JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ANDNATIONAL EXPANSION

CONTINENTAL EXPANSION

No one labored longer ormore successfully toextend the continentallimits of the U.S.JQA made the U.S. ageographic giant.Three phases of hispolitical career. Diplomat Congressman President

EDUCATION ANDPREPARATION

Grew up with the nation.American Revolution (7 yearsold)Accompanied father ondiplomatic mission to France(10 years old)Spent time in Europe assistinghis father and studying atuniversities in Germany,Russia, Sweden, England,Holland, and France (10-17years old)Earned law degree at Harvard(1785), admitted to the bar.

U.S. minister to the Netherlandsunder WashingtonU.S. minister to Prussia underAdamsMA state senator (1802)U.S. Senator (1803)Disgusted with with thefactionalism and sectionalism ofthe Federalist partyGrew to dislike political partiesfor putting their interests aheadof those of the nation.

MASTERFUL DIPLOMAT

Masterful, but not always popularChief negotiator of Treaty of Ghent (1814), which ended thenearly disastrous War of 1812U.S. minister to Britain (1815)Secretary of State under Monroe (1817)Sealed the Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), which limitedAmerican and British warships on the Great Lakes andinitiated more than a century of peaceful border relationsbetween Canada and the U.S.Garnered American fishing privileges in the rich GrandBanks

ERA OF GOOD FEELINGSConvention of 1818 established the 49th parallel as thenorthern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase and protectedAmerican claims to the Pacific Northwest by providing forjoint occupation of Oregon TerritoryConvinced Tsar Alexander of Russia to relinquish claims toAlaska and set a friendship allowing for the outrightpurchase of Alaska and the removal of Russia from theWestern HemisphereAdams-Onis Treaty (1819) made FL part of the Union andstrengthened American claims to the Pacific Coast bydefining the border with Spain all the way to the Pacific,thus paving the way for American expansion into the FarWest

BALANCE ANDINDEPENDENCE

Instrumental in convincing LatinAmerican governments to rebel againstSpain and become democratic republics,which made U.S. sphere of economicand political influence more powerful inits hemisphereTrue mastermind behind the “Monroe”Doctrine and the non-colonizationprincipleMonroe actually used Adams’s doctrineword for word and without credit.Adams believed America was destinedto possess the entire continent.

POLITICAL COURAGE ANDINDEPENDENCE

In 1803 Senator Adams boldlybecame the only Federalistsenator to vote in favor of thetreaty completing the LouisianaPurchase.Senator Adams also broke withparty ranks to supportJefferson’s policies of peaceablecoercion.Federalists drove him out of theparty and forced his resignationas senator in 1808.

As Secretary of State, Adamsdefended Jackson’s attacks onSpanish Florida.Adams was perhaps the mostapolitical president.Promoted the American SystemCongressman Adams defied the“gag rule” on antislaverypetitions as a violation offreedom of speech.Adams defended the Amistadmutineers on the basis of naturalrights doctrines andinternational law.

SECOND ADAMS IN THEWHITE HOUSE

Controversial election of 1824: thrown into House becausenone of the 4 candidates received the required majority ofelectoral votes (Jackson received the most popular andelectoral votes).Clay supported Adams, believing he would most certainlysupport Clay’s American System. When Adams made Clayhis secretary of state, Jackson’s supporters charged that a“corrupt bargain” had been made.Adams was perhaps the best prepared and most learnedpresident in history.

NATIONAL PROGRAM

President Adams promoted a vigorous national government, a national university,federally funded internal improvements, and a strong military. His annual messagewas highly unpopular yet prophetic.As historian Richard Hofstadter writes, “His first annual message to Congress wasone of the most wholly impolitic documents in the history of government.”Adams warned the nation not to become complacent and stagnant: “Were we toslumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we arepalsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the Bounties ofProvidence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority?”National Republicans feared the expansion of presidential power. Democrats feareddebts, monopolies, and centralized control, believing that government planning ledto political favoritism. Ironically Jackson would bring just that with the “spoilssystem.”Adams miscalculated in his assumption that “unswerving integrity would suffice inplace of popularity.” Adams, as John Patrick Diggins shows, was the last of “ageneration of gentry-class leaders who wouldn’t stoop to cater to the masses in orderto retain power. So he lost it.”

DISINTERESTEDNESS

Jacksonians blocked Adams’sinitiatives, and Adams had fewaccomplishments as president.Adams failed to win a popularmajority, which often timesdetermines presidential successor failure. His extensive programfor national development failed,in part, because of rising feelingsof sectionalism and distrust of thefederal government.Successful presidents must caterto the party and be willing tocompromise to be successful.

Adams’s strength, his politicalindependence and nationalism,was also his weakness aspresident, a failure tocompromise his politicalposition and principles.John Patrick Diggins explains,“[Adams] favored convictionover compromise and preferreddiscipline to convenience. Arare president.”Adams assumed that integritywould supplant popularity. Herefused to cater to the masses toremain in power.

ELECTION OF 1828

Brutally partisan. Scholar vs. frontierhero. National Republicans chargedJackson with adultery. Democratscharged Adams with being a monarchistand aristocrat, and with having procureda servant woman for the emperor ofRussia and installing a billiard table in theWhite House at public expense.Jackson won with ease, carrying theSouth, the West, working-class artisans,and backwoods farmers.Victory for democracy over intellectualsand elitesAdams disliked political parties becausehe believed that they pursued their owninterests at the expense of the nationalinterest.

“OLD MAN ELOQUENT”

Adams accomplished far more before andafter his presidency as as a diplomat andcongressman fighting against the gag ruleand arguing about slavery.Opposed the annexation of Texas in 1836Stubbornly insisted on raking up the deadlydivisive issue of the extension of slaveryevery time frontiersmen sought to establisha territorial government.Adams led Whig opposition to the MexicanWar because he believed it was aconspiracy on the part of the slaveocracy toexpand slavery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and theUnion. New York: Random House, 1956.

Diggins, John Patrick. “John Quincy Adams”. In:“To The Best of My Ability”: The AmericanPresidents. Edited by James M. McPherson. NewYork: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2000. 49-55.

Hofstadter, Richard. The American PoliticalTradition and the Men Who Made It. With aForeward by Christopher Lasch. New York:Vintage, 1989 (1948).