Passed Presidents - # 6 – John Quincy Adams

Back to the Dead Presidents.  We are more than halfway through presenting this ten-year quest of mine to visit and photograph the last resting places of our nation’s Chief Executives.

On this day 166 years ago, our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, the son of the second president, passed away.  He was the first president to be photographed.  His wife, Louisa Catherine, is the only First Lady born outside the United States [England]. 

 

Statue of Young Quincy with his mother, Abigail Adams [15 November 2007]

The bronze, by Lloyd Lillie, stands beside the church

where the two are buried.  It depicts the protective

mother and her son as they might have witnessed the

Battle of Bunker Hill from the top of Penn’s Hill in 1775.

In 2012, I posted John Adams’ story with pictures of his grave.  The president rests in a basement room in the United First Parish Church in Quincy, MA.  John Quincy, his second child, lies alongside wife, Louisa Catherine just a few feet away.  Before the space was prepared for the sixth president, he was interred in the family vault across the street in Hancock Cemetery.

The Adams Family Vault in Hancock Cemetery,

Quincy, MA [15 November 2007]

Across the street is the United First Parish Church,

where the 6^th president currently resides.

Regarding Quincy Adams’ career highlights, his presidency was the distant third among his achievements.  He had a most distinguished record in foreign affairs.  His experience began at a remarkably early age.  At age 11, father John took him to France during his mission to persuade the French to recognize our new nation.  By age 14, fluent in French...the language of diplomacy, he served as the secretary and translator to our Minister to Russia.  By age 18, he was also fluent in Latin, Greek and Dutch.  Beginning in his 20’s, he served as Washington’s Minister to the Netherlands, his father’s Minister to Prussia, Madison’s Minster to Russia and Great Britain and Monroe’s Secretary of State.  Adams wrote the speech that became the Monroe Doctrine, where we asserted the freedom of the American continents from colonization [and interference] by the European powers.  After all that, he became president. 

In 1824, four guys vied for the job including House Speaker Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson.  When none of them gained a majority of electoral votes, the decision was given to the House of Representatives.  Once Clay threw his support to Adams, the election was won.  Adams made Clay his Secretary of State.  This was called the “corrupt bargain” and it frosted the Jackson supporters in Congress so much, they opposed everything the president wanted to do.  Hardly anything Adams proposed was passed.  What is old is new again.  With little to show for his first term, Adams was soundly defeated by Jackson in 1828.  Up to that time, Quincy and his dad were the only presidents who were not re-elected. 

Plaques by the entrance to the President’s tomb [9 October 2009]

One of my favorite things about Adams was that he returned to serve in Congress AFTER leaving the White House.  No cushy appointments and six-figure speaking gigs for him.  He was elected at age 63 and served the last 17 years of his life in the House of Representatives...the only former president to do so.  It was in the House Speaker’s Room where he died two days after having a stroke in the chamber.

Adams was much more effective as a legislator than president.  He was the leading opponent of slavery in the House.  At a time when the slave state representatives had an official rule that forbade taking up questions regarding slavery (our original “gag rule”), Adams opposed it and worked for years to abolish it.  Before the Supreme Court, he won the freedom of the Amistad slaves who commandeered the Spanish ship that stole them from Africa.

John Quincy Adams

6^th president; served 1825-1829

Born: July 11, 1767, Braintree MA

Died February 23, 1848, Washington, D.C.

Grave Location: United First Parish Church, Quincy, Ma

Dates Visited: 7/24/99; 10/9/2009

Just because he was not an accomplished president doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great American.

He served this country well.