III.

Early Career

A.

U.S. Diplomat

A.1.

Publicola

When war broke out between France and Great Britain in 1793, loyalties were deeply divided in the United States. Some Americans followed Thomas Jefferson and urged support of France. Many members of the anti-Jefferson or Federalist Party, wanted an alliance between the United States and Great Britain. President George Washington, although he sympathized with Federalist principles, insisted that the United States remain neutral. Washington’s policy of neutrality was supported by Vice President John Adams but was bitterly attacked by many. In this crisis the president received unexpected support.

An anonymous author, using the pen name Publicola, published a series of articles in a Boston newspaper that were reprinted and read throughout the nation. The articles offered a closely reasoned and brilliant defense of Washington’s policy and concluded with these words: “It is our duty to remain, the peaceable and silent, though sorrowful spectators of the sanguinary scene.” The president soon discovered that John Quincy Adams had written the articles.

A.2.

The Netherlands

Welcoming the support of the young lawyer and son of his vice president, Washington appointed Adams diplomatic representative to the Netherlands. Adams was especially qualified for the post. He spoke both Dutch and French, he had studied international law, and he understood the intricate workings of European politics.

From his post in the Netherlands, Adams observed and reported on the wars that enveloped most of Europe as a result of the French Revolution (1789-1799). He was convinced, more strongly than ever, that neutrality was the wisest policy for the United States. His diplomatic dispatches repeated this conviction again and again. Washington incorporated many of Adams’s thoughts and phrases into his Farewell Address of 1797, which urged the United States to avoid involvement in European affairs.

While serving in the Netherlands, Adams married Louisa Catherine Johnson, daughter of the U.S. consul in London, England. The couple had three sons.

A.3.

Prussia

In 1796 John Adams was elected president of the United States. Washington advised the new president that he should not “withhold merited promotion from Mr. Jn. [Quincy] Adams because he is your son. ... Mr. Adams is the most valuable public character we have abroad ... the ablest of all our diplomatic corps.” In 1797 John Adams followed Washington’s advice and sent his son as U.S. diplomatic representative to Prussia (now part of Germany), where he negotiated a treaty of friendship and commerce. During his three years there, Adams had little to do. He read, and he toured Germany. His Letters on Silesia (1804) are an account of some of his travels.

B.

United States Senator

The year after his father was defeated for reelection in 1800, Adams returned to Boston and resumed the practice of law. He was still interested in politics. He wrote in his diary: “I feel strong temptation and have great provocation to plunge into political controversy.”

In 1802 the Federalist Party leaders in Massachusetts, impressed by Adams’s record as a diplomat and by the fact that he was the son of John Adams, helped him win election to the state senate. Shortly afterward, in 1803, the Federalists in the state legislature elected him U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

Adams was a most active and conscientious senator. He served on numerous committees and sponsored measures to encourage and develop commerce and industry. His supporters, however, demanded much more. As senator, Adams was expected to further the interests of New England and of the Federalist Party. Adams regarded these as secondary interests. He would not support any measure unless he believed the entire United States would benefit from it, and he wrote: “I would fain be the man of my whole country.”

When President Thomas Jefferson requested Senate approval of his treaty for the purchase of the French colony of Louisiana, Adams was the only New England Federalist to vote in favor of it. He realized that the power and influence of his own New England would be reduced if the vast territory were added to the nation, but he was convinced that the national interest would best be served by the purchase of Louisiana (see Louisiana Purchase).

Adams again broke with his New England supporters in 1807, when he voted for the Embargo Act. The act banned all American trade with Europe and was intended to force Britain and France to respect U.S. rights on the high seas. The embargo not only failed to win British and French compliance but dealt a severe blow to U.S. commerce. Massachusetts shipowners, especially, suffered heavy financial losses. Adams was denounced as a traitor to his state and to the Federalist Party. In 1808, several months before his term was up, the Massachusetts legislature elected a senator to replace him. Adams resigned.

C.

Later Diplomatic Career

C.1.

Russia

Adams resumed his diplomatic career in 1809, when President James Madison appointed him U.S. diplomatic representative to Russia. The post was an important one, for at that time Russia was the only European outlet for American trade. French and British blockades had closed other ports in Europe to U.S. ships. For the next four years, Adams skillfully advanced American interests at Saint Petersburg, and he won the lasting friendship of the Russian leader, Tsar Alexander I.

