John Quincy Adams

6th President of the United States

### Political party

Federalist (1792–1808); Democratic-Republican (1809–1828); National Republican (1828–1830); Anti-Masonic (1830–1834); Whig (1834–1848)

### Children

George Washington Adams (son), John Adams II (son), Charles Francis Adams Sr. (son), Louisa Catherine Adams (daughter)

### Parents

John Adams (father)Abigail Smith (mother)

### Siblings

Abigail Adams Smith (sister), Susanna Adams (sister), Charles Adams (brother), Thomas Boylston Adams (brother), Elizabeth Adams (sister)

### Relatives

Adams political familyQuincy political family

### Hair color

Brown

**John Quincy Adams**, son of John and Abigail Adams, served as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. A member of multiple political parties over the years, he also served as a diplomat, a Senator, and a member of the House of Representatives.

*The Presidency of John Quincy Adams spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Evolution Era. President John Quincy Adams represented the Democratic-Republican political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency.*

## Biography

The first President who was the son of a President, John Quincy Adams in many respects paralleled the career as well as the temperament and viewpoints of his illustrious father. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1767, he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from the top of Penn’s Hill above the family farm. As secretary to his father in Europe, he became an accomplished linguist and assiduous diarist.

After graduating from Harvard College, he became a lawyer. At age 26 he was appointed Minister to the Netherlands, then promoted to the Berlin Legation. In 1802 he was elected to the United States Senate. Six years later President Madison appointed him Minister to Russia.

Serving under President Monroe, Adams was one of America’s great Secretaries of State, arranging with England for the joint occupation of the Oregon country, obtaining from Spain the cession of the Floridas, and formulating with the President the Monroe Doctrine.

In the political tradition of the early 19th century, Adams as Secretary of State was considered the political heir to the Presidency. But the old ways of choosing a President were giving way in 1824 before the clamor for a popular choice.

Within the one and only party–the Republican–sectionalism and factionalism were developing, and each section put up its own candidate for the Presidency. Adams, the candidate of the North, fell behind Gen. Andrew Jackson in both popular and electoral votes, but received more than William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. Since no candidate had a majority of electoral votes, the election was decided among the top three by the House of Representatives. Clay, who favored a program similar to that of Adams, threw his crucial support in the House to the New Englander.

Upon becoming President, Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State. Jackson and his angry followers charged that a “corrupt bargain” had taken place and immediately began their campaign to wrest the Presidency from Adams in 1828.

Well aware that he would face hostility in Congress, Adams nevertheless proclaimed in his first Annual Message a spectacular national program. He proposed that the Federal Government bring the sections together with a network of highways and canals, and that it develop and conserve the public domain, using funds from the sale of public lands. In 1828, he broke ground for the 185-mile C & 0 Canal.

Adams also urged the United States to take a lead in the development of the arts and sciences through the establishment of a national university, the financing of scientific expeditions, and the erection of an observatory. His critics declared such measures transcended constitutional limitations.

The campaign of 1828, in which his Jacksonian opponents charged him with corruption and public plunder, was an ordeal Adams did not easily bear. After his defeat he returned to Massachusetts, expecting to spend the remainder of his life enjoying his farm and his books.

Unexpectedly, in 1830, the Plymouth district elected him to the House of Representatives, and there for the remainder of his life he served as a powerful leader. Above all, he fought against circumscription of civil liberties.

In 1836 southern Congressmen passed a “gag rule” providing that the House automatically table petitions against slavery. Adams tirelessly fought the rule for eight years until finally he obtained its repeal.

In 1848, he collapsed on the floor of the House from a stroke and was carried to the Speaker’s Room, where two days later he died. He was buried–as were his father, mother, and wife–at First Parish Church in Quincy. To the end, “Old Man Eloquent” had fought for what he considered right.

## Personality

The character traits of President John Quincy Adams can be described as reserved, austere, persistent and determined. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for John Quincy Adams is an INTP (introversion, intuition, thinking, perceiving). A modest, quiet, stoic character with a preference to work informally with others as equals. John Quincy Adams Personality type: Quiet, analytical, impatient and thoughtful.

