Chapter 1

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, eldest son of John Adams, second President, was born at Braintree, Mass., July 11, 1767. He enjoyed peculiar and rare advantages for education. In childhood he was instructed by his mother, a granddaughter of Colonel John Quincy, and a woman of superior talents. In 1778, when only 11 years old, he accompanied his father to France; attended a school in Paris, and returned home in August, 1779. Having been taken again to Europe by his father in 1780, he pursued his studies at the University of Leyden, where he learned Latin and Greek. In July, 1781, at the age of 14, he was appointed private secretary to Francis Dana, minister to Russia. He remained at St. Petersburg until October, 1782, after which he resumed his studies at The Hague. Was present at the signing of the definitive treaty of peace in Paris, September 3, 1783. He passed some months with his father in London, and returned to the United States to complete his education, entering Harvard College in 1786 and graduating in 1788. He studied law with the celebrated Theophilus Parsons, of Newburyport; was admitted to the bar in 1791, and began to practice in Boston. In 1791 he published in the Boston Centinel, under the signature of "Publicola," a series of able essays, in which he exposed the fallacies and vagaries of the French political reformers. These papers attracted much attention in Europe and the United States. Under the signature of "Marcellus" he wrote, in 1793, several articles, in which he argued that the United States should observe strict neutrality in the war between the French and the British. These writings commended him to the favor of Washington, and he was appointed minister to Holland in May, 1794. In July, 1797, he married Louisa Catherine Johnson, a daughter of Joshua Johnson, of Maryland, who was then American consul at London. In a letter dated February 20, 1797, Washington commended him highly to the elder Adams, and advised the President elect not to withhold promotion from him because he was his son. He was accordingly appointed minister to Berlin in 1797. He negotiated a treaty of amity and commerce with the Prussian Government, and was recalled about February, 1801. He was elected a Senator of the United States by the Federalists of Massachusetts for the term beginning March, 1803. In 1805 he was appointed professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Harvard College, and accepted on condition that he should be permitted to attend to his Senatorial duties. He offended the Federalists by supporting Jefferson's embargo act, which was passed in December, 1807, and thus became connected with the Democratic party. He resigned his seat in the Senate in March, 1808, declining to serve for the remainder of the term rather than obey the instructions of the Federalists. In March, 1809, he was appointed by President Madison minister to Russia. During his residence in that country he was nominated to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and confirmed February, 1811; but he declined the appointment. In 1813 Adams, Bayard, Clay, Russell, and Gallatin were appointed commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain. They met the British diplomatists at Ghent, and after a protracted negotiation of six months signed a treaty of peace December 24, 1814. In the spring of 1815 he was appointed minister to the Court of St. James, remaining there until he was appointed by Mr. Monroe Secretary of State in 1817. In 1824 Adams, Jackson, Crawford, and Clay were candidates for the Presidency. Neither of the candidates having received a majority in the electoral colleges, the election devolved on the House of Representatives. Aided by the influence of Henry Clay, Mr. Adams received the votes of thirteen States, and was elected. He was defeated for reelection in 1828 by General Andrew Jackson. On the 4th of March, 1829, he retired to his estate at Quincy. In 1830 he was elected to Congress, and took his seat in December, 1831. He continued to represent his native district for seventeen years, during which time he was constantly at his post. On the 21st of February, 1848, while in his seat at the Capitol, he was stricken with paralysis, and died on the 23d of that month. He was buried at Quincy, Mass.

NOTIFICATION OF ELECTION.

Mr. Webster, from the committee appointed for that purpose yesterday, reported that the committee had waited on John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, and had notified him that in the recent election of a President of the United States, no person having received a majority of the votes of all the electors appointed, and the choice having consequently devolved upon the House of Representatives, that House, proceeding in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, did yesterday choose him to be President of the United States for four years, commencing on the 4th day of March next, and that the committee had received a written answer, which he presented to the House. Mr. Webster also reported that in further performance of its duty the committee had given the information of this election to the President.

February 10, 1825.

Reply of the President Elect.

Washington, _February 10, 1825_.

Gentlemen:

In receiving this testimonial from the Representatives of the people and States of this Union I am deeply sensible to the circumstances under which it has been given. All my predecessors in the high station to which the favor of the House now calls me have been honored with majorities of the electoral voices in their primary colleges. It has been my fortune to be placed by the divisions of sentiment prevailing among our countrymen on this occasion in competition, friendly and honorable, with three of my fellow-citizens, all justly enjoying in eminent degrees the public favor, and of whose worth, talents, and services no one entertains a higher and more respectful sense than myself. The names of two of them were, in the fulfillment of the provisions of the Constitution, presented to the selection of the House in concurrence with my own--names closely associated with the glory of the nation, and one of them further recommended by a larger minority of the primary electoral suffrages than mine.

