John Quincy Adams

by Harlow Unger

  CHAPTER 1

  1 L. H. Butterfield, ed., The Adams Papers: Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 4:6–7.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Ibid., 12.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Memoirs, 1:4.

  6 Increase Mather, in Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 1636–1936 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1936), 35.

  7 Phyllis Lee Levin, Abigail Adams: A Biography (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001), 5.

  8 Ibid.

  9 Boston Sons of Liberty to John Wilkes, November 4, 1769, in Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert J. Taylor, 10 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983), 1:233.

  10 Ibid.

  11 William M. Fowler Jr., The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), 181.

  12 Memoirs, 1:5.

  13 Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch, October 6, 1766, in John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1992), 53.

  14 Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 34 vols. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904–1936), 2:77–78.

  15 AA to JA, May 24, 1775, in Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield et al., 10 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963–2007), 1:204–206 (hereafter AFC).

  16 JA to AA, May 29, 1775, and June 2, 1775, in ibid., 206–209.

  17 Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1856), 2:416–417 (hereafter Adams, Works).

  18 John Hancock to Joseph Warren, June 18, 1775, in Herbert S. Allan, John Hancock: Patriot in Purple (New York: Beechhurst Press, 1953), 196.

  19 Abigail Adams, My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, ed. Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 65–68.

  20 Ibid.

  21 AA to JA, June 18, 1775, in AFC, 1:222.

  22 Ibid.

  23 Memoirs, 1:6.

  24 AA to JA, June 25, 1775, in AFC, 1: 230–233.

  25 Memoirs, 1:5.

  26 AA to JA, June 22, 1775, in AFC, 1:225–226.

  27 Ibid.

  28 JA to AA, August 29, 1774, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 39–41.

  29 JA to AA, June 23, 1777, in ibid., 183–184.

  30 Memoirs, 1:7.

  31 JA to AA, June 23, 1777, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 183–184.

  32 John Quincy Adams, Diaries of John Quincy Adams, September 24, 1829, MHS (hereafter JQA Diaries).

  33 JA to AA, May 22, 1776, in AFC, 1:412–413.

  34 AA to JA, July 21, 1776, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 132–133.

  35 JA to AA, December 3, 1775, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 91–92.

  36 AA to JA, May 7, 1776, in AFC, 1:375, 387; 2:13–16.

  37 JA to AA, in AFC, 2:50–51.

  38 JA to AA, December 3, 1775, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 91–92.

  39 JQA to JA, June 2, 1777, in Memoirs, 1:7–8.

  40 Butterfield, Diary and Autobiography, 4:1.

  41 James Lovell to JA, November 28, 1777, in Adams, Works, 5:337–338.

  42 AA to John Lovell, December 15, 1777[?], in AFC, 2:370–371.

  43 AA to Lovell, December 15, 1777, in AFC, 2:370–371.

  44 AA to JQA, June [10?] 1778, in AFC, 3: 37–39.

  45 Page Smith, John Adams, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 1:352.

  46 Ibid., 12.

  47 Ibid.

  CHAPTER 2

  1 Butterfield, Diary and Autobiography, 2:272.

  2 Ibid., 276–277.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Ibid., 277.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Ibid., 276.

  7 Ibid., 272.

  8 Ibid., 272–273.

  9 Ibid., 273.

  10 Ibid., 284.

  11 Ibid., 293–294.

  12 Ibid., 295–296.

  13 Ibid., 296.

  14 Ibid., 307.

  15 JQA to AA, September 27, 1778, in Memoirs, 1:8–9.

  16 Butterfield, Diary and Autobiography, 2:305.

  17 Ibid., 367.

  18 Jonathan Sewell to [?], 1787, in Adams, Works, 1:56n–58n.

  19 Butterfield, Diary and Autobiography, 2:314.

  20 Ibid., 385.

  21 John Adams, The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000), Part 10, “The Report of a Constitution or Form of Government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” 298.