## Nicknames

* "Old Man Eloquent"
* "The Abolitionist"
* "The Madman of Massachusetts"

*Meaning: The nickname of President John Quincy Adams provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the nickname the "Abolitionist" refers to his campaign against slavery and his determination and persistence in bringing up the slavery issue against the 'Gag Rule' of Congress. After his presidency he continued his fight against slavery during the Amistad Slave Ship Incident when he acted as defending counsel of the 35 surviving slaves successfully arguing that the men should be freed enabling them to return to their homeland in Sierra Leone in Africa.*

## Inauguration

The **inauguration of John Quincy Adams** as the sixth president of the United States took place on Friday, March 4, 1825, in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The inauguration marked the commencement of the only four-year term of John Quincy Adams as president and the first term of John C. Calhoun as vice president. Adams was the first president to have been the son of a former president–John Adams; and Calhoun, at age 42 on Inauguration Day, was the second-youngest vice president (after Daniel D. Tompkins, who was 3 months younger when inaugurated into office in 1817).

## Presidents who died during his Presidency

* John Adams
* Thomas Jefferson

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that John Quincy Adams was president included the completion of Erie Canal (1826), the Tariff of 1828 and construction began on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (1828). John Quincy Adams was a firm abolitionist and led the fight against the Gag Rule to force Congress to receive antislavery petitions.*

**The Erie Canal**

Summary: The great Erie Canal stretched for 363 miles linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. Construction began on ‎July 4, 1817, it was first used on ‎May 17, 1821 and finally completed on ‎October 26, 1825. The Erie Canal was a feat of U.S. engineering and a source of great national pride to the United States. It enabled the transportation agricultural products and manufactured goods between the American interior and Europe.

**The General Survey Act of 1824**

Summary: The General Survey Act of 1824 authorized the president to have surveys made of important transportation routes such as roads and canals. The Corps of Engineers were given the role of conducting surveys and charting transportation improvements that were vital to the nation's commercial growth and military protection.

**The 1828 Tariff of Abominations**

Summary: The 1828 Tariff of Abominations favored the commercial interests of the North at the expense of the South resulting in the rise of taxes on southern raw materials, like cotton and tobacco, and ultimately led to the Nullification Crisis of 1832 during the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

**The South Carolina Exposition**

Summary: The South Carolina Exposition was a document was written by John C. Calhoun, vice president under John Quincy Adams, in opposition to the Tariff of Abominations and reinforcing the principle of Nullification.

**The Horse Car**

Summary: The Horse Car, horse-drawn stage coaches, wagons or carts, was the early form of public transport in the cities. John G. Stephenson built the first horse cars and his vehicles were used on the streets of New York in 1832. The Horse Car was a great success and soon spread to other large cities such as Philadelphia, Boston and New Orleans.

**The Railroads in the 1800s**

Summary: The Railroads in the 1800s exploded in 1830 when Peter Cooper's steam locomotive, named Tom Thumb first steamed along 13 miles (21 km) of Baltimore and Ohio railroad track and by 1860, there were more than 30,000 miles of railroad in operation.

**The Gag Rule**

Summary: The Gag Rule was applied in Congress from 1836 to 1844, banning petitions calling for the Abolition of Slavery. After his presidency John Quincy Adams continued his involvement in politics as a member of the House of Representatives where he fought for the abolition of slavery and the end of the 'Gag Rule' during his involvement with the Abolitionist Movement.

## Post Presidency

### Later congressional career (1830–1848)

#### Jackson administration, 1830–1836

Adams considered permanently retiring from public life after his 1828 defeat, and he was deeply hurt by the suicide of his son, George Washington Adams, in 1829. He was appalled by many of the Jackson administration's actions, including its embrace of the spoils system and the prosecution of his close friend, Treasury Auditor Tobias Watkins, for embezzlement. Though they had once maintained a cordial relationship, Adams and Jackson each came to loathe the other in the decades after the 1828 election. Adams grew bored with his retirement and still felt that his career was unfinished, so he ran for and won a seat in the United States House of Representatives in the 1830 elections. His election went against the generally held opinion, shared by his own wife and youngest son, that former presidents should not run for public office. Nonetheless, he would win election to nine terms, serving from 1831 until his death in 1848. Adams and Andrew Johnson are the only former presidents to serve in Congress. After winning election, Adams became affiliated with the Anti-Masonic Party, partly because the National Republican Party's leadership in Massachusetts included many of the former Federalists that Adams had clashed with earlier in his career. The Anti-Masonic Party originated as a movement against Freemasonry, but it developed into the country's first third party and embraced a general program of anti-elitism.

