The USA in the Time of John Quincy Adams
1825-1829
by Mike Donovan
President Elect Adams “Mr. Sunshine”
“Mr 30%” - Lawyer – Massachusetts – Harvard Grad - Harvard Professor – The House of Braintree – Mr. Cold and Aloof - Streaker – “A Chip off the old Iceberg” - National Republican – Science – Amistad – Read, Wrote, and was Grouchy in 7 Languages!
“I am as happy as a virtuous, discreet and amiable woman can make me.”
JQA
In the Election of 1824 Andrew Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes, but as no candidate won a majority in the EC, the final decision was turned over to the House of Representatives. Like George Bush and George Bush, John Adams and John Adams were father and son presidents with the same name.
The Quincy Adam’s era was lived in the shadow of Andrew Jackson. He had won the most popular votes in 1824 and his momentum was only improving. So the nation was looking at the clock waiting for Jackson to take what was rightfully his in the next election, which he of course did.
The VP under Adams was John Calhoun (DR) of South Carolina, who would also go on to be Vice- President under the next President, Andrew Jackson. Since Jackson defeated Adams in the re-match of 1828, this means that Calhoun served under Adams and then under them man who beat him.
The time of John Quincy Adams was a time of peace both at home and around the world. It was a rare tranquil interlude in an age of war. But human nature being what it is, the negative makes better story-telling than the positive so when writing of the Adams era historians focus on the grouchy unlikable personality of President Adams, the political backstabbing of the times, and the democratic illegitimacy of his presidency.
America was not about to fall in love with Quincy Adams. The man had won neither the popular vote nor the Electoral College. GQ came to office with only 30% of the popular vote!
Adams came to power as a Federalist but became more of a Jeffersonian Republican in his actions as his months and years passed in the White House.
The campaign of 24 was the first in which the front-runners were not members of the Founding Fathers of 1776. 1824 was the last time that the Presidency would be decided in the House of Representatives, (although an Electoral College tie could still send the 2012 contest to the House. One political reporter drew up a possible scenario for such a tie.)
All four candidates were of the same political party, the Democratic-Republicans. The initial result:
Andy Jackson ---------------- 99 E Votes
J. Q. Adams -------------------84 E Votes
William H. Crawford--------41 E Votes
Henry Clay ------------------37 E Votes
About 200 historians who never met him consider Adams a good old-fashioned misanthrope. JQ was puritanical, church going, and had no vices, which is the worst vice of all. One famous man of the era said of him that as long as the group was small, Adams was delightful company, full of joyful conversation mixed with wisdom and great info. But if the group became larger he would clam up and become “cold and aloof.”
JQA was fit as a fiddle and he lived to a ripe and active old age. He used to take mammoth long walks and often as President went down to the Potomac for a swim at five a.m. This is a fact. Even in brisk cold weather. Now comes the streaker story.
One account says that what happened was that John Quincy went for one of his crazy 5 am swims and a storm erupted that somehow ripped the clothes off his back and he had to walk almost naked back to the White House. Another version is that he was swimming and some thieves took his clothes and he had to walk almost naked back to the White House. In any case something happened while he was swimming and the President of the United States had to walk almost naked back to the White House. Someone that was walking the street that morning did a double take (a similar incident happened in 1994 to President Bill Clinton which involved a jealous husband and a frantic foot-race, but that is for a later chapter.)
Quincy Adams’ cabinet
Secretary of State ------------- Henry Clay - 1825-1829;
Secretary of War ------------- James Barbour (DR) 1825-1828
P.B. Porter (DR) 1828-1829
Secretary of Treasury --------- Richard Rush (DR)
Att. General -------------------- William Wirt (DR)
Homeland Security ------------ Al Markham
Rush is famous as the co-author of the Rush-Bagot Agreement, which he negotiated as acting Secretary of State.
Clay would be accused of “The Corrupt Bargain”, that is, that he turned his 1824 votes in the presidential runoff election over to Quincy Adams in exchange for a secret promise for the job as head of the State Dept. Clay and Adams had never been friendly but the powerful Clay disliked Jackson far more. When Clay’s name was sent to the senate for confirmation, the hearings were charged and opposition was strong. But he passed and was a popular figure in the diplomatic world. The ‘corrupt bargain’ accusation (not dissimilar to the Nixon-Ford pardon controversy) would plague Clay for the rest of his life and was partly responsible for the defeat of Quincy Adams for re-election. John Quincy stoically refused to defend himself against these accusations.
BIO;
Born on July 11, 1767, the son of John Adams saw the smoke and heard the cannon from the Battle of Bunker Hill from a Braintree hilltop in 1775 at the age of seven.
At eleven he studied in France, and when he was seventeen he became secretary to the American Minister to Russia. He came home and studied at Harvard where he graduated in 1787, (along with the Constitution). JQ set up a law practice in Boston and became a writer of political articles to support himself. He specialized in defending the Federalist Party, which would be natural since his father was now the Federalist Vice-president.
John Adams put a lot of pressure on John Quincy to succeed. Silver spoons have their sharp edges too. He said to the son, “You came into life with advantages which will disgrace you if your success is mediocre.” So if he becomes a comfortable middle-class merchant he will be a disgrace! Furthermore, “If you do not rise to the head of your country, it will be owing to your laziness.” Not even W Bush had to grow up with that much pressure.