In this state of things, could my refusal to accept the trust thus delegated to me give an immediate opportunity to the people to form and to express with a nearer approach to unanimity the object of their preference, I should not hesitate to decline the acceptance of this eminent charge and to submit the decision of this momentous question again to their determination. But the Constitution itself has not so disposed of the contingency which would arise in the event of my refusal. I shall therefore repair to the post assigned me by the call of my country, signified through her constitutional organs, oppressed with the magnitude of the task before me, but cheered with the hope of that generous support from my fellow-citizens which, in the vicissitudes of a life devoted to their service, has never failed to sustain me, confident in the trust that the wisdom of the legislative councils will guide and direct me in the path of my official duty, and relying above all upon the superintending providence of that Being in whose hands our breath is and whose are all our ways.

Gentlemen, I pray you to make acceptable to the House the assurance of my profound gratitude for their confidence, and to accept yourselves my thanks for the friendly terms in which you have communicated to me their decision.

John Quincy Adams.

Letter from the President Elect.

City of Washington, _March 1, 1825_

The President of the Senate of the United States.

Sir:

I ask the favor of you to inform the honorable Senate of the United States that I propose to take the oath prescribed by the Constitution to the President of the United States before he enters on the execution of his office, on Friday, the 4th instant, at 12 o'clock, in the Hall of the House of Representatives.

I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, sir, your very humble and obedient servant,

John Quincy Adams.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

In compliance with an usage coeval with the existence of our Federal Constitution, and sanctioned by the example of my predecessors in the career upon which I am about to enter, I appear, my fellow-citizens, in your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties allotted to me in the station to which I have been called.

In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which I shall be governed in the fulfillment of those duties my first resort will be to that Constitution which I shall swear to the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend. That revered instrument enumerates the powers and prescribes the duties of the Executive Magistrate, and in its first words declares the purposes to which these and the whole action of the Government instituted by it should be invariably and sacredly devoted--to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to the people of this Union in their successive generations. Since the adoption of this social compact one of these generations has passed away. It is the work of our forefathers. Administered by some of the most eminent men who contributed to its formation, through a most eventful period in the annals of the world, and through all the vicissitudes of peace and war incidental to the condition of associated man, it has not disappointed the hopes and aspirations of those illustrious benefactors of their age and nation. It has promoted the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all; it has to an extent far beyond the ordinary lot of humanity secured the freedom and happiness of this people. We now receive it as a precious inheritance from those to whom we are indebted for its establishment, doubly bound by the examples which they have left us and by the blessings which we have enjoyed as the fruits of their labors to transmit the same unimpaired to the succeeding generation.

In the compass of thirty-six years since this great national covenant was instituted a body of laws enacted under its authority and in conformity with its provisions has unfolded its powers and carried into practical operation its effective energies. Subordinate departments have distributed the executive functions in their various relations to foreign affairs, to the revenue and expenditures, and to the military force of the Union by land and sea. A coordinate department of the judiciary has expounded the Constitution and the laws, settling in harmonious coincidence with the legislative will numerous weighty questions of construction which the imperfection of human language had rendered unavoidable. The year of jubilee since the first formation of our Union has just elapsed; that of the declaration of our independence is at hand. The consummation of both was effected by this Constitution.

Since that period a population of four millions has multiplied to twelve. A territory bounded by the Mississippi has been extended from sea to sea. New States have been admitted to the Union in numbers nearly equal to those of the first Confederation. Treaties of peace, amity, and commerce have been concluded with the principal dominions of the earth. The people of other nations, inhabitants of regions acquired not by conquest, but by compact, have been united with us in the participation of our rights and duties, of our burdens and blessings. The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsmen; the soil has been made to teem by the tillage of our farmers; our commerce has whitened every ocean. The dominion of man over physical nature has been extended by the invention of our artists. Liberty and law have marched hand in hand. All the purposes of human association have been accomplished as effectively as under any other government on the globe, and at a cost little exceeding in a whole generation the expenditure of other nations in a single year.

Such is the unexaggerated picture of our condition under a Constitution founded upon the republican principle of equal rights. To admit that this picture has its shades is but to say that it is still the condition of men upon earth. From evil--physical, moral, and political--it is not our claim to be exempt. We have suffered sometimes by the visitation of Heaven through disease; often by the wrongs and injustice of other nations, even to the extremities of war; and, lastly, by dissensions among ourselves--dissensions perhaps inseparable from the enjoyment of freedom, but which have more than once appeared to threaten the dissolution of the Union, and with it the overthrow of all the enjoyments of our present lot and all our earthly hopes of the future. The causes of these dissensions have been various, founded upon differences of speculation in the theory of republican government; upon conflicting views of policy in our relations with foreign nations; upon jealousies of partial and sectional interests, aggravated by prejudices and prepossessions which strangers to each other are ever apt to entertain.