Adams expected a light workload when he returned to Washington at 64 years old, but Speaker Andrew Stevenson selected Adams chair of the Committee on Commerce and Manufactures. Though he identified as a member of the Anti-Masonic Party, Congress was broadly polarized into allies of Jackson and opponents of Jackson, and Adams generally aligned with the latter camp. Stevenson, an ally of Jackson, expected that the committee chairmanship would keep Adams busy defending the tariff even while the Jacksonian majority on the committee would prevent Adams from accruing any real power. As chair of the committee charged with writing tariff laws, Adams became an important player in the nullification crisis, which stemmed largely from Southern objections to the high rates imposed by the Tariff of 1828. South Carolina leaders argued that states could nullify federal laws, and they announced that they would bar the federal government from enforcing the tariff in their state. Adams helped pass the Tariff of 1832, which lowered rates, but not enough to mollify the South Carolina nullifiers. The crisis ended when Clay and Calhoun agreed to another tariff bill, the Tariff of 1833, that furthered lower tariff rates. Adams was appalled by the Nullification Crisis's outcome, as he felt that the Southern states had unfairly benefited from challenging federal law. After the crisis, Adams was convinced that Southerners exercised undue influence over the federal government through their control of Jackson's Democratic Party.

In the 1833 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, the Anti-Masonic Party nominated Adams in a four-way race between Adams, the National Republican candidate, the Democratic candidate, and a candidate of the Working Men's Party. The National Republican candidate, John Davis, won 40% of the vote, while Adams finished in second place with 29%. Because no candidate won a majority of the vote, the state legislature decided the election. Rather than seek election by the legislature, Adams withdrew his name from contention, and the legislature selected Davis. Adams was nearly elected to the Senate in 1835 by a coalition of Anti-Masons and National Republicans, but his support for Jackson in a minor foreign policy matter annoyed National Republican leaders enough that they dropped their support for his candidacy. After 1835, Adams never again sought higher office, focusing instead on his service in the House of Representatives.

#### Van Buren, Harrison and Tyler administrations, 1837–1843

In the mid-1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party, the National Republicans, and other groups opposed to Jackson coalesced into the Whig Party. In the 1836 presidential election Democrats put forward Martin Van Buren, while the Whigs fielded multiple presidential candidates. Because he disdained all the major party contenders for president, Adams did not take part in the campaign; Van Buren won the election. Nonetheless, Adams became aligned with the Whig Party in Congress. Adams generally opposed the initiatives of President Van Buren, long a political adversary, though they maintained a cordial public relationship.

The Republic of Texas won its independence from Mexico in the Texas Revolution of 1835–1836. Texas had largely been settled by Americans from the Southern United States, and many of those settlers owned slaves despite an 1829 Mexican law that abolished slavery. Many in the United States and Texas thus favored the admission of Texas into the union as a slave state. Adams considered the issue of Texas to be "a question of far deeper root and more overshadowing branches than any or all others that agitate the country", and he emerged as one of the leading congressional opponents of annexation. When he served as secretary of state, Adams had sought to acquire Texas, but he argued that, because Mexico had abolished slavery, the acquisition of Texas would transform the region from a free territory into a slave state. He also feared that the annexation of Texas would encourage Southern expansionists to pursue other potential slave states, including Cuba. Adams's firm stance may have played a role in discouraging Van Buren from pushing for the annexation of Texas during his presidency.

Whig nominee William Henry Harrison defeated Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election, and the Whigs gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time. Despite his low regard for Harrison as a person, Adams was enthusiastic about the new Whig administration and the end of the long-standing Democratic dominance of the federal government. However, Harrison died in April 1841 and was succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, a Southerner who, unlike Adams, Henry Clay, and many other prominent Whigs, did not embrace the American System. Adams saw Tyler as an agent of "the slave-driving, Virginia, Jeffersonian school, principled against all improvement". After Tyler vetoed a bill to restore the national bank, Whig congressmen expelled Tyler from the party. Adams was appointed chairman of a special committee that explored impeaching Tyler, and Adams presented a scathing report of Tyler that argued that his actions warranted impeachment. The impeachment process did not move forward, though, because the Whigs did not believe that the Senate would vote to remove Tyler from office.