  22 AA to JA, November 14, 1779, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 229.

  23 JA to AA, November 13, 1779, in ibid.

  24 AFC, 3:233.

  25 Diaries, MHS, November 12, 1779.

  26 Diary, 1:25.

  27 Butterfield, Diary and Autobiography, 2:226.

  28 AA to JQA, September 29, 1778, in AFC, 3:97–98.

  29 Butterfield, Diary and Autobiography, 4:243.

  30 JA to JQA, December 20, 1780, in AFC, 38–39.

  31 AA to JQA, January 21, 1781, in AFC, 3: 67–68.

  32 AA to JQA, May 26, 1781, in ibid., 136–137.

  33 Tragedy of Cato, by Joseph Addison, 3:v.

  34 Diary, 1:89.

  CHAPTER 3

  1 Ibid., 92, 96.

  2 Ibid., 99.

  3 JQA to John Thaxter, September 8–19, 1781, in AFC, 4:214; JQA to JA, August 21, 1781, in AFC, 4:206–207.

  4 Diary, 1:105–106.

  5 JA to JQA, December 15, 1781, in AFC, 4:264.

  6 JA to JQA, February 5, 1782, in ibid., 282–283.

  7 JA to JQA, May 13, 1782, in ibid., 322–323.

  8 JQA to JA, February 21–March 4, 1782, in ibid., 286–287.

  9 JQA to Alexander H. Everett, August 19, 1811, Everett-Peabody Papers, MHS.

  10 AA to JA, November 11, 1783, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 294–297.

  11 February 10–11, 1783, in JQA Diaries, 1:170.

  12 JA to AA, November 20, 1783, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 299–301; July 26, 1783, in AFC, 5:218.

  13 AA to JQA, November 20, 1783, in AFC, 5:272–275.

  14 Diary, 1:176ff.

  15 August 16, 22, 23, 27, 1783, in JQA Diaries, 1:184–188.

  16 September 20, 1783, in ibid., 1:192.

  17 AA to JA, July 23, 1784, in ibid., 397–399.

  18 JA to AA, July 26, 1784, in ibid., 399–400.

  19 AA to Mary Smith Cranch, July 6–July 30, 1784, in ibid., 382.

  20 Ibid.

  21 AA to JA, July 30, 1784, in ibid., 408–409.

  22 JA to Thomas Jefferson, January 22, 1825, in Adams, Works, 10:414.

  23 Diary, 1:242.

  24 Ibid., 236–256.

  25 Ibid., 224.

  26 AA to Lucy Cranch, September 5, 1784, in AFC, 5:436–439.

  27 Diary, 1:256–257.

  28 Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 136. A legendary Harvard professor of history, Morison was graduated from Harvard in 1908 and won two Pulitzer Prizes for biographies of Christopher Columbus and John Paul Jones. Among many other works, he wrote the monumental fifteen-volume History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II, The Oxford History of the American People, and The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England.

  29 JA to Benjamin Waterhouse, December 13, 1784, in Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Statesman and Friend: The Correspondence of John Adams with Benjamin Waterhouse, 1784–1822 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1927), 6.

  30 Diary, 1:266.

  31 Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 25, 1785, AP MHS.

  32 Diary, 1:289.

  33 Ibid., 290.

  34 Ibid., 296.

  35 Ibid., 299.

  36 JQA to “Nabby,” in AFC, 6:251–256.

  37 Diary, 1:312.

  38 Mary Smith Cranch to AA, August 14, 1785, in AFC, 6:268–275.

  39 Diary, 1:317.

  CHAPTER 4

  1 Ibid., 406.

  2 Ibid., 334.
<
br />   3 Ibid., 383.

  4 Ibid., 378.

  5 Ibid., 335, 339.

  6 Ibid., 390.

  7 Ibid., 410.

  8 Ibid., 2:28–29.

  9 JA to JQA, May 26, 1786, in AFC, 7:205–206.

  10 Diary, 2:2.

  11 AA to JQA, July 21, 1786, in AFC, 7:274–277.

  12 Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 53.

  13 JQA to AA, December 30, 1786, in AFC, 7:417–420.

  14 Diary, 2:337–338.

  15 Ibid., 361.

  16 April 8, 1788, in Diaries, MHS.

  17 Ibid., 2:343.

  18 March 29, April 6, and April 11, 1789, in Diaries, MHS.

  19 JQA to AA, November 20, 1790, in AFC, 9:146–149.

  20 JQA to AA, December 14, 1790, in ibid., 161–162.

  21 JA to JQA, December 13, 1790, in ibid., 160.

  22 Letters of Publicola in The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams, ed. Adrienne Koch and William Peden (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946), 227.

