from the top three (Jackson, Adams, Clay) in a one-vote-per-state "play-off." Henry Clay viewed Jackson as a dangerous demagogue and threw his support to Adams, putting him in the Oval Office. The Jacksonians cried foul when Adams later appointed Clay as Secretary of State.
Adams worked long and hard as president, but the anger of the Jacksonians (who suspected a corrupt bargain) hung like a cloud over his term as they opposed him in everything. Adams's hopes of creating a national university and a national astronomical observatory were dashed. His idea that the western territories undergo only gradual development became dead on arrival. Even his infrastructure initiatives—building bridges, ports, and roads with financial aid from the Federal government were stymied. Jackson came back to crush Adams in the 1828 election.
In an interesting connection to my novel, The Lafayette Circle, one of Adams's first acts as president was to join General Lafayette on a farewell visit to the former president James Monroe at his Leesburg, Virginia estate.
Representative of the People
In a move that stunned many as "degrading to a former president," Adams stood for a seat in the House of Representatives in 1831, responding that serving the people as a representative in Congress was not degrading. He served the people in Congress until he died in 1848. In those years, he fought tirelessly against slavery and its expansion and against the various ploys by the slave block in Congress to expand and maintain their peculiar institution.
Bold Advocate
When Africans arrested aboard the slave ship Amistad were bound to return to their masters, John Quincy Adams took up their cause, defending them in front of The US Supreme Court—and won their freedom. Adams's entire career had pointed him toward one primary goal—doing the right thing. In this, he had a mic of success and failure, but his undaunting efforts placed him among the best of early America's following (post-founding fathers) generation of leaders.
The Lion's Last Roar
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