It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me to observe that the great result of this experiment upon the theory of human rights has at the close of that generation by which it was formed been crowned with success equal to the most sanguine expectations of its founders. Union, justice, tranquillity, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty--all have been promoted by the Government under which we have lived. Standing at this point of time, looking back to that generation which has gone by and forward to that which is advancing, we may at once indulge in grateful exultation and in cheering hope. From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future. Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the moment when the Government of the United States first went into operation under this Constitution, excited a collision of sentiments and of sympathies which kindled all the passions and imbittered the conflict of parties till the nation was involved in war and the Union was shaken to its center. This time of trial embraced a period of five and twenty years, during which the policy of the Union in its relations with Europe constituted the principal basis of our political divisions and the most arduous part of the action of our Federal Government. With the catastrophe in which the wars of the French Revolution terminated, and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain, this baneful weed of party strife was uprooted. From that time no difference of principle, connected either with the theory of government or with our intercourse with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth in force sufficient to sustain a continued combination of parties or to give more than wholesome animation to public sentiment or legislative debate. Our political creed is, without a dissenting voice that can be heard, that the will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth; that the best security for the beneficence and the best guaranty against the abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections; that the General Government of the Union and the separate governments of the States are all sovereignties of limited powers, fellow-servants of the same masters, uncontrolled within their respective spheres, uncontrollable by encroachments upon each other; that the firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war; that a rigorous economy and accountability of public expenditures should guard against the aggravation and alleviate when possible the burden of taxation; that the military should be kept in strict subordination to the civil power; that the freedom of the press and of religious opinion should be inviolate; that the policy of our country is peace and the ark of our salvation union are articles of faith upon which we are all now agreed. If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled; if there have been projects of partial confederacies to be erected upon the ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds; if there have been dangerous attachments to one foreign nation and antipathies against another, they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political contention and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion. There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which in times of contention for principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion.

The collisions of party spirit which originate in speculative opinions or in different views of administrative policy are in their nature transitory. Those which are founded on geographical divisions, adverse interests of soil, climate, and modes of domestic life are more permanent, and therefore, perhaps, more dangerous. It is this which gives inestimable value to the character of our Government, at once federal and national. It holds out to us a perpetual admonition to preserve alike and with equal anxiety the rights of each individual State in its own government and the rights of the whole nation in that of the Union. Whatsoever is of domestic concernment, unconnected with the other members of the Union or with foreign lands, belongs exclusively to the administration of the State governments. Whatsoever directly involves the rights and interests of the federative fraternity or of foreign powers is of the resort of this General Government. The duties of both are obvious in the general principle, though sometimes perplexed with difficulties in the detail. To respect the rights of the State governments is the inviolable duty of that of the Union; the government of every State will feel its own obligation to respect and preserve the rights of the whole. The prejudices everywhere too commonly entertained against distant strangers are worn away, and the jealousies of jarring interests are allayed by the composition and functions of the great national councils annually assembled from all quarters of the Union at this place. Here the distinguished men from every section of our country, while meeting to deliberate upon the great interests of those by whom they are deputed, learn to estimate the talents and do justice to the virtues of each other. The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

Passing from this general review of the purposes and injunctions of the Federal Constitution and their results as indicating the first traces of the path of duty in the discharge of my public trust, I turn to the administration of my immediate predecessor as the second. It has passed away in a period of profound peace, how much to the satisfaction of our country and to the honor of our country's name is known to you all. The great features of its policy, in general concurrence with the will of the Legislature, have been to cherish peace while preparing for defensive war; to yield exact justice to other nations and maintain the rights of our own; to cherish the principles of freedom and of equal rights wherever they were proclaimed; to discharge with all possible promptitude the national debt; to reduce within the narrowest limits of efficiency the military force; to improve the organization and discipline of the Army; to provide and sustain a school of military science; to extend equal protection to all the great interests of the nation; to promote the civilization of the Indian tribes, and to proceed in the great system of internal improvements within the limits of the constitutional power of the Union. Under the pledge of these promises, made by that eminent citizen at the time of his first induction to this office, in his career of eight years the internal taxes have been repealed; sixty millions of the public debt have been discharged; provision has been made for the comfort and relief of the aged and indigent among the surviving warriors of the Revolution; the regular armed force has been reduced and its constitution revised and perfected; the accountability for the expenditure of public moneys has been made more effective; the Floridas have been peaceably acquired, and our boundary has been extended to the Pacific Ocean; the independence of the southern nations of this hemisphere has been recognized, and recommended by example and by counsel to the potentates of Europe; progress has been made in the defense of the country by fortifications and the increase of the Navy, toward the effectual suppression of the African traffic in slaves, in alluring the aboriginal hunters of our land to the cultivation of the soil and of the mind, in exploring the interior regions of the Union, and in preparing by scientific researches and surveys for the further application of our national resources to the internal improvement of our country.