John Quincy Adams_ America’s Most Successful Failure// john Quincy Adams presidency
9 min readJul 22, 2022
Administration herbert for example was a great humanitarian now only remembered
for a much greater depression no one meanwhile seriously remembers woodrow wilson for overhauling princeton university heck even dwight d eisenhower is better known for his two terms than winning goddamn world war ii but occasionally you get a president whose deeds before or after their administration are central to their place in history of these perhaps none is so fascinating as john quincyadams the sixth president of the united states adams was also the white house’s first major disappointment in a single term he failed to do anything much of consequence existing mainly as a human punching bag for his successor andrew jackson yet rather than the pinnacle the presidency would turn out to be a brief dip in his otherwise remarkable life as secretary of state pre-presidency adams helped shape america in profound ways in his post-white house career he became one of the most powerful antislavery voices in the nation a mediocre ineffectual president who still transforms the united states thisis the life of john quincy adams america’s greatest failure when johnquincy adams was born in braintree massachusetts later named quincy on july the 11th 1767 it was into a seemingly average family his parents weren’t incredibly rich or highly connected and while his father was fiercely interested in politics he wasn’t exactly a mover and shaker but of course we already know there was nothing average about adams family his dad was future founding father john adams his mum future first lady abigail adams and that ensured there wouldbe nothing remotely average about john quincy’s upbringing things got moving in 1774 with the calling of the first continental congress essentially a big convention dedicated to discussing what a [ __ ] george iii was adams’s dad was one of their state’s delegates but while this was the family’s first flirtation with history it would be what came next that really transformed their fortunes on april 19th 1775 some forgotten soldier at lexington fired their gun during a tensestandoff between british forces and american militia it was the opening of the american revolutionary war the shotheard around the world it was also the starting gun on john adams’ high-velocitycareer with his dad running off to join the second continental congress that spring john Quincy always left to witness the war unfold from his mother’s side like literally that summer Abigail took her son to the top of a nearby hill from where they couldsee the distant carnage of the battle ofbunker hill the next few years the boy would frequently see soldiers marching through his hometown then there were the fears he felt for his dad on July the4th In 1776 John Adams signed his name on the declaration of independence one-hour celebrated moment it was at the time treason and adBritishams was paralyzed by the fear that the British might execute his dad not that there was much space for airing these fears at home always a hard woman Abigail Adams had transformed by the war into a mother determined to raise a future American leader she would truck no emotions from her boy no idleness nothing at all that most of us would associate with childhood and that meant that john Quincy grew up faster than even other kids in this turbulent era aged just 10 he was sent with his dad on a dangerousdiplomatic trip to Europe on which saw British ships stalk and harass their vessel on a second voyage the following year the boat sprang a leak barely makingit to the Spanish coast getting toParis then required a gruelling two-month trek on mules at this time john Quincy was also takingon diplomatic responsibilities like teaching the french minister to the united states English or sitting in on meetings between his dad and benjamin franklin it was as if John and Abigail were trying to fashion their son into a machine for diplomacy a sort of nerdy robocop built for geopolitics as Abigail wrote to her still prepubescent son these are the times in which a genius would wish to live it is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed which was maybe why adam’s life in Europe was as far from still as it’s possible to get over the years of the war john Quincy lived in holland and France spending time in Sweden and Prussia he became fluent in french passable and dutch at age 14 he was appointed secretary and translator to the u.s embassy in russAdamsia in time he’d master seven languages but his biggest moment came at the age of 16. in 1783 Adams served as a secretary to the American delegation in Paris watching from up close as a peace treaty was thrashedout with Britain ending the revolutionary war it was an invaluable insight into international politics and what Adams would take into his future diplomatic ventures but first, the teenage john Quincy wanted to return to America as he reached adulthood John Quincy Adams had grown into a highly intelligent well-traveled and well-read young man he also, however, had grown into a neurotic mess an ill-tempered emotionally cold egotist who most people instinctively disliked, in short, the ideal combination for professional success and personal misery first the professional success back in us john Quincy graduated from Harvard passed the bar and began practicing law all by the age of 23.he also found a side gig writing articles in support of the new president’s articles that soon brought him to George Washington’s attention it probably didn’t hurt that Washington’s vice president was John Quincy’s dad in 1794 the president appointed him minister to the Netherlands and Adams returned to Europe okay so that’s the amazing career what about the personal miseryfor that we need to look no further than Adam’s love life while in the u.s john Quincy had fallen spectacularly for a the local girl he’d ever wanted to propose but then Abigail had told himthat he needed to focus on his career so Adams broke off with theyoung woman only to regret the decision immediately and intensely in fact he regretted it so much that when he met 22-year-old Louisa Catherine in London he didn’t even hesitate before asking herto marry him the daughter of an American ex-pat and an English woman Louisa was intelligentcreative exactly the sort of things that most people would want in a fiance the problem was Adamswasn’t most people he actively refused to be in the same room as Louisa when playing music and could barely stand talking to her they married in July 1797. by the time