In 1812 French Emperor Napoleon I invaded Russia, citing the tsar’s defiance of the French embargo as provocation. Adams was a witness to the triumphant advance of Napoleon’s armies into Russia’s old capital, Moscow. A month later, when the French armies began their retreat, Adams wrote his mother: “The two Russian generals who have conquered Napoleon and all his Marshals are General Famine and General Frost.”

C.2.

The Treaty of Ghent

During the same year the United States declared war on Britain. A major cause of the War of 1812 was the British seizure of American ships to enforce its counterembargo against Napoleon. The tsar proposed to Adams that Russia mediate the differences between Britain and the United States. Adams relayed the offer to President Madison, who accepted it early in 1813. Britain, however, rejected Russian mediation and offered to deal directly with the United States. Madison agreed to the British proposal.

Adams was head of the U.S. peace commission at Ghent (Gent), Belgium, in 1814. After months of negotiations the Treaty of Ghent was signed. Adams termed it “a truce rather than a peace,” for it merely ended the fighting. All the issues that had led to the War of 1812 were left unsettled.

C.3.

Britain

In 1815 the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Britain, and Adams was appointed diplomatic representative. During the next two years he tried, with little success, to resolve British and American differences. He did, however, lay the groundwork for the Rush-Bagot Convention of 1817, an agreement between Britain and the United States that provided for disarmament along the U.S.-Canadian border. Adams also helped to negotiate agreements that guaranteed American trading rights in British overseas possessions, including India, and that fixed the boundary between the United States and Canada as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

D.

Secretary of State

D.1.

The Purchase of Florida

In 1817 Adams was called back to the United States to become secretary of state in the Cabinet of President James Monroe. Adams took up the post at a turning point in American history. The country had begun a period of expansion and development, and for the first time since its founding, the United States was not involved in European struggles, because Europe itself was at peace.

There were, however, difficult problems facing the new secretary of state. One that immediately confronted him was a conflict with Spain over its colony of Florida. Spain had confined its troops in Florida mainly to garrisons at Saint Marks, Pensacola, and Saint Augustine. The remainder of the territory was inhabited by the hostile Seminole people, runaway slaves, and outlaws. Spain was required by treaty to prevent these people from raiding across the U.S. border, but failed to do so. When U.S. troops entered Florida in late 1817 and burned a Seminole village, killing some of the residents, the Seminole retaliated by ambushing a U.S. hospital ship and killing 42 people. This act led to the First Seminole War (1817-1818). General Andrew Jackson was sent to subdue the Seminole.

Jackson not only drove the Seminole back into Florida, but marched into Spanish territory and occupied Saint Marks and Pensacola. He captured, courtmartialed, and executed two British subjects who had encouraged the Seminole. As a result of Jackson’s forceful action, Spain and Britain filed strong protests with the U.S. government.

Adams was the sole member of Monroe’s Cabinet to support Jackson. Insisting that Jackson had not exceeded his orders, Adams argued that the blame should be placed on Spain for its weak administration of Florida. He persuaded Monroe to accept his view and then instructed Spain either to govern Florida more effectively or cede it to the United States. Already troubled by revolts in its South American colonies, Spain, after long negotiations, agreed to the demands of Adams, and Florida was ceded to the United States.

In the negotiations, Adams secured another important concession from Spain. The western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase had never been agreed on. Acting completely on his own, Adams persuaded Spain to agree that Louisiana ran all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The boundary began at the mouth of the Sabine River, ran northwest to the 42nd parallel (the northern boundary of California), and then extended directly west to the ocean. There still existed British and Russian claims to the Oregon country that could cut off this western ocean access; but the Spanish agreement removed the major obstacle to America’s sea-to-sea expansion.

D.2.

Monroe Doctrine

Perhaps the most important event of Monroe’s administration was the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine resulted from two problems. Adams was concerned over moves by Russia to establish colonies in the Oregon country. At the same time, Britain feared that the Holy Alliance, consisting of Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, was ready to help Spain recover its colonies in Latin America. The British had obtained trading advantages in the new Latin American republics, and these very profitable arrangements would end if the republics were restored to Spanish rule. The British foreign secretary, George Canning, proposed that the United States join Britain in warning the Holy Alliance not to intervene in the western hemisphere.

Adams had a firm reply to the Russian threat. As he reported later, he told the Russian diplomatic representative in Washington, D.C., that “we should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that...the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments.” Thus, Adams stated one principle of the Monroe Doctrine more than a year before Monroe stated it himself.

His answer to Britain was equally forceful. President Monroe at first was willing to go along with Canning’s proposal, but Adams argued against it. Adams believed that the United States should determine its own policy. “It would be more candid,” he said, “as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France, than to come in as a cock-boat in the wake of the British man-of-war.”