Some members of the Adams family fell short of standard. John Quincy’s little brother Charles grew up to die from the effects of alcoholism. John Adams refused to see this dying son calling him a “beast.”
In 1795 George Washington named him minister to the Netherlands, which was under French occupation at the time. Then he was given the same assignment in Portugal but there was a change of plans. Just as he was about to leave for Lisbon he got the good word that his father was now President of the United States. 2 gave 6 the ministerial post to Prussia instead.
JQ married Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of a diplomat and they stayed married 50 years. He met her when he was in Europe and she was the only First Lady born outside the United States.
LC saw the gentler side of JQ, unlike history, which always calls him harsh. They had four children one of which, Charles Francis became an historian and a Vice-Presidential candidate.
JQA spent four years in Prussia (Germany) and when Jefferson became President the Federalist clout worked against him. John Quincy returned to New England jobless.
Adams ran for the Massachusetts state senate in 1802 and won. Then the legislature voted him US Senator in 1803. He voted for himself.
John Quincy annoyed the Federalist Party by deciding all issues on a case-by-case basis. He refused to toe the party line and felt free to vote against its platforms whenever he chose.
Things reached a boiling point when he supported the Jefferson “Dumbargo” of 1807. The Massachusetts legislature expressed its anger by nominating another man to succeed him six months before the name was required to be submitted.
Adams responded by resigning from the Senate in June of 1808 and returning to private law practice. He began teaching rhetoric and oratory at Harvard.
Two days after being sworn in as President, James Madison named John Quincy Adams the first US Minister to Russia. Adams became chummy with the Tsar.
In 1811 John Quincy declined an appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
On Christmas Eve 1814, J. Q. Adams led the US delegation that negotiated the treaty ending the War of 1812 at Ghent, Belgium. After that it was on to Paris where he declined an invitation to the Moulin Rouge but did witness the return of Napoleon from the Elbe. From 1815 to 1819 he walked again down his father’s path, becoming Minister to London just like daddy had done.
Monroe made him his Secretary of State in 1817. Adams played a more active role in foreign affairs as Secretary of State for another president than he did later as president. There was more happening in Monroe’s time than there was in his own. Quincy Adams had been a key participant in the drafting of the Monroe Doctrine.
Adams admitted in his diary that he was a cold man. He knew he wasn’t likeable. The guy needed a hug.
EVENTS
ELECTION OF 1824
ERIE CANAL COMPLETED
FLORIDA PURCHASED
PANAMA CONFERENCE
DEATH OF 2 PRESIDENTS ON SAME DAY
WILLIAM MORGAN DISAPPEARS
TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS
ELECTION OF 1824:
1824 was the first contest for President in which there was no clear cut choice for the best man. This election would be an open contest. Part of the reason was a lack of old heroes to draw from. All of the heroes of the American Revolution were now either dead or were too old.
Another reason the election of 1824 was such an open free-for-all was the lack of any controversial national issues. The problems causing any debates in the country were sectional. New England voters were irritated by issues completely different from those bugging the cotton belt or the settlers on the Northwest. Consequently, sectional candidates arose with tremendous sectional support and no clout outside their own zones. The railroads, telegraph lines, and the mass media that would eventually unite the land and create a national mind were not yet in place. It was hard in this time get a national momentum going in the race to the White House.
The campaign for the election of 1824 began early. By the middle of 1822 the biggest topic of conversation at every store, office, or barbershop was the new kid on the block, the hot candidate for 1824, Mr. Andrew Jackson.
There were two ways for the Democratic-Republican Party, the only organized party in the country, to nominate men for President. These were the caucus and the state legislature. These two organs competed against one in other in some locations to nominate different people. Most of the country only paid attention to candidates that were chosen by party caucus, but state legislatures were often still bound and determined to push their favorites into the hunt.
Andy Jackson was more or less nominated by newspaper. In January 1822 the Nashville Gazette sounded the call for his nomination and Jackson fever swept Tennessee. In August 1822 the state legislature gave it’s official backing. The Tennessee legislature then asked neighboring states to ask their legislators not to attend party caucuses. The debate between those who favored nomination by caucus and those who favored it by legislatures dominated much of the campaign year 1824. Each section and state argued in favor of whichever method just happened to help win the nomination for their favorite candidate.
The Tennessee legislators knew they would have to overcome a key obstacle. The Congress, not the Electoral College would almost certainly decide the next presidential election. No one man would command a sufficient majority in this divided field, and the legislators of Washington D.C. would decide. Andrew Jackson was not personally known and liked by this insider club on the Hill. Not yet at least. This was a considerable disadvantage. So the Tennessee state legislature elected Jackson to the US Senate near Christmastime of 1823. They elected him solely to get some juice and run for President. The legislators of Tennessee weren’t sending him to Washington because they thought he would serve them in Congress, but to schmooze and get his name around. Jackson could now handle any election year accusations that he was only a military man major with no experience in elected office.
This business of the Senate choosing the president was abhorrent to many educated persons, and for sound reasons. The Congress was divided into two parts, the House and the Senate. The House represented the nation proportionate to population, the Senate without proportion. This was the compromise of 1787 and it worked well because the little people didn’t feel squeezed out by the big people and it worked the other way too. The big people didn’t feel squeezed by the little people. But the latter scenario was exactly what happened when the presidential election was thrown over to the Congress. Each state got one vote for president, a formula for tyranny of the little states. They had more power on this matter than they normally had, for now there was no check and balance of the Congress.
