John Quincy Adams

by Harlow Unger

  Having no organizational structure, political parties held no nominating conventions, leaving it to state legislatures to nominate presidential candidates—so-called favorite sons. To find qualified candidates, however, states often had to adopt sons of other states. The Tennessee legislature nominated Carolina-born Andrew Jackson, while Kentucky nominated Virginia-born Henry Clay. The Massachusetts legislature stood alone in nominating a true native son, John Quincy Adams. A group of rogue Republicans in Congress ignored the Georgia legislature and nominated that state’s William H. Crawford, while John C. Calhoun of South Carolina snubbed his state legislature and nominated himself. With little national support, however, Calhoun withdrew from the presidential race and ran for vice president—a post he knew no one else would seek. To ensure his securing the office, he ran on both the Adams and Jackson tickets.

  Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, recognized he lacked the support to contend for the presidency and ran for vice president instead. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  In September 1823, Crawford suffered a paralytic stroke, leaving Adams, Jackson, and Clay as the only active presidential contenders. Adams was the clear early favorite.

  By the end of 1823, however, Andrew Jackson had made enough inroads in the Northeast to threaten John Quincy’s lead in the presidential race. Surprisingly, John Quincy asked Louisa to throw a ball to honor the popular western candidate. Privately, John Quincy called Jackson “a barbarian and savage who could scarcely spell his own name,”2 and he feared a Jackson presidency as a danger to the nation. The only way he saw to block such an outcome was to win the presidency himself and relegate Jackson to political impotence as vice president. Louisa’s ball was to serve as an opportunity to invite Jackson to be his running mate—a partnership that would ensure John Quincy the support of the many Jackson followers in the East and a huge bloc of Jacksonians in the West, while leaving Jackson in the political doldrums. Although the general was too skilled a leader not to suspect John Quincy’s motives, he nonetheless accepted, and Louisa’s ball proved one of the most brilliant, most memorable social events in capital history.

  More than 1,000 guests—bejeweled ladies in flowing gowns, men in smart suits and uniforms—poured into Louisa’s sparkling mansion. They dined, drank, and danced until early morning, paying homage to what seemed like the ideal political union between the brilliant statesman from Boston and the heroic soldier and general from Tennessee. Anticipating the huge turnout, John Quincy had the foresight to order pillars wedged under the floor to add support to the second-floor ballroom.

  “The floor of the ballroom was chalked with spread-eagles, flags, and the motto ‘Welcome to the hero of New Orleans,’” according to John Quincy’s niece. “The pillars were festooned with laurel and wintergreen, while wreathings of evergreens and roses interspersed with small, variegated lamps, with a lustre in the center.” Jackson stood next to Louisa, with guests entering in pairs and bowing.

  Officers of the army and navy and the diplomatic corps appeared in regimentals and regalia, while plain citizens disported themselves in pumps, silk stockings, ruffled cravats . . . with gold buckles and a big seal of topaz or carnelian, regulation frock coats of green or claret colored cloth . . . gilded buttons, and Hessian top-boots with gold tassels. . . .

  In striking contrast with the diplomatic corps . . . were gentlemen and representatives from the Far West, who had not lost the free stride of the forest and the prairie or its freedom of speech and manner. No more remarkable was the sight of Pushmataha, the “Eagle of the Choctaws” . . . than that of the woodsman and Indian fighter David Crockett . . . besides such fellow representatives from Tennessee as James K. Polk and John Bell.3

  With all of Washington society in or around the Adamses’ F Street mansion, some wag with a poetic bent created lines that every one in the capital sang in unison:

  Wend your way with the world tonight.

  Sixty gray and giddy twenty,

  Flirts that court and prudes that slight,

  State coquettes and spinsters plenty,

  Belles and matrons, maids and madames,

  All are gone to Mrs. Adams.4

  The poet went on to incorporate names of the Washington elite in subsequent verses, all of which ended,

  Belles and matrons, maids and madames,

  All are gone to Mrs. Adams.

  The ball was indeed a spectacle and a lasting social triumph for Louisa, if not for John Quincy.

  Andrew Jackson did nothing to unsettle the joy of Louisa’s extravaganza—or to dispel the notion of an Adams-Jackson political alliance. The hero of New Orleans even raised his glass and delivered a warm and gracious toast to his hostess and left all the guests convinced that he and John Quincy had formed the most perfect political tandem since the Washington-Adams ticket of 1789.

