In January of this year, a new book by historian Joseph Wheelan, Mr. Adams's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress, was released. As one might surmise from the title, it focusses on the post-presidential life of America's sixth president, which, apart from two years from 1829 to 1931, was spent in the House of Representatives, ending with Adams' death in 1847 (in the Speaker's chambers, even). Adams was, of course, the son of the more famous John Adams, the second president. Both served only one term (and both declined to attend the inaugurations of their successors, the only men to do so). The younger Adams is often skipped over in US history, serving mainly as a footnote to his father's career.
Living as we do under the presidency of George Walker Bush, the son of George Herbert Walker Bush (one imagines that even Pops is reconsidering whether voting for junior was a good idea), this is perhaps an ideal time to look back on the career of America's other son of a president to hold that office (Benjamin Harrison will have to wait for another grandson to show up for his time in the spotlight).
Now, Wheelan isn't making an actual comparison between the two men in-text, so this is sort of a hybrid book review and historical analysis, because I found while reading it that Adams' life and career actually has a lot to say about modern times (a lot to the effect of "no, it was always like this"); and I'm always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to bash Bush.
Wheelan's book is, per the title, not really concerned with Adams' origins; he spends about sixty pages covering John Q.'s life from the cradle to the time he walks out of the Oval Office, and the remaining two hundred and fifty on his Congressional career; but you get a great sense of the arc of his life. Unlike George W., John Q. was a massive success in his pre-presidential career. As John Adams' son, he accompanied dad to Europe as a teen, mingling in the courts of Louis XVI, George III, and Catherine II (the Great); the latter he saw independently of his father when he accompanied the American minister (ambassador) to St. Petersburg as a translator (the teenaged Adams was proficient in French, which was the lingua franca of the diplomatic world in the 18th century). He went into the law, but was never very happy with his career choice, and quickly involved himself in politics, publishing an eleven-part rebuttal to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson's pro-French Revolution comments under an alias; President Washington, after uncovering who the author was, made Adams his emissary to the Netherlands; subsequent postings would take him to Russia, Prussia, and the United Kingdom. In the interval between the Adams and Madison Administrations, when his father's archenemy Jefferson held office, he served a term as a senator from Massachusetts. The capper was eight years as James Monroe's Secretary of State; indeed, he was arguably the ablest man to ever hold the position. You'll note the distinct lack of a lot of real political offices here; he was a senator for one term, the 'one' being because he angered the state legislature so much with his independence that he didn't get a second one. For the most part, his jobs were appointed.
Then we come to another big point of contrast: the controversial election of 1824/2000. Both men were put in power with fewer popular votes than another man (though in 1824 several states had no popular vote, so it's not really a fair comparison). While Bush achieved his victory by using the Supreme Court to do an end-run around the state of Florida (among other tactics), the election of 1824 featured no fewer than 4 candidates; Andrew Jackson won 41 percent, Adams 30, two others around 10 percent each. The election went to the House of Representatives, where Henry Clay, the Speaker, threw his support behind Adams, and was later made Adams' Secretary of State. This gave birth to the famous "corrupt bargain" allegation that dogged both men from thenceforth. Wheelan does not believe such a deal existed, making the case that Adams' rather rigid morality system that was later on display in his presidency to his detriment would have precluded him making such a deal, as well as that Clay would not have needed such incentive to vote for Adams over Jackson, having previously expressed a preference for him. However, both Q. and W. came into the Oval Office with an air of illegitimacy in the eyes of many people. Adams proposed a legislative agenda that was far ahead of its time, based, really, in the Federalist ideals of his father's party; he wanted a national university, a national observatory, aggressive infrastructure programs, etc., which Congress would not consent to.
These days we're frequently acquainted with how the current Administration is engaged in perverting purposedly non-partisan organizations for partisan ends (the Justice Department, for example); you couldn't find much more of a contrast than with Adams, who, following his father's example, let everyone from the last administration keep their positions, replacing people only when they chose to leave. As a result, to his administration's detriment, he left political enemies in key positions which they used to undermine him. His Postmaster General, John McLean, used the office's considerable patronage powers to rally support for Andrew Jackson, but Adams refused to fire him, since he was carrying out his duties all the same. As you can imagine, such a government didn't get much done. Adams had an admirable conviction to run a non-partisan executive, but he ended up permitting his own apparatus to be used against him.
Turfed after one term, he initially planned to retire, and spent two years at home in Massachusetts, in the which period he, among other things, wrote an epic poem: Dermot MacMorrogh,: or, The conquest of Ireland. An historical tale of the twelfth century. I've ordered this from Amazon out of curiosity, though it has yet to arrive. Can you imagine any politican today writing an epic poem?
As that episode gives some indication of, Adams was an intellectual, often to the detriment of his communications; Wheelan recounts in his book an anecdote of Adams' convoluted dinner toast in Baltimore that fell flat when none present, to his surprise, had read the obscure Voltaire short story he had referenced. His political opponents derisively labeled him "the Professor", and used it as an indication of how out of touch he was; this went hand in hand with the allegation that, as the son of John Adams, he was an aristocrat, in contrast to the 'self-made' Jackson. Of course, as Wheelan notes, Adams' family was perennially short of money. He was a strong advocate of government supporting the sciences, and made a hobby out of various types of cultivation, planting trees while at the White House and at his home estate.
The crux of Wheelan's book is Adams' congressional career, in which he became a strong advocate of various political causes:
- The First Amendment - through his nearly decade-long campaign to repeal the Southern-backed gag rule in the House that quashed the right to petition the House against slavery.
- Womens' rights - through his defence of women involving themselves in politics (though he was not so far ahead of his time as to argue for giving them the vote).
- Science - Adams was a lifelong proponent of the sciences, and of government sponsorship of them, and Wheelan spends some time detailing his role in the creation of the Smithsonian Institute, which I was not aware of.
- The big one, his campaign against slavery. Indeed, he was perhaps the first great political opponent of the Slave Power, a friend and inspiration to future player William Seward (Lincoln's Secretary of State), and astonishingly foresighted in predicting the Civil War decades in advance (and, ultimately, welcoming it as a necessary bloodletting to purge ill from the land). If you've seen the movie Amistad you have some idea of his involvement (good movie too, by the way).
Reading Wheelan's book, he conveys a picture of a man driven by sincere and abiding faith in government and the ideals of the United States, the complete opposite of the relentlessly cynical politics of George W. Bush.
Adams' conviction that as president he should be a man "of the whole country" rather than of just a part of it resonates to in the "red state"/"blue state" America of today (though that concept has blurred a lot since its peak in 2004); indeed, Adams' own career in Congress was spent, whatever his intent, being a man of Massachusetts, relentlessly antagonizing the Slave Power.
Concluding, I'd recommend the book; it makes a great case for an undervalued figure in American history. You'll come away, in all likelihood, wishing for eight years of Adams (though, really, this Administration has probably buoyed nostalgia for the Harding Administration, so perhaps that isn't quite such an accomplishment).