#### Opposition to the Mexican-American War, 1844–1848

Tyler made the annexation of Texas the main foreign policy priority of the later stages of his administration. He attempted to win ratification of an annexation treaty in 1844, but, to Adams's surprise and relief, the Senate rejected the treaty. The annexation of Texas became the central issue of the 1844 presidential election, and Southerners blocked the nomination of Van Buren at the 1844 Democratic National Convention due to the latter's opposition to annexation; the party instead nominated James K. Polk, an acolyte of Andrew Jackson. Though he once again did not take part in the campaigning, Adams was deeply disappointed that Polk defeated his old ally, Henry Clay, in the 1844 election. He attributed the outcome of the election partly to the Liberty Party, a small, abolitionist third party that may have siphoned votes from Clay in the crucial state of New York. After the election, Tyler, whose term would end in March 1845, once again submitted an annexation treaty to Congress. Adams strongly attacked the treaty, arguing that the annexation of Texas would involve the United States in "a war for slavery". Despite Adams's opposition, both houses of Congress approved the treaty, with most Democrats voting for annexation and most Whigs voting against it. Texas thus joined the United States as a slave state in 1845.

Adams had served with James K. Polk in the House of Representatives, and Adams loathed the new president, seeing him as another expansionist, pro-slavery Southern Democrat. Adams favored the annexation of the entirety of Oregon Country, a disputed region occupied by both the United States and Britain, and was disappointed when President Polk signed the Oregon Treaty, which divided the land between the two claimants at the 49th parallel. Polk's expansionist aims centered instead on the Mexican province of Alta California, and he attempted to buy the province from Mexico. The Mexican government refused to sell California or recognize the independence and subsequent American annexation of Texas. Polk deployed a military detachment led by General Zachary Taylor to back up his assertion that the Rio Grande constituted the Southern border of both Texas and the United States. After Taylor's forces clashed with Mexican soldiers north of the Rio Grande, Polk asked for a declaration of war in early 1846, asserting that Mexico had invaded American territory. Though some Whigs questioned whether Mexico had started an aggressive war, both houses of Congress declared war, with the House voting 174-to-14 to approve the declaration. One of the 14 dissenting votes was Adams, who believed that Polk was seeking to wage an offensive to expand slavery. After the start of the war, he supported the Wilmot Proviso, an unsuccessful legislative proposal that would have banned slavery in any territory ceded by Mexico. After 1846, ill health increasingly affected Adams, but he continued to oppose the Mexican–American War until his death in 1848.

#### Anti-slavery movement

In the 1830s, slavery emerged as an increasingly polarizing issue in the United States. A longtime opponent of slavery, Adams used his new role in Congress to fight it, and he became the most prominent national leader opposing slavery. After one of his reelection victories, he said that he must "bring about a day prophesied when slavery and war shall be banished from the face of the Earth". He wrote in his private journal in 1820:

> The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim it, and cast it all upon the shoulder of Great Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's manners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
>
>

In 1836, partially in response to Adams's consistent presentation of citizen petitions requesting the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the U.S. House of Representatives imposed a gag rule that immediately tabled any petitions about slavery. Democrats and Southern Whigs favored the rule, but Northern Whigs, like Adams, opposed it. In late 1836, Adams began a campaign to ridicule slave owners and the gag rule. He frequently attempted to present anti-slavery petitions, often in ways that provoked strong reactions from Southern representatives. Though the gag rule remained in place, the discussion ignited by his actions and the attempts of others to quiet him raised questions of the right to petition, the right to legislative debate, and the morality of slavery. Adams fought actively against the gag rule for another seven years, eventually moving the resolution that led to its repeal in 1844.

In 1841, at the request of Lewis Tappan and Ellis Gray Loring, Adams joined the case of *United States v. The Amistad*. Adams went before the Supreme Court on behalf of African slaves who had revolted and seized the Spanish ship *Amistad*. Adams appeared on February 24, 1841, and spoke for four hours. His argument succeeded: the Court ruled that the Africans were free and they returned to their homes.

#### Smithsonian Institution

Adams also became a leading force for the promotion of science. In 1829, British scientist James Smithson died, and he left his fortune for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge". In Smithson's will, he stated that should his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, die without heirs, the Smithson estate would go to the government of the United States to create an "Establishment for the increase and diffusion of Knowledge among men". After the nephew died without heirs in 1835, President Andrew Jackson informed Congress of the bequest, which amounted to about US$500,000 (US$75 million in 2008 dollars after inflation). Adams realized that this might allow the United States to realize his dream of building a national institution of science and learning. Adams thus became Congress's primary supporter of the future Smithsonian Institution.