Of the 24 states in the Union in 1824, ten combined populations added up to less than the population of New York state. It would be easy for the nation to elect in this way a president not only not in command of a majority of the voters, but a man completely objectionable to 75% of the country.
Clay, Jackson and Adams were all considered ‘favorite son’ candidates of their home states and all had national reputations.
Henry Clay was the most eloquent and polished and had a long record in Washington. He first made it big as a War Hawk in 1812.
Jackson was a national hero but no one really knew where he stood on the issues and his supporters preferred to keep it that way.
Former Treasury Secretary William Crawford (GA), a cheerful and popular man was actually the clear front-runner in the early going and was supported by no less a triumvirate than Madison, Monroe and Jefferson.
Ohio in December 1823 endorsed (old spelling) DeWitt Clinton for President. The reaction was surprisingly poor so Ohio eventually withdrew the choice. The thought of a Clinton in the White House filled honest conservatives with unspeakable trepidation.
A thinly attended Republican caucus in Washington on Valentine’s Day 1824 chose Willie Crawford as the official candidate of the party. Tennessee sent missives to all the other states condemning the nomination and asking for support. Only Maryland agreed to reject the caucus conclusion, but others hedged their bets and sat on the fence.
On February 18 an anti-caucus meeting was held at Boston’s Fanuel Hall with all the important Democratic-Republicans present. They nominated Quincy’s own Quincy Adams for President. Other states picked Adams in defiance of the caucus for Crawford. Ohio did so because John Quincy was the most anti-slavery of all the big players in the hunt.
Crawford helped to loosen the logjam by suffering a series of strokes that left him partly paralyzed and in practical terms out of the contest. It’s hard to be sworn in as president when you can’t raise your right hand.
Carolina wildcat John Calhoun was in the contest early but was saddled, like Clay, with his pro-tariff and pro-federal funds for internal improvements voting record. Calhoun’s handlers persuaded him to withdraw from the race and campaign for the job of Vice President. “You’re young enough to campaign for president later,” they told him.
Henry Clay was powerful enough to run, but favored a protective tariff which meant he could never carry the South. The only place where the high tariff would really work for him was New England and he could never hope to take Quincy Adams there. Henry was banking on a coalition of the west and the east but he was checked on both fronts. In the west the entry of Jackson into the race was the end of Clay’s hope there. He was in check in all directions.
Quincy Adams for president was not at face value a popular choice any more than he was a popular man. But the DR’s were so divided that JQ’s assets weighed more than his liabilities and made him a front-runner. He had a great deal of diplomatic experience (even though he was called a “sharp-tongued undiplomatic diplomat” by one critic.)
Voter apathy was high in 1824. There were few hot domestic issues and virtually none in the foreign affairs department. Only 25% of eligible voters showed up, and considering the limited franchise at the time, it has to rank as the all time low turnout US election.
By the summer of 1824 it was obvious that some candidates were wasting their time. Calhoun and Clay never had a chance but they ran anyway. Just because they had no chance did not mean they would quit; they were the John Glenns of their time.
Friends of Treasury Secretary Al Gallatin told him that he had no chance and he gracefully withdrew. Clay and Calhoun never gave in to reality.
For a while there was some excitement about the two top rivals perhaps making themselves a team. Adams would head the ticket with Jackson as VP. As one editor put it, we’d have a “dream team” of, “Adams who can write, and Jackson who can fight.”
The Electoral College met in February of 1825 and Jackson won the most with 99 votes. Adams had 84 and Crawford 41. Clay had 37. At least one elector that was instructed to vote for Clay chose Crawford instead. Clay wasn’t happy as you can imagine.
So, as had been anticipated, the election for president would go to the House of Representatives where each state delegation would tally up to one vote.
The House would not have to worry about Vice President. John Calhoun was the overwhelming choice of the DR’s for veep. So if anybody asks you in what year the Vice President was chosen before the president was, the answer would be 1824 and Calhoun.
The election did as expected, move to the Capitol Dome for settlement. The 12th Amendment provided that only the top three vote getters in the Electoral College could now compete. In this vote Quincy Adams scored 13 votes, Jackson 7, and the ill Crawford 4. Jackson’s supporters charged (predictably) that the vote was wrong because the representatives were supposed to reflect the wishes of the people.
The political parties were in a vague state at this time. All were technically Democratic Republicans but in reality there were two factions, those for the Quincy Adams Administration and its allies the Clay group, and those for Jackson. The Jacksonians began calling themselves “Democratic-Republicans,” and the Adams-Clay followers because of their belief in a strong central government began to call themselves “National-Republicans.” Thus the era of good feelings came to a halt and was replaced by the era of bad feelings, which has lasted to the present day.
The charge against Clay that he had conspired with Adams in the “corrupt bargain,” never went away. It was Nixon and Ford 1825. Jackson called Clay “The Judas of the West.” The charge haunted Clay for the rest of his career and haunted Adams throughout his four years in the White House. John Quincy was below freezing to begin with. Now he was to get the cold shoulder back for four years from the entire country.
There is not a single piece of evidence that such a bargain was struck between the two men. Cabinet offices have been given to supporters before and after the JQA presidency, so it didn’t have to seem suspicious in and of itself. What’s more, Quincy Adams was at the top of the list of presidents who did not use the office for political favors given or taken. He left office with a lot of angry people behind because he hadn’t given them the political appointments to government jobs that they were anticipating.
