John Quincy Adams ( ; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825; minister to Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia; and senator for Massachusetts. After his presidency, Adams uniquely returned to Congress as a member of the lower house, where he died in 1848. He was the eldest son of John Adams, the second president, and First Lady Abigail Adams. Among his children were Charles Francis Adams Sr. Initially a Federalist like his father, Adams spent his presidency as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and later, in the mid-1830s, became affiliated with the Whig Party.
Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams spent much of his youth in Europe, where his father served as a diplomat during the American Revolutionary War. After returning to the United States, Adams established a successful legal practice in Boston. In 1794, President George Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. minister to the Netherlands, while President Adams named him minister to Prussia. After he was recalled in 1801 by the new president Thomas Jefferson, Federalist leaders in Massachusetts arranged for Adams's election to the United States Senate in 1802. However, Adams broke with the Party over foreign policy and was denied re-election. In 1809, President James Madison, a member of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, appointed Adams as the U.S. minister to Russia, and then to Great Britain, where he led negotiations for the Treaty of Ghent, that ended the War of 1812, and began talks for the Rush–Bagot Treaty that settled lingering claims. In 1817, President James Monroe selected Adams as his secretary of state. In that role, Adams negotiated the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1819, which transferred Spanish Florida to the United States. He also helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, which became a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy.
Adams stood for the 1824 presidential election as a Democratic-Republican against William H. Crawford, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson. Because no candidate won a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives held a contingent election, which Adams won with the support of Speaker of the House Clay, whom Adams would controversially appoint as his secretary of state. Adams championed an ambitious agenda that included federally funded infrastructure projects, the establishment of a national university, and engagement with the countries of Latin America, but the conservative Congress refused to pass many of his initiatives. During Adams's presidency, the Democratic-Republican Party splintered into two major camps: the National Republican Party, which supported Adams, and Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party, who attacked Adams and Clay's "corrupt bargain". The Democrats proved to be more effective political organizers, and Jackson soundly defeated Adams in the 1828 presidential election.
After a brief retirement from public service, Adams won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1830 as a member of the Anti-Masonic Party. He remains the only former president to be elected to the chamber. After losing his bids for Governor of Massachusetts and Senate, Adams joined the Whig Party, which united those opposed to Jacksonian democracy. During his time in Congress, Adams became increasingly critical of slavery and of the Southern leaders whom he believed controlled the Democratic Party. He was particularly opposed to the annexation of Texas and the Mexican–American War, which he saw as provocations to extend slavery and its political grip on Congress. He also led the fight to repeal the gag rule, which prevented the House of Representatives from debating petitions to abolish slavery. In 1841, the 73-year-old Adams successfully defended enslaved mutineers in the Amistad case before the Supreme Court. He died in the House chamber seven years later. While historians typically rank Adams as an average president, they generally consider him one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history, whose powerlessness as chief executive was followed by vehement speeches against slavery and for the rights of women and Native Americans during his post-presidential congressional career.
Early life, education, and early career
John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, to John and Abigail Adams (née Smith) in a part of Braintree, Massachusetts, that is now Quincy. He was named after his mother's maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is also named. Colonel Quincy died two days after his great-grandson's birth. Young Adams was educated by 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 translated classical authors such as Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, and Aristotle.
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. In 1781, Adams traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he served as the secretary to the American diplomat, Francis Dana. He returned to the Netherlands in 1783 and accompanied his father to Great Britain in 1784. Though Adams enjoyed Europe, he and his family decided he needed to return to the United States to complete his education and eventually launch a political career.
Adams returned to the United States in 1785 and earned admission as a member of the junior class of Harvard College the following year. He joined Phi Beta Kappa and excelled academically, graduating second in his class in 1787. After graduating from Harvard, he studied law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts, from 1787 to 1789. Adams initially opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution, but he ultimately came to accept the document, and in 1789 his father was elected as the first vice president of the United States. In 1790, Adams opened his own legal practice in Boston. Despite some early struggles, he was successful as an attorney and established financial independence from his parents.
Early political career (1793–1817)
Early diplomatic career and marriage
Adams initially avoided becoming involved in politics, instead focusing on building his legal career. In 1791, he wrote a series of pseudonymously published essays arguing that Britain provided a better governmental model than France. Two years later, he published another series of essays attacking Edmond-Charles Genêt, a French diplomat who sought to undermine President George Washington's policy of neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1794, Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. minister resident to the Netherlands. Adams considered declining the role, but ultimately took the position on the advice of his father. While abroad, Adams continued to urge neutrality, arguing that the United States would benefit economically by staying out of the ongoing French Revolutionary Wars. His chief duty in Amsterdam was to secure and maintain Dutch loans essential to U.S. finances. On his way to the Netherlands, he met with John Jay, who was then negotiating the Jay Treaty with Great Britain. Adams supported the Jay Treaty, but it proved unpopular with many in the United States, contributing to a growing partisan split between the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson. In 1794 he supported John Skey Eustace who wanted to return to the United States via the Netherlands.