The money was invested in shaky state bonds, which quickly defaulted. After heated debate in Congress, Adams successfully argued to restore the lost funds with interest. Though Congress wanted to use the money for other purposes, Adams successfully persuaded Congress to preserve the money for an institution of science and learning. Congress also debated whether the federal government had the authority to accept the gift, though with Adams leading the initiative, Congress accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1, 1836. Partly due to Adams's efforts, Congress voted to establish the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. A nonpolitical board of regents was established to lead the institution, which included a museum, art gallery, library, and laboratory.

## Death

In 1846, the 78-year-old former president suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. After a few months of rest, he made a full recovery and resumed his duties in Congress. When Adams entered the House chamber on February 13, 1847, everyone "stood up and applauded".

On February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives was discussing the matter of honoring United States Army officers who served in the Mexican–American War. Adams had been a vehement critic of the war, and as Congressmen rose up to say, "Aye!" in favor of the measure, he instead yelled, "No!" He rose to answer a question put forth by Speaker of the House Robert Charles Winthrop. Immediately thereafter, Adams collapsed, having suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Two days later, on February 23, he died at 7:20 p.m. with his wife at his side in the Speaker's Room inside the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.; his only living child, Charles Francis, did not arrive in time to see his father alive. His last words were "This is the last of Earth. I am content". Among those present for his death was future president Abraham Lincoln, then a freshman representative from Illinois.