The Election of 1824 was Molded in Clay
Only one out of three American voters had chosen John Quincy Adams for President. He was a sectional candidate with no support outside of the northeast and New Orleans. Adams took over in March 1807 with an anti-mandate.
MORE POLITICS
The Adams group controlled the House and the Senate for the 19th Congress of 1825-1827, but the Jackson group controlled the full Congress for the 20th, which met from 1827 to 1829. Adams finished his term without congressional support.
Jackson resigned from the Senate in 1825 and began his campaign for the presidency in ’28.
A DYNASTY IS HEREDITARY
His dad was a President, and has dad was as famously lacking in personal warmth. His critics called John Quincy “a chip off the old iceberg.” His son Charles Francis had a fine career in politics ahead of him too. So was the Adams Family a “dynasty?”
In his hatchet-job book on the Bush family, American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips puts the Philips screwdriver to his hated rivals, the Bushes. Philips used to be a Republican but his guy lost to a Bush so he switched parties and broke out the screwdriver to build a series of Bush-bash books. I’m sure he’s working on another one at this very moment.
In American Dynasty Phillips makes the claim that the founding fathers had clearly been afraid of ‘dynasties’ so therefore the election of George Bush in 2000 was un-American, the very antithesis of the American political way of life. Didn’t we do away with royalty as one of the first acts of our new freedom? As for the obvious precedent of John Quincy Adams, Kev dismisses this by reminding the reader that Quincy Adams belonged to a different political party as that of his father, so therefore Adams wasn’t a political dynasty like that of the Bushes.
Aside from the obvious fact that both ‘American Dynasties’ were both elected not appointed, the dismissal of the John Adams-Quincy Adams example is deliberately misleading. KP is knowingly exploiting the lack of detailed historical knowledge on the part of most of his readers.
The true fact is that if John Quincy was technically not from the same party of his father, that was only because the Federalist Party had been run out of existence by the time JQ ran for prez. He couldn’t have been from the same party as his dad if he wanted to. Furthermore, John Quincy was Federalist in the years they existed, so in spirit and arguably also in fact, the Adams presidents were from the same political party, and, in conclusion, Phillips is motivated by hate, not by a thirst for the pursuit of the truth.
By 1824, the USA was a one-party party state. The nation ran five members of the Democratic-Republican Party in 1824. And Philips concludes from this that we have a dynasty under George W. Bush today, but in 1824 the Presidency of John Quincy Adams represented a favorable comparative contrast of diversity and pluralism.
The National Republicans had divided into wings, and even examining this split, Phillips loses the point. One wing was the Jeffersonian wing that still feared big government, a big military, and the strict construction of the Constitution, roughly the same principles as the Federalists preached before the War of 1812. The other wing favored unabashed federal funding for internal improvements, loose construction of the Constitution to justify it, and a national bank. Which wing did John Quincy Adams stand with? It didn’t matter much for this argument. Both wings were essentially the same Federalist party of father John under new management.
Phillips writes of how the Bushes like to point out the Adams precedent. “See”, writes Phillips sarcastically paraphrasing their position, “the American dynasty is as American as apple pie!” Well maybe it is, Mr. Phillips. I’m quite sure that Phillips and his Bushwhacking ilk will not be aroused to furious passions about the innate evils of ‘American Dynasties’ if Hillary Clinton wins the next election.
A dangerous dynasty, the kind Americans feared in 1776 is a dynasty of hereditary royalty. It is nepotism by appointment, not by ballot. A freely elected dynasty is an oxymoron.
PANAMA CONGRESS:
Adams was concerned about British influence in South America. America had announced the new rules for the hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine but that didn’t mean every nation was going to obey them. British Foreign secretary Canning was determined to defy the Monroe Doctrine and its author President Adams by bringing the newly independent South American nations under British influence. Canning was so determined to defy the USA that when this Englishman died Adams wrote about it in his diary as if it was good news.
So when Simon Bolivar, the hero of South American independence called for a congress of the American nations in Panama in 1825 the British were eager to participate. Bolivar sought the fatherly umbrella of the UK, seeing it as a better alternative to the protection of the USA. The eagle to the north was not a friendly shadow as far as “Bolo” was concerned, but rather a predator. So Simon said the USA could not come to Panama. But other nations south of the border, such as Columbia and Mexico were actually more distrustful of the hegemonic dreams of Simon than of Sam. These states invited the Yankee gringos to the Panama party over the head of simple Simon.
The US was glad to have been invited. Clay asked Adams if he could form a mission for the congress and John Quincy approved. Adams appointed two men but when Congress was asked to authorize expenses for their mission a rough debate developed. The President had not consulted Congress on the appointments, and there was talk that this had been rather “tactless” on the part of Adams.
Southern politicians were concerned because one of the appointees was an anti-slavery activist.
The US Slave-power aristocracy was concerned that US presence at the Panama Conference might validate the independence of Haiti. A terrible slave rebellion had overthrown french rule there,. Haiti represented something the South feared and something they could not accept. In the first case a slave rebellion. In the second, Southerners could not accept the concept of a black ruled nation in our hemisphere. The independence of Haiti ruined the racist theories of the South of the ignorant childish Africans and how they needed the white man's guidance and care.
Other politicians wanted to stop the mission to Panama just because a diplomatic success there would make Adams look good. They were duty bound as the loyal opposition to oppose for the sake of opposing.