  Jackson, however, soon dispelled the notion and announced his intention to seek the presidency himself. Within days, he, Calhoun, Clay, and Crawford launched a bitter campaign of charges and countercharges about each other’s views on slavery, banking, tariffs, and other issues, and although John Quincy tried to remain above the fray, they dragged him into it. “Every liar and calumniator in the country,” John Quincy complained, “was at work day and night to destroy my character . . . run down my reputation . . . defame and disgrace me.”5

  Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, refused John Quincy Adams’s invitation to be his running mate in the 1824 presidential election. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  By midsummer, Jackson’s status as the hero of New Orleans made him the popular front-runner among presidential candidates, and an atmosphere of gloom engulfed the house on F Street when both Louisa and John Quincy suddenly abandoned the campaign. Physically and emotionally exhausted by then, Louisa fell victim to a debilitating skin condition called erysipelas, or St. Anthony’s Fire—a strep infection that left her feverish, with headaches and burning, gangrenous skin inflammations. Doctors sent her to bathe in mineral waters at a Pennsylvania spa. John Quincy, meanwhile, left for Massachusetts after receiving word that his father was failing. To make matters worse, he was unable to elicit any information from his son George, who was studying law at Daniel Webster’s Boston office and was responsible for overseeing family affairs. When John Quincy reached Quincy, he found his father unattended—crippled by arthritis and nearly blind. Adding to his shock, his son George Washington was drunk and unconscious. Like many of his forebears, he had started drinking in his idle time and fell prey to chronic alcoholism. Even worse, he turned to gambling to pay for his habit and fell deeply in debt.

  George Washington Adams, firstborn son of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, graduated from Harvard and practiced law in Boston before succumbing to alcoholism. (NATIONAL PARKS SERVICE, ADAMS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK)

  Helpless to rein in the sins of his son, John Quincy tended to his father, arranged for permanent nursing care, and returned to Washington, deeply discouraged and resigned to putting State Department affairs in good order for his successor while awaiting what he believed would be his inevitable loss in the presidential election. In anticipation of defeat, John Quincy had kept alert for a business opportunity in the private sector to occupy his time after he left the White House. In July 1823, Louisa’s fast-talking cousin George Johnson sold John Quincy what he said was a stable, profitable local flour business, Columbian Mills, for $32,000. Within weeks, John Quincy discovered that Columbian Mills had been operating at a loss. Worse, Johnson had not only doctored the books but disguised structural damage at the plant, and John Quincy found he would have to invest an additional $12,000 to restore the building and replace or repair aging machinery.

  As his new business faced financial collapse, John Quincy’s political life seemed destined for the same fate. Andrew Jackson won far more popular votes than his rivals—just under 153,000, compared with 114,000 for John Quincy and about 47,000 each for Clay and Crawford. None of the
candidates had a majority of Electoral College votes, however, with Jackson winning ninety-nine; John Quincy, eighty-four; Crawford, forty-one; and Clay, thirty-seven. Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives had to decide the election, with each state casting one vote under a unit rule.

  By then, however, the states had ratified the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution limiting the number of presidential candidates in a House runoff to three. Although Clay had more popular votes than Crawford, they came from states with fewer Electoral College votes and forced Clay out of the race. He nonetheless retained enough political influence to throw the votes of the three states he had won to the candidate of his choice. Apart from their personal dislike for each other, Clay balked at ceding the highest-ranking civilian post to a military man, while Jackson had never forgiven Clay for condemning the Tennessean’s military campaign in Florida as a usurpation of congressional war-making powers.

  At 6 p.m. on January 9, 1825, Henry Clay arrived at the house on F Street and, according to John Quincy, “spent the evening with me in a long conversation.”

  He said that the time was drawing near when the choice must be made in the House of Representatives of a President . . . that he had been much urged and solicited with regard to the part in that transaction that he should take. . . . The time had now come at which he might be explicit in his communication with me and he had for that purpose asked this confidential interview. He wished me as far as I might think proper to satisfy him with regard to some principles of great public importance, but without any personal considerations for himself. In the question to come before the House between General Jackson, Mr. Crawford and myself, he had no hesitation in saying that his preference would be for me.6

  Clay had good reasons for supporting John Quincy. Not only had they worked well together at Ghent, but Clay had an intimate knowledge of John Quincy’s thinking. Both were fervent nationalists with a deep belief in the nation’s “manifest destiny” and the necessity of building a federally financed network of highways and canals. John Quincy favored Clay’s “American System,” and Clay had always supported John Quincy’s foreign policy of American neutrality and noninvolvement in foreign wars. Neither wanted to see a man as reckless and uneducated as Jackson sitting in the White House. Although John Quincy intended to retain the entire Monroe cabinet, if elected President he would have to name a new secretary of state to replace himself and a secretary of war to replace William Crawford. Even if he and Clay, as they claimed, did not discuss filling the two posts, there was no need for them to do so. Clay had made it clear, when he rejected the War Department post eight years earlier, that his lust for the presidency made the State Department post the only cabinet position he would ever accept.

  On January 24, Clay’s Kentucky delegation announced it would cast its vote for Adams, despite express instructions from the state legislature to vote for Jackson. Jackson had scored an overwhelming popular victory in Kentucky’s popular election, while John Quincy had failed to win even a single vote. All votes had gone to Clay and Jackson. Congressional delegates from Ohio and Missouri—the other states Clay had won—also cast their votes for John Quincy, and on February 9, after only one House ballot, John Quincy Adams won election as the nation’s sixth President. In doing so, he became the first non-Virginian to win the presidency since his father’s election thirty years earlier in 1796. He also became the first son of a Founding Father and President to become the nation’s chief executive. For the first time in three decades, northerners flocked to Washington to attend the inauguration of one of their own.