Louise became the first of only two foreign-born first ladies the pair could go literal weeks without speaking but that was still many years away for now the young Adams simply kept up his diplomatic work becoming his dad’s man in Prussia after john Adams gained the presidency then returning to America again when his dad lost it not that this loss impacted Adam’s career elected to the Massachusetts state senate in 1802 Adams was quickly promoted to one of the state’s two congressional senators Massachusetts c was controlled by the federalist party since his dad had been a federalist the leadership assumed Adams was as safe about as they could make but that assumption couldn’t have beenmore wrong in congress john Quincy surprised everyone by frequently siding not with his dad’s federalists but with their opponents the democratic-republicans this included weighty stuff like the 1807 embargo act which blocked trade with all foreign nations a brave attempt to get Britain to respect America’s maritime rights but one with the unfortunate side effect of screwing over Adam’s home base of new englandAdams yet Adams voted for the measure feeling his conscience would not allow him to dootherwise in Massachusetts though the federalists felt that Adam’s consciousness could kisstheir butts outraged at his betrayal they announced his replacement before his term was evenover five days later Adams resigned shortly after he was spotted at the democraticrepublican convention his switch to the enemy party is now official but while this mountain made him as popular with federalists as a Carolina reaper enem, it was also an excellent career move in 1808 election democratic-republican James madison trounced the federalist rival he awarded john Quincy Quincy Cho of allegiance with the job of u.s minister to rusRussiad so it was back to Europe back to a continent broken and bruised by the Napoleonic wars from his vantage point in saint Petersburg Adams was able to witness France’s failed invasion of Russia to take part in the negotiations with Britain that ended the war of 1812 to watch napoleon’s collapse at waterloo come 1817 john Quincy was living in London James with more experiences under his belt the most managed in a lifetime yet it would be the next seven years that saw his greatest achievements of all back home James Monroe had just beenelected president and he had the perfect role lined up for the worldly intelligent Quincyuincy Adams, he wanted Adams to become his secretary of state although on paper he was the perfect candidate deep down Adams was worried that Monroe had made the wrong choice worried that he’d be a failure as he wrote to Abigail he felt that the the president had overestimated not the goodness of my intentions but the extent of my talents for a a man so egotistical he once called his diaries the most precious book ever written by human hands, such fears seem remarkable an indication that Adams really did sense he might not be fit for high office and while time and the highest office in the land would eventually, prove him right in 1817 the opposite happened john Quincy Adams was about to become perhaps the best secretary of state the u.s ever had Adams is a genius in his ability to negotiate under his watch, vital treaties were signed that changed America forever the most vital of these the treaties with Britain and Spain at this point remember Adams had lived through two major wars with Britain and voted for legislation designed to cuddle trade ties with London so he’d have been forgiven for making his official stance screw those limey douchebags but no instead Adams spearheaded the convention of 1818 which permanently set the u.s Canadian border along the 49th parallel to the rocky mountains with a ban on armaments along the border this treaty helped diffuse 50 years of tensions between London and Washington ushering in a new the era in which redcoats weren’t constantly trying to burn down the white house more important still though may have been the treaty Spain pain signed in 1819 the treaty saw Florida officially handed to the united states and Spain give up its claims to territory north of latitude 42 degrees since this included Oregon county it set the stage for yet further u.s expansion westward in the future, in return, the southern border was set with Madrid’s colony of new Spain giving the Spaniards control of texas but since Spain was about to get booted out of what is now Mexico uncle sam wouldn’t have to worry about keeping up his end of the bargain for a very long impressive as these treaties were though perhaps Adam’s biggest achievement was a speech that doesn’t even bearing his name the Monroe doctrine takes its name from the president who first articulated it but the idea was nearly all john Quincy Adams’s in a nutshell the doctrine toldEurope to forget sailing across the Atlantic to do more colonizing the newly independent American nations would stay independent and any attempt to say otherwise would result in a starspangled foot being inserted up the oldcontinent’s backside at the time this was a ballsy statement like scrappy doo threatening to go 10 rounds with Cujo the u.s simply wasn’t powerful enough to be bossing multiple empires around but it was also a sign of how the tides were shifting in how the western hemisphere was turning towards the u.s in decades to come the Monroe doctrine would be used to justify all sorts of unwelcome intrusions in Latin America but it’s no doubt its unveiling was a pivotal moment so that was john Quincy’s career as his time as secretary of state drew to a close while with the track record of three major wins plus a minor victory professionalizing the diplomatic service stacked together all this made Adams Monroefeel like it got a pretty good shot at taking over from Monroe when the president left office the trouble was he wasn’t the only one as the election year of 1824 dawned it was on a country that had dramatically changed the the federalist party heard collapsed male suffrage had been expanded 18 of the 24states now chose their presidential electors by popular vote it would in short be a watershed election one that would fulfil john Quincy’s wildest dreams even as it laid the groundwork for his political destruction although only one party contested the 1824 election that doesn’t mean there was only one candidate alongside Adams three other men all vied for the top job each with their bases of power it was the firefirebrandse speaker henry clay of kendaki the favourite of the eliteWilliam h Crawford.
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