The mission had its supporters in the US to balance the opponents from the South. Many supporters were concerned that a failure to participate in this Latin Summit 1 would leave the United States at a severe trade disadvantage in the competition between England and others. The UK might dominate trade in the South Atlantic if the United States did not start making some friendly diplomacy south of the Rio Grande.
Congress approved the mission, but only after an important (as things turned out) delay. Of our two representatives, the US minister to Columbia died on the way from Bogotá to Panama and the other guy never made it there because the PC ended just as he was about to depart the US.
The Panama Congress accomplished very little and only four Pan-American countries sent reps. The whole affair made Adams and the US look bad. The UK and the Netherlands had been there but the US had not. The enemies of President Adams lit a Panama cigar and toasted his failure.
“YOU BLACKLEG!”
During this Panama mission debate Congressman John Randolph called Henry Clay a “blackleg.” You couldn’t get anyone angry today if you called them that but in 1825 it was enough to lead John Randolph and the acting Secretary of State to a duel! They met and shot it out! Neither man was injured but at one point Randolph was left with a free shot and he fired into the air. The two then embraced and became lifelong friends.
Some had objected to US participation to the Panama Congress because of a general objection to any foreign interaction. They favored a strict isolationism in peace just as surely as in time of war. All foreign relations run the risk of foreign entanglements as far as they were concerned. They were still in the Washington’s Farewell Address/Warren G. Harding school of thinking. Some Southerners protested the mission because they were concerned that the South Americans might start lecturing them on the evils of slavery.
The British agent at Panama, Dawkins, reminded Columbia and Mexico that the USA would stop them from taking Cuba but the British would not. The Monroe Doctrine was evidently a threat to home-grown Central and South American colonialism in the Caribbean.
ERIE CANAL OPENED FOR BUSINESS
Near Schenectady there is a stretch of the Erie Canal where ghost sightings are frequent. In Schenectady, they spell it the Eerie Canal.
In Quincy Adams’ time the Erie Canal (map) was completed and opened to water traffic with much deserved fanfare. The canal connected the Great Lakes to the eastern seaboard at New York City. NYC grew at a sudden fantastic rate and became the number one city in America, surpassing Philadelphia for the crown and hanging on to this day.
The Great Lakes were connected to interior rivers by smaller canals and thus the Erie Canal opened the entire continent to a more lively internal commerce. From now on the east coast would look more to the west than to the east for the bulk of its business. Theodore Roosevelt’s grandfather worked on the Erie Canal. And so did future President Jimmy Garfield.
The Erie Canal also facilitated the infiltration of the far west by American pioneers. It gave them a western starting point to even further west.
Canals were the rage in the John Quincy Adams era. The railroad was in its infancy and water was still the choice in travel whenever possible. The success of the Erie Canal inspired many new canal projects, one of which stretched from Plattsburgh New York all the way to Root Maryland, the famous Root Canal.
Some canals succeeded, but others failed and with the rise of the railroad and the Panic of 1837, a lot of canal investment money went south. The canal boom sprung a leak. A lot of ex-rich people found themselves hauling barges for a penny an hour 12 hours a day on the very canal they lost all their money on. That's gotta hurt.
Van Buren in the selfish interest of New York State tried to block the construction of some new canals that might compete with the Erie monopoly.
On the day the Canal opened, a salute of cannon marked the event all the way from the Great Lake to New York Harbor. The cannon were placed at intervals all the way from Buffalo to NYC They followed the sound signal from one to the other like Indian smoke signals till the last cannon shot off in New York. Then President Adams took a vial of water that had been transported from Lake Erie via the canal to New York, and he dumped it into the bay. The Erie Canal was open.
From this moment on, the rest of the cities of the eastern seaboard would have to look up to New York.
WEST INDIES
In declaring and winning its independence, the USA lost the lucrative English trade of the West Indies. The UK punished the US by forbidding American to trade there (some exceptions were made during the second stages of the Napoleonic wars.) The first presidents had tried without success to get England to relax these trade restrictions. Adams inherited the Indies problem.
In July 1825 Parliament passed some laws that lessened the restrictions but hardly eliminated them. The US could have gained some trade by being thankful and accepting the deal, but instead America sent Albert Gallatin over there to reject the offer and assert that this trade was ours by right, not something that could be given out as a favor. The British reacted angrily and withdrew all concessions. Adams was criticized at home for missing an opportunity to improve relations with England and to make a lot of Americans some more money. The West Indian failure was cited against him in the campaign of 1828.
DEATH OF THOMAS JEFFERSON AND JOHN ADAMS
On July 4, 1826, The United States had a Twilight Zone episode. President John Adams, the father of acting President John Quincy Adams passed away. On his deathbed he was reminded that the original founding fathers were all passing on now. To this the dying Adams replied, “Jefferson still lives!” – Little did he know that a couple of hours earlier, Thomas Jefferson had died at his home in Virginia.
Both Adams and Jefferson died 50 years within a margin of error of one hour of the time the Declaration of Independence was read to Congress back in 1776.
President Adams did not reach Braintree until six days after his father’s funeral.
CAPTAIN MORGAN’S RUM AND THE MASONS 1826
He claimed he had been a captain during the War of 1812 but it was never proven. He was probably murdered by the masons but that was never proven. What is certain is that the mysterious disappearance of one man launched a major political party that played a part in at least two national and several important local elections.