Monroe was persuaded that Adams’s stand was right, and in 1823 the president announced the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine contained two important principles. First, North and South America were no longer open to European colonization. Second, Europe must not “interfere in the internal concerns” of any nation in the western hemisphere. The first of these principles came directly from Adams.

E.

The Election of 1824

Adams ran for president in 1824. Opposing him were General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford of Georgia. None of the candidates received a majority of electoral votes. The vote was: Jackson, 99; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; and Clay, 37. Adams’s chief support came from New England and New York. Jackson carried most of the South and West.

The 12th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States requires that if no candidate for president receives a majority, the election is decided by the House of Representatives from among the three candidates with the highest electoral votes.

In the House, Clay’s support gave Adams the necessary majority, and he was elected president with John C. Calhoun as his vice president. When told of his election, Adams stated that if it were possible to call an immediate popular election to give the president a clear mandate to rule, he would do so. Since the Constitution did not provide for such an election, he accepted the presidency. Later, when Adams chose Clay to be his secretary of state, the supporters of Jackson angrily accused the new president of having entered into a corrupt bargain with Clay. The cry of “Corrupt Bargain” was to haunt Adams throughout his presidency, and it contributed to his defeat in 1828.

F.

President of the United States

The presidency proved to be a frustrating and disappointing experience for Adams. He tried to be the leader of all the people, but he was confronted by hostile criticism of his policies from the Congress of the United States. Jackson’s supporters, still bitter over the “corrupt bargain,” consistently worked to thwart and embarrass the president.

Adams was also hindered by his cold and aloof personality. He did not enjoy mingling with crowds. He and his wife did only as much entertaining and receiving of guests as was strictly required of them. Their son Charles Francis Adams noted: “I never saw a family which had so little of the associating disposition.”

Adams was not a “political” president. He was concerned with a man’s competence, not his political affiliation. Adams even appointed political enemies to important offices, and he remained so free of partisanship that one of his supporters later declared: “Mr. Adams during his administration failed to cherish, strengthen, or even recognize the party to which he owed his election, nor... with the great power he possessed did he make a single influential friend.”

In his first annual message to Congress, Adams proposed a program to strengthen the nation and bind it more closely together. He advocated using federal funds for new canals, highways, harbor improvements, a stronger navy, military schools, and a national university. States’ rights advocates in Congress opposed the federal government’s assuming these responsibilities and refused to support the president. His request for funds to promote the arts and sciences, specifically to support scientific research and to build astronomical observatories, was especially criticized. Adams was far ahead of his time in believing that the federal government should finance projects that would serve and benefit the people and the nation as a whole.

Adams met frustration even in his foreign policy. Although the president was the most experienced diplomat in America, only one important measure dealing with foreign policy was presented during his administration. In 1826 the United States was invited to attend a Pan-American Conference at Panama City, Panama (then part of Colombia). Adams sought the Senate’s approval for two U.S. delegates and asked Congress to appropriate money for their expenses. Congress finally gave grudging approval and appropriated the necessary funds. But Adams’s success turned into failure. One delegate died of fever on the way to the conference, and the other’s departure was delayed so long that the meeting adjourned before he arrived.

Early in 1828, Congress passed the so-called Tariff of Abominations, which placed high import duties on manufactured goods and raw materials. The tariff was intended to protect developing industries in the North from cheap foreign competition. But the South was hurt because it depended on those imports to produce cotton, its major export. Although Adams disliked the tariff, he signed it into law. He had the power to kill it by veto, but at that time no president used this power unless he thought the bill was unconstitutional. As his opponents had intended, the tariff was an embarrassment to Adams. Jackson’s supporters used it to discredit the president, calling him the spokesman of the wealthy. Jackson, in contrast, was pictured as the friend of the common people.

In 1828 Adams ran for reelection against Jackson. The enemies of Adams united to campaign vigorously for Jackson, appealing especially to the new voters in the Western and Southern frontier areas. Adams was supported only by a new, loosely organized party of National Republicans. The campaign of 1828 was one of the most bitterly contested in American history. Both sides spread malicious slanders against each other. Adams was decisively defeated, receiving 83 electoral votes to Jackson’s 178. His support was limited to the New England states, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. His defeat reflected the expansion of voting rights to all white adult males in many states. The new voters readily identified with Andrew Jackson. Adams was so bitter at his defeat that, like his father, he refused to remain in Washington for his successor’s inauguration.