By Christian Gomez
Campus Liberty Alliance
“Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason, which will not at the same time demonstrate the right to religious freedom.”
– Letter from John Quincy Adams to Mr. Anderson, Minister Plenipotentiary to Columbia, dated 27th May, 1823.
Daguerreotype of former President John Quincy Adams, taken by Philip Haas in 1843.
Born on July 11, 1767, in Braintee (now Quinicy), Massachusetts, to Joan and Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams would go on to follow in his father’s footsteps as a patriot, Christian, diplomat, statesmen, and sixth President of the United States.
While his father spent most of the time serving in the Continental Congress, young John Quincy spent the time assisting his mother on the family farm. In 1778, when his father told him that he would be leaving for a diplomatic mission to France, John Quincy, at the age of 10, pleaded to be allowed to accompany him. All was set and both father and son took off, in what would be the start of John Quincy’s carrier as a diplomat and eventual statesmen.
At the time, John Adams wrote in his diary of his son: “Mr. Johnny’s behavior gave me satisfaction I cannot express. Fully sensible of our danger, he was constantly endeavoring to bear it with a manly patience, very attentive to me, and his thoughts constantly running in a serious vein.”
Fluent in French, which was the lingua franca of international diplomacy at time, John Quincy proved to be of great assistance. After spending about fourteen months in France, John Quincy and his father departed back for home on the French frigate Sensible.
Accompanying them both was La. Luzerne, the commissioner from Louis XVI. to the Congress, and M. Marbois, the secretary of the commission. On Sunday, June 20th, 1779, the third day of the voyage home, John Adams recorded in his diary the following account:
“The Chevalier de la Luzerne and M. Marbois are in raptures with my son. They get him to teach them the language. I found this morning the Ambassador seated on the cushion in our state-room, M. Marbois in his cot, at his left hand, and my son stretched out in his, at his right. The Ambassador reading out loud, in Blackstone’s Discourse at his entrance on his Professorship of the Common Law at the University, and my son correcting the pronunciation of every word and syllable and letter. The Ambassador said he was astonished at my son’s knowledge ; that he was a master of his own language, like a professor M. Marbois said, Your son teaches us more than you ; he has point de grace, point d’éloges. He shows us no mercy, and make us no compliments. We must have Mr. John.”
Following General George Washington’s victory, over the British, at the Battle of Yorktown, in 1781, and the Revolutionary War’s conclusion with the Treaty of Ghent, in 1783, the thirteen untied colonies were recognized as sovereign and independent states.
A few years before his death, in a letter dated 27th April, 1837, John Quincy Adam’s said of the Revolution, “The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this—it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principle of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”
Adam’s was raised along strong Christian beliefs, which would serve as a guide for him throughout his life.
In 1787, Adam’s completed his school education upon graduating from Harvard University, in Boston, Massachusetts.
A few years later, in May, 1794, President George Washington appointed him as Minister to Holland. Three years later, he married Louisa Catherine Johnson and his father, President John Adams, appointed him as Minister to Berlin. John Quincy Adam’s took a break from the foreign service during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. During this time he went home, first as a State Senator then elected to the U.S. Senate, representing his home state of Massachusetts.
Following the inauguration of President James Madison, on March 1809, Adam’s was called back to the foreign service, this time as Minister to Russia, sailing his way to St. Petersburg, which marked the official establishment of U.S.-Russian relations. While in Russia, Adam’s kept in contact with his eldest son, George Washington Adams, via letters.
It was in one of these letters, dated September 1-8, 1811, that Adams wrote to his son on the importance of Biblical teachings:
“…so great is my veneration for the Bible, and so strong my belief, than when duly read and mediated upon, it is of all the books in the world that which contributes most to make men good, wise and happy, that the earlier my children begin to read it, and the more steadily they pursue the practice of reading it throughout their lives, the more lively and confident will be my hopes, that they will prove useful citizens to their country, respectable members of society, and real blessing to their parents.”
“…My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising from bed. It employs about an about of my time, and seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day.”
Following the end of the War of 1812, Adam’s played a pivotal role in the normalization of relations between the United States and Great Britain. President Madison awarded Adams by appointed him as Minister to Great Britain.
The next president, James Monroe, appointed him as Secretary of States, due to his experience. At the time, being Secretary of State meant that you would probably be elected President. Adam’s held this post from 1817 until he was inaugurated President of the United States, on March 4, 1825.