William Morgan was a hard drinking sometimes employed bricklayer who lived in Batavia NY, which is in the Finger Lakes region. He was trying to make his way up into the secret society of the Masons. But his gambling and drinking and his personal debts were not the material they were looking for and they held him back from advancement within the order, without expelling him. Morgan didn’t take this lying down. He began writing a book in which all the secrets of the Masons would be at last revealed to the general public. He even found a book publisher who had also been denied advancement within the Masons and was willing to back his bitter book project. It had a working title “Secrets of the Jerky Masonic Cult,” and a date set for publication.
The Masonic members of the Batavia area had to do something to stop him. They trumped up some charges for his personal debts and had him arrested on September 11, 1826. Then his publisher friend bailed him out so he could get back to writing. Just a few hours later he was arrested again for another debt. Batavia would find an excuse to keep arresting him until hell froze over. It was Mississippi law 1926 in western New York 1826.
Now it’s still September 11 1826 in Batavia jailhouse, its early evening and a carriage arrives with some more friends of Morgan who want to bail him out. They just happened to be Masons. Then were not his friends. William Morgan was bailed out, kidnapped, taken to Niagara Falls and as never seen again on this earth.
The disappearance of William Morgan created a sensation all over New York State. But it wasn’t alone enough to create a new political party until a political incident in mid-1827 really got New York State conservatives upset.
The treasurer of the City of Rochester had been trying to investigate the Masons and their role in Morgan’s disappearance. This incumbent was running unopposed on election day, or so he thought. The Mason’s ambushed him with a candidate on the ballot that the incumbent didn’t know existed until election day. The incumbent hadn’t campaigned, the mystery candidate had, organizing his votes in secret for emergence only at the last moment when it was too late for the sitting treasury to react. The incumbent opponent of the anti-Masons was defeated by the Mason man.
This second incident, the follow-up to Morgan’s disappearance that set the wheels turning to start a new political party whose sole reason for being was to put a stop to the Masons. It was bad enough that they iced Morgan, now they were taking political dirty tricks to a level that was beyond dirty. What they did to the Rochester treasurer was evil and the word got out that it was time to stop these Frankensteins. The flaming torch parade of vigilantes would form a new party.
The Anti-Mason party was formed with the leadership and support of famed editor, publisher, politician Thurlow Weed. People were flocking to the AM banners. The Auntie Masons sent more than ten percent of the reps to the two houses of the NY State Legislature. Respectable Masons all over the state were leaving the now stigmatized organization. Those who had never been in the order were condemning the Masons with the zeal of the Crusaders. The Anti-Masonism was the latest craze.
New York State politics became more complicated than ever. Now a strong new party was in the mix with viable candidates for all state offices, many of whom were elected in 1828. The Anti-Mason Party would become a factor in the next two presidential elections as well.
Morgan got his anti-Mason book published posthumously. That is, if Morgan really died. Some people thought he arranged his disappearance, fled to another country, and lived off the money from his best selling book while sipping brandy in the Cayman Islands.
John Quincy Adams also wrote a book highly critical of the Masons. But that was long after he was out of the White House (1847.) No one bothered to kidnap him. He was old and the Masons had already declined in political influence.
TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS 1828
The Jacksonian Democrats were concerned about the always-controversial (and almost always boring) tariff issue. In 1827 the Jackson boys devised a tariff that they felt could help them win the White House in ’28. They knew that New England favored high tariffs on manufactured goods but not on most raw materials. They also knew they had to win Pennsylvania and that it was against high tariffs. So they drafted a tariff that was of astronomical proportions on both manufactured articles and raw materials. They calculated that New England would be forced to vote against the tariff. They could then pose as champions of high tariff while actually laying the blame for the defeat of high tariffs on the high tariff advocates. Webster said that the tariff had been “spiced up by its enemies.”
But the plan backfired because some New England legislators actually preferred an excessive tariff to a lowered one. The Jax Boys hadn’t counted on this turn of events. Of the New England Congressional delegation 16 voted for the tariff and 23 voted against. But the 16 yeas were decisive in its passing in the House by a 105 to 93 margin.
The South reacted angrily. They called it the “Black Tariff.” State flags in South Carolina were flown at half-mast. John C. Calhoun coined the historical name for the tariff of 1828. He called it the “Tariff of Abominations.” Opponents of the tariff accused New England of acting like Old England.
The South had the most to lose with the high tariff. New England protected her manufacturing industry and the west expanded and profited. But the South was seeing depressed cotton prices, soil becoming less productive from generations of crop-wear, and an exodus of population to the West, creating a labor shortage. The South saw the tariff of 1828 as a conspiracy out of the North. It was in truth a conspiracy out of the South. John Randolph said it best when he cracked that the tariff “had nothing to do with manufactures except the manufacture of a president.”
RICH AND POOR
A sidebar now on the moral dilemma of the rich being rich.
Historians on he left (virtually all historians) cop an attitude because they discover information indicating that the rich own a high percentage of the wealth and the poor own a small percent. ‘In New York City, the richest 4 percent owned nearly half the wealth’ they write angrily in Enduring Vision for example. It is the same with a thousand history books. 20 pages can’t go by without our country being scolded by the affluent history professor because a hundred or ten years ago, the stats show that the richest 8 percent own 54 percent of the wealth and the poorest 60 percent own only 7 percent of the wealth. I get so tired of reading these relentless juggle-stats, as if they carry some great moral lesson about how unfair the United States has always been.