## Facts and trivia

* John Quincy Adams was the first President in American History to have a father also serve as President.
* Adams was named after his mother's maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is named, who died two days after Adams's birth.
* Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his father's law clerk, Nathan Rice. He soon exhibited literary skills, and in 1779 he started a diary that he kept until just before he died in 1848.
* Until the age of ten, Adams grew up on the family farm in Braintree, largely in the care of his mother. Though frequently absent because of his participation in the American Revolution, John Adams maintained a correspondence with his son, encouraging him to read works by authors such as Thucydides and Hugo Grotius. With his father's encouragement, Adams would also translate classical authors such as Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, and Aristotle.
* It has been suggested that John Quincy Adams had the highest I.Q. of any U.S. president. Dean Simonton, a professor of psychology at UC Davis, estimated his I.Q. score at 165. He reportedly spoke eight foreign languages (Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Russian).
* Adams was closer to his father, with whom he spent much of his early life with abroad, than he was to his mother. In his youth, while the American Revolution raged on, Adams heard from his mother about his father's work and the substantial risks he took to support it. As a result, he developed a deep respect for his father.
* In 1778, Adams and his father departed for Europe, where John Adams would serve as part of American diplomatic missions in France and the Netherlands. During this period, Adams studied law, French, Greek, and Latin, and attended several schools, including Leiden University. After returning to the United States, Adams established a successful legal practice in Boston.
* Adams initially avoided becoming involved in politics, instead focusing on building his legal career.
* In 1794, President George Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, and Adams would serve in high-ranking diplomatic posts until 1801, when Thomas Jefferson took office as president.
* Though Adams wore a powdered wig in his youth, he abandoned this fashion and became the first president to adopt a short haircut instead of long hair tied in a queue and to regularly wear long trousers instead of knee breeches.
* Adams spent the winter of 1795–1796 in London, where he met Louisa Catherine Johnson, the second daughter of American merchant Joshua Johnson. In April 1796, Louisa accepted Adams's proposal of marriage. Adams's parents disapproved of his decision to marry a woman who had grown up in England, but he informed his parents that he would not reconsider his decision. Adams initially wanted to delay his wedding to Louisa until he returned to the United States, but they married in All Hallows-by-the-Tower in July 1797.
* Adams remained the only American president to have a foreign-born First Lady, until Donald Trump's wife, Melania, became First Lady.
* Adams and Louisa had three sons and a daughter. Their daughter, Louisa, was born in 1811 but died in 1812. They named their first son George Washington Adams (1801–1829) after the first president. This decision upset Adams's mother, and, by her account, his father as well.
* Both George and their second son, John (1803–1834), led troubled lives and died in early adulthood. George, who had long suffered from alcoholism, died in 1829 after going overboard on a steamboat; it is not clear whether he fell or purposely jumped from the boat. John, who ran an unprofitable flour and grist mill owned by his father, died of an unknown illness in 1834.
* Adams's youngest son, Charles Francis Adams Sr., was an important leader of the "Conscience Whigs", a Northern, anti-slavery faction of the Whig Party. Charles served as the Free Soil Party's vice presidential candidate in the 1848 presidential election and later became a prominent member of the Republican Party.
* Adams had a rocky relationship with his mother, due to her high expectations of him, and her fear that her children would follow in the footsteps of her brother, who died of alcoholism. His biographer, Nagel, concludes that his mother's disapproval of Louisa Johnson motivated him to marry Johnson in 1797, despite Adams's reservations that Johnson, like his mother, had a forceful personality.
* Adams's personality and political beliefs were much like his father's. He always preferred solitary reading to social engagements, and he was repeatedly persuaded to stay in public service by others.
* Historian Paul Nagel states that, like Abraham Lincoln after him, Adams often suffered from depression, for which he sought treatment in early years. Adams thought his depression was due to the high expectations demanded of him by his father and mother. Throughout his life, he felt inadequate and socially awkward because of his depression, and was constantly bothered by his physical appearance.
* Federalist leaders in Massachusetts arranged for Adams's election to the United States Senate in 1802, but Adams broke with the Federalist Party over foreign policy and was denied re-election.
* In 1809, President James Madison, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, appointed Adams as the U.S. ambassador to Russia. Adams held diplomatic posts for the duration of Madison's presidency, and he served as part of the American delegation that negotiated an end to the War of 1812.
* When it comes to personal fitness, early birds have an edge. Nobody understood the virtues of morning exercise better than Adams. As America’s foreign minister to Russia, Adams would wake up at 5:00 a.m., have a cold bath, and read a few chapters from his German-language Bible. Then came a six-mile walk, followed by breakfast.
* In 1817, President James Monroe selected Adams as his Secretary of State. In that role, Adams negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty, which provided for the American acquisition of Florida. He also helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, which became a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy.
* In 1818, Adams was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.
* The election of 1824, which saw John Quincy Adams face off against Andrew Jackson, is the only presidential election that had to be decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, as neither candidate won the majority of electoral votes. Despite losing both the popular and electoral vote, Adams was named president by the House of Representatives.
* In the immediate aftermath of the 1825 contingent election, Jackson was gracious to Adams. Nevertheless, Adams's appointment of Clay rankled Jackson, who received a flood of letters encouraging him to run. In 1825, Jackson accepted the presidential nomination of the Tennessee legislature for the 1828 election. Though he had been close to Adams during Monroe's presidency, Vice President Calhoun was also politically alienated from the president by the appointment of Clay, since that appointment established Clay as the natural heir to Adams.
* Adams was inaugurated on March 4, 1825, becoming the first son of a former United States president to himself become president, a feat only repeated 176 years later by George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush. He took the oath of office on a book of constitutional law, instead of the more traditional Bible.
* In his inaugural address, Adams adopted a post-partisan tone, promising that he would avoid party-building and politically motivated appointments. He also proposed an elaborate program of "internal improvements": roads, ports, and canals. Though some were worried about the constitutionality of such federal projects, Adams argued that the General Welfare Clause provided for broad constitutional authority. He promised that he would ask Congress to authorize many such projects.