In his inaugural speech, with a firm tone of voice, he closed with the following: “Knowing that ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,’ with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit, with humble, but fearless confidence, my own fate, and the future destinies of my county.”
Adam’s Christian convictions and faith in God remained an intricate aspect of his life. Of these convictions and his moral character, Reverend Matthew Hale Smith wrote:
“In the winter of 1845 and ’46, I was invited to supply the pulpit of the Second Presbyterian Church in Washington City, for a few months. Mr. Adams had been a member of this congregation for nearly a quarter of a century. He was an all day hearer. The great snow-storm of February, 1846, which closed nearly all the churches in the county, did not keep Mr. Adams from the house of God. He was one of the thirteen persons present, returning home through the deep snow on foot, at the close of service.
“That he was a Calvinist, I do not believe. That his religious opinion coincided more fully with the system called Calvinism than any other, I have the best reasons for believing. Had the ancient church in Quincy taken the other side in the controversy that, some years ago, agitated New England, Mr. Adams, I doubt not, would have been without any change of theological opinion, an open member of the Orthodox Church. His connection with the church at Quincy, Unitarian, resulted from the fact that it was the ancient church of his fathers.”
Adams may have had his faith in order, but his presidency was another story. From the start his presidency had an assortment of problems. First, he did not win the President Election of 1824. With the dissolution of the Federalist Party, the 1824 election was a four-way race, in which none of the mayor candidates garnered the necessary vote to win resulting in a special runoff election held in the House of Representatives, as prescribed by in the Constitution.
Although Andrew Jackson, received the most electoral and popular votes in the general election he did not have enough support in the House, of which the majority voted in favor of Adams. The dispute between the Jackson supporters and Adams supporters divided the Democratic-Republican Party.
Although Adams had been elected as a Democratic-Republican, the majority of his party supported Andrew Jackson and renamed their party the Democratic Party, which exists to this day as one of the two major parties. Adams and his supporters formed the National Republican Party, an ancestor of today’s Republican Party.
In many ways Adams was a forerunner of progressive Presidents Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. In his inaugural address, he called upon the federal government to undertake massive expansionist public works projects, such as the contraction of public interstate highways, canals and weather stations. Adams even sought a role for the role of the federal government in education; he proposed the creation of national university. These ideas were struck down by the Congress, which became more and more supportive of Jackson. It would not be until the New Deal, of the 1930s, that Congress would enact legislation authorizing such programs.
Despite the imperfections of his domestic policy, his many years of foreign service experience resonated in his foreign policy. As far back as 1821, when he was still Secretary of State, he outlined his views on foreign policy. In a speech he delivered on the 4th of July, 1821, Adams said of the United States’ foreign policy:
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.
The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit . . .
Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of mind. She has a spear and a shield; but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
Adam’s eloquently stated the same non-interventionist positions that Congressman Ron Paul would later go on to adopt and recognized in his back. In The Revolution: A Manifesto, Paul wrote of Adam’s foreign policy, “This wasn't 'isolationism.' It was a beautiful and elegant statement of common sense, and of principles that at one time were taken for granted by nearly everyone.”
As President, Adams remained true to his liberty orientated foreign policy views. The United States did not embark on any territorial expansionary campaigns or military interventionism aboard. Instead, his presidential foreign policy achievements were defined by the treaties of reciprocity he signed, with an assortment of countries such as: Austria, Denmark, the Hanseatic League, Mexico, Prussia and additional smaller Scandinavian states. The foreign policy of John Quincy Adams is most remembered for its dedication to diplomacy rather than big stick approach of his more contemporary successors.
President Adams lacked the charismatic ability of other, more successful, presidents, such as President Reagan who despite not having a majority of his party in Congress was still able to persuade the opposition to support him pass his desired legislation and agenda. Adams feud with Congress continued until the next presidential election, in 1828. This time in a two-ways race, against Andrew Jackson, Adams was defeated.
The Age of Jacksonian Democracy did not put an end to Adams political career. Dedicated to his country, state, and hometown, Adams returned to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts’ 8th, 10th and 11th congressional districts, from 1831 until February 23, 1848, when as of cerebral hemorrhage he died, in the Speaker’s Room of the Capital Building. Aside his wife and son, Adams uttered his last words, “This is the last of Earth. I am content.”
Christian Gomez is a student at Seton Hall University