  23 Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 214.

  24 George A. Peek Jr., ed., The Political Writings of John Adams (New York: Liberal Arts Press, American Heritage Series, 1954), 194.

  25 Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 459.

  26 Memoirs, 1:25.

  27 JQA to JA, February 10, 1793, in AFC.

  28 AA to JA, February 22, 1793, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 341–342.

  29 Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, completed by John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth, 7 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957), 7:36.

  30 Meade Minnigerode, Jefferson, Friend of France 1793: The Career of Edmond Charles Genet (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 207.

  31 Alexander DeConde, Entangling Alliance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958), 181; Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (Boston: Little, Brown, 1962), 97.

  32 JQA to JA, February 10, 1793, in Writings,1:79–86.

  33 George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, April 12, 1793, in The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, September, 1788–May 1793, ed. W. W. Abbott, Dorothy Twohig, Philander D, Chase, and Theodore J. Crackel, 12 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987–2005, 16 vols. [in progress]), 12:448–449.

  34 Columbian Centinel, April 24, 1793.

  35 Harlow Giles Unger, Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), 71, 183.

  36 John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1813, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Lester J. Cappon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 346–347.

  37 Minnigerode, Jefferson, 184.

  38 Archives des Affaires Étrangères, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris, France, vol. 38, Dossier “Correspondence Consulaire: Genet.”

  39 Koch and Peden, Selected Writings, 238.

  40 Memoirs, 1:28.

  41 Minnigerode, Jefferson, 362.

  42 JA to JQA, April 23, 1794, in AFC, 10:150–152.

  43 JA to JQA, May 26, 1794, in ibid., 192–193.

  44 JA to JQA, May 29 and 30, 1794, in ibid., 197–200.

  45 JA to JQA, May 30, 1794, in ibid., 199.

  46 AA to Martha Washington, June 20, 1794, in ibid., 206.

  47 Michel Poniatowski, Talleyrand aux États-Unis, 1794–1796 (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1967), 375.

  48 AA to JQA, July 20, 1794, in AFC, 10:215.

  49 JA to JQA, August 24, 1794, in ibid., 227–228.

  50 JA to John Quincy Adams and Thomas Boylston Adams, September 14, 1794, in ibid., 230.

  CHAPTER 5

  1 La grande encyclopédie (Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1973), 3895.

  2 Felix Maurice Hippiel, Napoleon (New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1963), 27.

  3 Memoirs, 1:80.

  4 Thomas Boylston Adams to AA, October 20, 1794, in AFC, 10:237–239.

  5 JA to JQA, December 2, 1794, in AFC, 10:284–285; AA to JQA, November 26, 1794, in AFC, 10:274–275.

  6 AA to JQA, November 26, 1794, in AFC, 10: 274–275.

  7 Memoirs, 1:42–43.

  8 Ibid.

  9 Ibid., 48–49.

  10 Ibid., 1:61.

  11 Ibid., 76–77.

  12 JQA to Sylvanus Bourne, December 24, 1795, in Writings, 1:478.

  13 JA to JQA, April 26, 1795, in AFC, 10:422–424.

  14 JQA to AA, May 16, 1795, in ibid., 434–438.

  15 JQA to JA, October 31, 1795, reel 380, AP MHS.

  16 December 1, 1795, reel 380, in Diaries, AP MHS.

  17 Ibid.

  18 JA to AA, January 5, 1796, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 398.

  19 AA to JA, February 20, 1796, in ibid., 404. A dissipated clergyman most of his life, Charles Churchill (1731–1764) had been a schoolmate of Cowper and acquired notoriety and fame as a poet and satirist during the last four years of his life. He was a strong supporter and ally of London’s John Wilkes, the radical activist who supported America’s War of Independence. Besides “Gotham” (1764), his most famous poems were “The Rosciad” (1761), “The Ghost” (1762–1763), “The Duelist” (1764), “The Candidate” (1764), and “The Times” (1764).