What do these writers and teachers think, that the richest 4 percent are going to own 4 percent of the wealth? Would that make any sense? Are the poorest 60 percent expected to own 60% of the wealth? What’s the point in trying to get rich if the net result is having the exact same percentage of the money as anyone else? Do they want the rich and poor to both have middle-class incomes? Do they want the ocean to be made of dry sand also?
It never fails. No sooner do they say something nice about the USA than they stop and give us three pages reminding us how unfair our society is because the richest 6 percent own half the property or whatever stats they are juggling for a given area and era. So? They want free enterprise but they don’t want the results. If they feel so strongly about it they should move to a socialist country or one that preaches it. And two, they should donate their income over the average to the poor. They will do neither. But we are supposed to feel sad because the rich are rich and the poor are poor.
What was evil about poverty in US history was the dangerous and inhumane conditions in factories, the lack or rights for workers to organize, and the racism those minorities, especially blacks were subjected to until about 1965. These were the evils of American social history. But the fact of the rich dominating the money and the poor not doing so is not evil. It is the natural byproduct of a non-socialist nation.
In 2011 many big liberal cities of America hosted left wing demonstrators calling themselves “Occupy Wall Street.” In Boston they camped out near South Station and called themselves “Occupy Boston.” Hundreds of them spoke to TV reporters and all of them had little to say. They shout that the rich have too much of the money and the banks have too much money. Their agenda was vague and left.
PRESIDENT OF THE SCIENCE CLUB
Johns Quincy Adams was always in favor of federal promotion of culture, science and education. He pushed for exploration of the virgin regions of the continent, from the northwest to the remote regions of Maine.
Adams wanted the United States to build observatories for star gazing. There were well over a hundred of these fantastic bubbles in Europe and the US had not a single one. It was time to build some good ones and get that telescope in action.
John Quincy Adams when he was at Harvard, was never however voted the President of the Science Club. When I was at Gate of Heaven High School the nuns suggested that the class start a science club and asked the students to vote a President. We never had a single meeting but my classmates voted me President in sarcasm. So there it is in the yearbook - Michael Donovan President of the Science Club.
GREEK REVOLUTION
The United States kept a close eye on events in Greece during the era of JQA. The whole world was watching the Greeks for they were in Revolution and Civil War. It was a bloodbath between the Greeks and their Ottoman overlords. Most Americans supported the Greeks. They were the underdog and they stood for freedom and liberty and the west. Many Greeks had already immigrated to America and they had a lot of support.
One rich private citizen in New York built two warships and gave them to the Greeks as a gift. Only one made it over to the battle region and by then it was too late to be of any value.
The Greek Civil War lasted throughout the 1820's.
SUPREME COURT
Many landmark Supreme Court decisions went down from 1825-1829.
John Quincy nominated one man to the Supreme Court, Kentucky's Robert Trimble. Adams liked Trimble because of Bobby's strong belief in a strong chief executive in Washington, and a strong central government.
Trimble died on August 25, 1828, before Adams finished his term. Yet Adams did not nominate anyone to replace him. Instead he deferred to the next President Andrew Jackson, who nominated die hard Democrat John McLean two days after he took over in March 1829.
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Johnny supported internal improvements with federal funds for canals and roads. He favored government spending on the arts, astronomy, exploring expeditions and a national university. He did some good things but he never made a lot of close friends.
John Q. Adams was a candidate for re-election in ’28 but he considered it inappropriate to use the office of the presidency as an advantage for retaining it. President Adams said not a word in his own behalf, did not thank his supporters, and was defeated roundly by Jackson.
AFTER OFFICE
Two years after leaving the White House, some Massachusetts citizens asked Adams to run for Congress from their district. He agreed, with two conditions. One: That he did not have to give political favors. Two: that he would be free to vote independently. They agreed and he won. Who was going to defeat an ex-president? Adams and became a leading voice in Congress for many years, particularly against slavery. He was the only President to serve in the Congress after leaving the White House (Tyler was later in the Reb Congress).
I think it is sad how few Presidents choose to hold public office afterwards. Imagine if Jimmy Carter or GHW Bush had run and won for Senate. How valuable would that input be in making for a bette country steering it’s way through troubles. Those voices of experience and wisdom instead go to getting rich on book deals and speaking tours, or heading billio dollar corportate charity foundations. The country needs you Mr or Ms ex-prez.
The new ‘Q’ was formally a member of the Whig Party Congressional delegation. But Quincy Adams had nothing but disdain for party loyalties (as did Tyler later).
His nickname on Capitol Hill became “Old Man Eloquent.”
JQA was a leftist when it came to slavery but a right-winger when it came to American colonialism on the North American continent. He had been the only Federalist member of Congress (either branch) to vote in favor of the Louisiana Purchase in the time of Jefferson. He was the virtual author of the jingoistic Monroe Doctrine and in his late years he said that the one achievement he was most proud of was the negotiation for the purchase of Florida when he was Secretary of State. He goes down in history not as one of our greatest presidents but as one of our greatest expansionist secretaries of state.
On slavery Adams represented his state well. He was a fierce abolitionist. In 1841 there was a mutiny of slaves of the Spanish ship Amistad, (an event that was made into a major movie) The US Navy took the ship to New Haven where the fate of the crew decided after a trial. John Quincy Adams was the lawyer defending the slaves (Ice T plays the leader of the revolt in the Amistad film.)