* As president, Adams called for an ambitious agenda that included federally funded infrastructure projects, the establishment of a national university, and engagement with the countries of Latin America, but Congress refused to pass many of his initiatives.
* Adams installed a billiards table in the White House shortly after becoming president. The new addition quickly became a subject of controversy when Adams accidentally presented the government with the $61 tab (in reality he had paid for it himself). Nonetheless, political enemies charged that the pool table symbolized Adams’s aristocratic taste and promoted gambling.
* One of the major foreign policy goals of the Adams administration was the expansion of American trade. His administration reached reciprocity treaties with a number of nations, including Denmark, Prussia, and the Federal Republic of Central America. The administration also reached commercial agreements with the Kingdom of Hawaii and the Kingdom of Tahiti. Agreements with Denmark and Sweden opened their colonies to American trade, but Adams was especially focused on opening trade with the British West Indies.
* During the first half of his administration, Adams avoided taking a strong stand on tariffs, partly because he wanted to avoid alienating his allies in the South and New England.
* During Adams's presidency, the Democratic-Republican Party split into two major camps: the National Republican Party, which supported President Adams, and Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. The Democrats proved to be more effective political organizers than Adams and his National Republican supporters, and Jackson soundly defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election, making Adams the second president to fail to win re-election (his father being the first).
* Historians concur that Adams was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history; they typically rank him as an average president, as he had an ambitious agenda but could not get it passed by Congress.
* Rather than retiring from public service, Adams won election to the House of Representatives, where he would serve from 1831 until his death in 1848. He remains the only former president to be elected to the chamber.
* After narrowly losing his bids for Governor of Massachusetts and Senate re-election, Adams joined the Anti-Masonic Party in the early 1830s before joining the Whig Party, which united those opposed to President Jackson.
* During his time in Congress, Adams became increasingly critical of slavery and of the Southern leaders who he believed controlled the Democratic Party. He also led the repeal of the "gag rule", which had prevented the House of Representatives from debating petitions to abolish slavery.
* Although Adams was nicknamed “Old Man Eloquent” for his unparalleled public speaking ability, he was terrible at small talk. Aware of his own social awkwardness, Adams once wrote in his diary, “I went out this evening in search of conversation, an art of which I never had an adequate idea. Long as I have lived in the world, I never have thought of conversation as a school in which something was to be learned. I never knew how to make, to control, or to change it.”
* Whig nominee William Henry Harrison defeated Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election, and the Whigs gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time. Despite his low regard for Harrison as a person, Adams was enthusiastic about the new Whig administration and the end of the long-standing Democratic dominance of the federal government. However, Harrison died in April 1841 and was succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, a Southerner who, unlike Adams, Henry Clay, and many other prominent Whigs, did not embrace the American System. Adams saw Tyler as an agent of "the slave-driving, Virginia, Jeffersonian school, principled against all improvement"
* Some sources contend that in 1843 Adams sat for the earliest confirmed photograph of a United States president, although others maintain that William Henry Harrison had posed even earlier for his portrait, in 1841. The original daguerreotype is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.
* In mid-November 1846, the 78-year-old former president suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. After a few months of rest, he made a full recovery and resumed his duties in Congress. When Adams entered the House chamber on February 13, 1847, everyone "stood up and applauded".
* On February 21, 1848, during a heated session in Congress, Adams collapsed to the floor, suffering a stroke. Two days later, on February 23, he died at 7:20 p.m. with his wife at his side in the Speaker's Room inside the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.; his only living child, Charles Francis, did not arrive in time to see his father alive. His last words were "This is the last of Earth. I am content". Among those present for his death was Abraham Lincoln, then a freshman representative from Illinois.
* Adams's original interment was temporary, in the public vault at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Later, he was interred in the family burial ground in Quincy, Massachusetts, across from the (Unitarian) United First Parish Church, called Hancock Cemetery. After Louisa's death in 1852, his son had his parents re-interred in the expanded family crypt in the United First Parish Church across the street, next to John and Abigail. Both tombs are viewable by the public. Adams's original tomb at Hancock Cemetery is still there and marked simply "J.Q. Adams".
* John Quincy Adams Birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park and open to the public. Adams House, one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University, is named for John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and other members of the Adams family associated with Harvard. John Quincy Adams tower, located in the Southwest residential area of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is named for the president.
* In 1870, Charles Francis Adams built the first presidential library in the United States, to honor his father. The Stone Library includes over 14,000 books written in twelve languages. The library is located at Peacefield (the "Old House") at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.
* An Adams Memorial has been proposed in Washington, D.C., honoring Adams and his wife, son, father, mother, and other members of their family.
* Adams's middle name of Quincy has been used by several locations in the United States, including the town of Quincy, Illinois. Adams County, Illinois and Adams County, Indiana are also named after Adams. Adams County, Iowa, and Adams County, Wisconsin, were each named for either John Adams or John Quincy Adams.
* Adams occasionally is featured in the mass media. In the PBS miniseries *The Adams Chronicles* (1976), he was portrayed by David Birney, William Daniels, Marcel Trenchard, Steven Grover and Mark Winkworth. He was also portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in the 1997 film *Amistad*, and again by Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Steven Hinkle in the 2008 HBO television miniseries *John Adams*; the HBO series received criticism for needless historical and temporal distortions in its portrayal.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Quincy\_Adams
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/john-quincy-adams/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/john-quincy-adams.htm
* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Adams-12