  20 Memoirs, 1:162.

  21 December 26, 1795, in Diaries, MHS.

  22 Cited as AA to JQA, May 20, 1796, in Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), 80, 80n.

  23 JA to AA, March 9, 1796, in AA, My Dearest Friend, 408–410.

  24 JQA to AA, February 8, 1797, reel 383, AP MHS.

  25 AA to JQA, November 29, 1796, reel 382, AP MHS.

  26 JA to JQA, May 19, 1797, reel 384, AP MHS.

  27 May 27, 1795, in Diaries, MHS.

  28 June 30, 1796, in ibid.

  29 July 31, 1796, reel 382, in ibid.

  30 Memoirs, 2:51.

  31 JA to JQA, November 11, 1796, reel 382, AP MHS.

  32 Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty, 288.

  33 Harlow Giles Unger, The French War Against America (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 189.

  34 Ibid., citing American Minerva, April, 11, 1794, 190.

  35 JQA to AA, November 14, 1796, in Writings, 1:284.

  36 George Washington to the vice president, February 20, 1797, in The Writings of George Washington, from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, 39 vols. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931–44), 35:394.

  37 JA to JQA, March 31, 1797, reel 385, AP MHS.

  38 JQA and LCA to JA and AA, July 28, 1797, reel 385, AP MHS.

  CHAPTER 6

  1 LCA autobiographical sketch: “The Adventures of a Nobody,” begun July 1, 1840, reel 269, MHS.

  2 Boston’s Independent Chronicle, May 29, June 1, July 4, and September 18, 1797.

  3 Philadelphia Aurora, June 8, 1797.

  4 AA to B. F. Bache, March 17, 1798, Bache Papers, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, cited in James Tagg, Benjamin Franklin Bache and the “Philadelphia Aurora” (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 124–125; JQA to Charles Adams, August 1, 1797, in Writings, 2:196–197.

  5 Memoirs, 1:203.

  6 Ibid., 216.

  7 JQA to JA, December 6, 1797, in ibid., 219–220.

  8 LCA, “Adventures,” 63.

  9 Ibid., 74–75.

  10 Alexander DeConde, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), 23.

  11 Notes of conversation as drafted by French emissary, “Monsieur Bellamy,” in Michel Poniatowski, Talleyrand et le directoire, 1796–1800 (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1982), 554–555; Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall ,
4 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916–1919), 2:267.

  12 Poniatowski, Talleyrand et le directoire, 559.

  13 DeConde, Quasi-War, 53.

  14 Ibid., 145.

  15 JQA to Timothy Pickering, January 15, 1798, in Writings, 2:236–240.

  16 JQA to Timothy Pickering, June 18, 1798, in ibid., 2:303–309.

  17 JQA to Timothy Pickering, June 25, 1798, in ibid., 2:321–322.

  18 JQA to William Vans Murray, July 7, 1798, in ibid., 2:332–335.

  19 JQA to William Vans Murray, July 17, 1798, in ibid., 2:339–342.

  20 AA to Mercy Warren, April 25, 1798, in Warren-Adams Letters, Being Chiefly a Correspondence among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren, 1743–1814, ed. Worthington C. Ford, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1917–1925), 2:336.

  21 JA to Congress, June 21, 1798, Adams, Works, 9:158–159.

  22 JQA to George Washington, October 29, 1798, in Writings, 2:377–378.

  23 JQA to JA, September 25, 1798, in ibid., 367–369.

  24 Talleyrand to JA, September 28, 1798, in Adams, Works, 8:690–691.

  25 December 31, 1800, in Diaries, MHS.

  26 Boston’s Independent Chronicle, Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski, Gaspare Saladino, Richard Leffler, and Charles H. Schoenleber, eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 22 vols. to date (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976–[in progress]), 13:154–155.

  27 JQA to JA, November 25, 1800, reel 399, AP MHS.

  28 Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 20.

  29 April 12, 1801, in Diaries, MHS.

  30 May 4, 1801, in ibid.

  31 May 5, 1791, in ibid.

  32 AA to JQA, September 23, 1801, reel 401, AP MHS.

  33 Memoirs, 1:261.

  34 April 1802, in Writings, 2:7.

  35 January 28, 1802, in Memoirs, 1:249.

  CHAPTER 7

  1 Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Social Life in the Early Republic (Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1970), 161.