John Quincy’s relations with his sons were not good. Although Charles Francis became a successful historian and politician, the other two boys died from the effects of alcoholism. One Adams boy was drinking heavily, gambling heavily, and womanizing quite a bit. Father John Quincy wrote him a stern letter and demanded to see him at once. The young man reacted to the letter by committing suicide, leaping over the deck of a steamship.
In February 1848 John Quincy was working at his desk in the House of Representatives when he suffered a severe stroke. He was taken into the Speaker’s chamber. Adams died two day later with the words, “Thank the officers of the House. This is the last of earth. I am content.” He died in the Capitol Building.
John Quincy Adams is buried in Quincy, Mass in a church basement in Quincy Center. You can only visit the site by special appointment.
SOURCES
The American President, by Phillip Kunhardt Jr. - The author tells of how Quincy Adams was going to marry Louisa “in part” because of her wealth and that when her family lost all its money he went through with the wedding as a matter of honor. Maybe. The story can’t be proven so I chose not to include it the main body of the chapter, but there you have it. As far as I am concerned the man loved his fiancée and wife.
The American Pageant, A History of the Republic, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford University – c) 1961 D.C. Heath
Bailey was a visiting professor at Cornell and Harvard, but was a Northern California man most of his life. He taught history at Stanford for 24 years and by history book standards, he wrote with wit and flair. By show biz standards he is a dull academic, but by academic standards he is show biz.
I'm a fan of this guy.
A Diplomatic History of the American People, by Thomas A. Bailey of Stanford. Reading Bailey is like eating candy. It doesn’t feel like study or work. He calls John Quincy Adams “politically inept,” (an opinion not shared by the way, by John F. Kennedy who spoke highly of Adams the politician in his Profiles in Courage.)
A Diplomatic History of the United States, by Samuel Flagg Bemis, Farnam Professor of Diplomatic History at Yale University – c) 1934 Henry Holt
This is an American classic, and a masterpiece.
Every Four Years, A History of Presidential Elections, by Eugene Roseboom
Graphic Story of the American Presidents, by David Whitney
History of a Free People by Samuel W. Bragdon (Phillips Exeter) and Samuel P. McCutchen – c) 1954 MacMillan
The writing is fine but the quiz sections at the end of small segments are a collective 46 pages in a 680 page book!
A History of the United States, by Daniel Boorstin and Kelly
History of the United States of America, by Henry Elson
This book was revised and reprinted so many times, it’s hard to pick a copyright date year in fairness. Let’s call it c)1950. One of the best general histories ever written.
A History of United States Foreign Policy, by Julius Pratt
A great book - Pratt corrects the Panama Congress accounts, which usually say that the US delegate reached Panama only to learn the Congress had ended. He never left.
The March of Democracy, by James Truslow Adams – c) 1939
Adams is a mean man. I always finish his books and I always hate him. He hates the Yankees, and loves the South. This was a famous book in its time.
The Making of Modern America, by Canfield and Wilder, c) 1952
MMA provided the Webster quote on the tariff of 1828.
A New American History, by W. E. Woodward -c) 1938 – Garden City – 884 pg
A readable book by the respected racist historian of the 30’s, who is never to be confused with C. Vann Woodward or Bob Woodward, or Woody Woodward.
Out of Many, A History of the American People, by John Mack Faragher (Yale); Mary Jo Buhle (Brown), Daniel Czitrom (Mount Holyoke); and Susan Armitage (Washington State), c)1994
Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison, c)1965 – Oxford University Press
This guy went to school at Boston Latin and Harvard University, then fought in WWII and wrote a 13 volume history of the U.S. Navy in the war. He is still alive today at 101!
A Short History of the American Nation, by John A. Garraty – c) 1966 Harper & Row
Garrity offers on page 136 some interesting information about the state of free blacks in America. But the fact that this is what he stresses is consistent with his pro-South apologism for the entire 19th century.
“As for the Negroes of the northern states, their lot was almost as bad as that of southern free blacks. Most were denied the vote, either directly or by extralegal pressures. They could not testify in court, intermarry with whites, obtain decent jobs or housing, or get a good rudimentary education. Some northern states prohibited the migration of Negroes into their territories. Most segregated them in theaters, hospitals, and churches, and on public transportation.”
Yeah, we get it. Northerners who pointed fingers at the south were hypocrites because the North treated free Negroes poorly. The real point is what Garraty chooses to emphasize. Not the evils and horrors of life under slavery in the South, but the mistreatment of free blacks in the North.
This Place is Pissa! A History of Boston, by Ray Flynn – c) 1977
Flynn has some excellent insights on the early life of JQ Adams.
The United States to 1865, by Michael Kraus of The City College of New York– c) 1959 University of Michigan Press –
Kraus is a good writer and explains things well. He's seldom great but he's seldom bad either, unless he's talking about poets and farm conditions. Overall a very enjoyable experience.
The United States: The History of a Republic, by Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, Willie Miller author of The Age of Enterprise, and Daniel Aaron of Smith College – c) 1957 Prentice-Hall
Hofstadter won two Pulitzer Prizes for history. That's the kind of talent in this heavy hardcover textbook.
The United States of America, a History, by Henry Bamford Parkes. c)1953 – My revised edition is from 1967 but it really wasn’t revised in the spirit of 1967. It’s really a 1953 book in style and tone.
Parkes says that John Quincy Adams, “could not cope with the rising spirit of democracy.”
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