  House Speaker Henry Clay of Tennessee finished fourth in the presidential election of 1824 and threw his votes to John Quincy Adams, who named Clay secretary of state. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  “The city is thronged with strangers,” complained the southern-born socialite Sarah Seaton, whose brother published the National Intelligencer, “and Yankees swarm like the locusts of Egypt in our houses, our beds, and our kneading troughs!”7

  John Quincy was more enthusiastic than Mrs. Seaton and wrote to his “dear and honored father” to tell him of “the event of this day, upon which I can only offer you my congratulations and ask your blessings and prayers.” He signed the letter, “Your affectionate son.”8

  The ailing former President answered immediately:

  I have received your letter of the 9th. Never did I feel so much solemnity as upon this occasion. The multitude of my thoughts and the intensity of my feelings are too much for a mind like mine, in its ninetieth year. May the blessing of God Almighty continue to protect you to the end of your life, as it has heretofore protected you in so remarkable a manner from your cradle. I offer the same prayer for your lady and your family and am your affectionate father, John Adams.9

  Contrary to its affect on former President John Adams, John Quincy’s victory appalled many American political leaders, who called it “a mockery of representative government.”10 Outraged by what he considered the “monstrous union” of Clay and Adams, Jackson cried out, “I weep for the liberty of my country. The rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office. . . . The voice of the people of the West have been disregarded, and demagogues barter them as sheep in the shambles for their own views and personal aggrandizement.”11

  Few members of the Washington political scene doubted that John Quincy had promised, tacitly or otherwise, to reward Clay for his support, and knowing how Clay lusted for the presidency, all assumed that John Quincy would appoint him secretary of state, the stepladder to the presidency for more than two decades. Rumors of “bargain & sale” swept across the political landscape, with some Jackson supporters growling about possible civil war and secession in the West. The mood in the White House turned less than relaxed a few days after the House vote, as President Monroe hosted a reception for the President-elect. The President was chatting with a guest when Andrew Jackson, still recovering from a debilitating illness, thrust his grim, gaunt face through the doorway. Armed as always with two pistols, he snapped his head from side to side until he spotted John Quincy. As the President and other celebrants collectively held their breath, Jackson bounded forward, broke into a warm smile, and, hand outstretched, offered John Quincy his congratulations.

  Five days after his election victory, John Quincy announced his decision to appoint Henry Clay as secretary of state.

  “So you see,” Andrew Jackson wailed in outrage, “the Judas of the West has closed the contract and will receive thirty pieces of silver. His end will be the same. Was there ever witnessed such a bare-faced corruption in any country before?” Others agreed that John Quincy and Clay had arranged a “corrupt bargain” that undermined the election process and stripped voters of their chosen candidate. New York senator Martin Van Buren, who had backed Crawford’s candidacy, was as outraged as Jackson, warning a Kentucky congressman that, in voting for Adams, “you sign Mr. Clay’s political death warrant.”12 Corrupt or not, in appointing Henry Clay secretary of state, John Quincy had also signed his own political death warrant as President.

  On March 4, 1825, “after two successive sleepless nights, I [John Quincy] entered upon this day with a supplication to heaven, first, for my country, secondly for myself and for those connected with my good name and fortunes, that the last results of its events may be auspicious and blessed.”13 At 11:30 a.m. John Quincy rode to the Capitol in a carriage with his friend Attorney General William Wirt. President Monroe followed in a second carriage, with several companies of militia escorting the two vehicles, along with thousands of citizens who, according to custom then, escorted the President to the inauguration before a joint session of Congress. Missing was Louisa Catherine Adams, whose entertainments had done more to elect John Quincy than he had done for himself. Ill in bed, still suffering the aftereffects of her strep infection, she was unable to face the crowds.

  John Quincy began his inauguration address in fine fashion, countering Jacksonian polemics by proclaiming, “Our politi
cal creed is . . . that the will of the people is the source, and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth.”14 Greeted with enthusiasm at first, his speech met with ever increasing disbelief, then outright disapproval, as he asked that “all constitutional objections . . . be removed” for construction of interstate roads and canals and other “internal improvement” by the federal government. As he went on, it became clear that his years in the foreign service, his scholarly pursuits, and his refusal to campaign had left him woefully out of touch with ordinary Americans, and his references to classical civilizations and ancient republics perplexed almost all the members of Congress.

  President John Quincy Adams proved the most ineffective President in early American history—only to metamorphose into one of the nation’s’s greatest congressmen as a champion of abolition, free speech, and the right of petition. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  “The magnificence and splendor of their public works,” he waxed in Demosthenic oratory, “are among the imperishable glories of the ancient republics. The roads and aqueducts of Rome have been the admiration of all after ages and have survived thousands of years after all her conquests have been swallowed up in despotism or become the spoil of barbarians.” Although some members misunderstood his reference to barbarians, none failed to recognize his clear intention of assuming powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.