ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY

(1767-1848), sixth president of the United States, diplomat, congressman, U.S. senator, and secretary of state. As the eldest and most gifted son of John Adams, second president of the United States, Adams enjoyed many opportunities that prepared him for later public service.

In 1802 Adams was elected a U.S. senator from Massachusetts as a Federalist, but he was too independent of mind to follow a regular party line. During the international tensions that arose from the Napoleonic Wars, he supported the policies of the Jefferson administration. His stand, contrary to the position of his party, resulted in his replacement as senator. He resigned, however, before the end of his term, only to be appointed to a series of important diplomatic posts. He was one of the American commissioners who arranged for the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. As secretary of state, he drafted the Monroe Doctrine and acquired Florida from Spain for the United States.

He was the New England candidate for the presidency in 1824, but neither he nor any of the other candidates commanded the electoral majority the Constitution required. Therefore the election was decided by the House of Representatives, each state casting one vote. Henry Clay threw his support to Adams, who was then elected over Andrew Jackson. When Adams made Clay his secretary of state, the disapproving Jacksonians accused the president of entering into "a corrupt bargain" with Clay. From then until the end of his administration, Adams was the target of highly charged partisan abuse.

Adams was probably the most experienced and intelligent of all American presidents, but his ideas about the role of the national government in developing the nation were too far in advance of then current economic thinking. An advocate of national planning that would have extended to a federally funded system of internal improvements, canals, turnpikes, and the like, Adams also proposed the establishment of a national university and recommended substantial government support for scientific investigation. As part of his program of national planning, Adams favored a protective tariff. He also supported a national banking system that would provide uniform currency and regulate credit. These policies were to a considerable degree an extension of Alexander Hamilton's ideas, especially in economic affairs, but they were more visionary and less class-oriented in other areas of public responsibility. They were, in addition, a formative influence on the evolution of Whig party doctrine. His first message to Congress that introduced his policies stands as a brilliant state paper. But his administration, bedeviled by partisan attack, must be accounted a failure. Savagely attacked as an aristocrat and a quasi Federalist, Adams lost his reelection bid to Andrew Jackson in 1828.

In 1831, Adams was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Although no abolitionist, he battled single-handedly against a southern-dominated House for the right to present petitions from antislavery groups. Subjected to a gag rule and threatened with censure and even expulsion, Adams persisted in his efforts to defend a constitutional right. Finally, in 1844, Congress repealed its gag rule and the right of petition was restored. In many ways Adams's congressional record as a champion of civil rights was the crowning point of his long career in public service.

S. F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956); George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings (1952).

John Niven

See also Adams-Onís Treaty; Corrupt Bargain; Elections: 1824, 1828; Monroe Doctrine.