John Quincy Adams Dies

J.Q. Adams' presidency isn't particularly remembered as a success -- he wasn't the last president to face a hostile Congress -- but he was much else besides, including a highly talented diplomat and cabinet member in service of the young United States, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1831 until his death on February 23, 1848, two days after he had (presumably) had a stroke on the floor of that chamber.

During his tenure in Congress, Adams because a prominent opponent of slavery, though not strictly speaking an abolitionist (more that once he predicted correctly that only a civil war would eventually end the peculiar institution). In 1841, he famously argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Amistad case, a cause célèbre of the time.

At issue was the status of enslaved Africans, led by one of the number called Cinque, who had in 1839 taken control of the Spanish ship Amistad, on which they were being transported. The ship ended up in the United States, and, with the help of sympathizers, Cinque and the others fought for their freedom in American courts. The U.S. government, in particular the Van Buren administration, wanted the Africans turned over to the Spanish, presumably to please the Spanish government, but also to mollify U.S. slaveholders.

In 1997, Anthony Hopkins portrayed Congressman Adams in the film Amistad. The following is a dramatized take on Adams' appearance before the court in late February 1841, but true to the spirit of his arguments.

The full text of Adams' argument is here. The Africans won their freedom.

The Monroe Doctrine: Slipped Into the President's Annual Message

The famed Monroe Doctrine got its beginning as a few paragraphs in the seventh annual message to Congress delivered -- in writing -- by President James Monroe. His Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, is universally acknowledged as the one who actually formulated the doctrine. In nondiplomatic terms, the doctrine says, "Hands off Latin America, powers of Europe! (Especially you, Spain)."

Of course diplomatic language was used, which JQA, son of a president and soon-to-be president, excelled at. The money quote from President Monroe's annual message to Congress -- we would now call it a State of the Union address, dated December 2, 1823 -- is as follows:

"We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere.

But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

Because the United States had a weak navy at the time, European powers generally ignored the doctrine during the 19th century -- and yet the Spanish and other powers didn't often try to colonize or recolonize Latin America, because it became part of the British Empire's informal sphere. What the U.S. Navy couldn't do (until the time of TR), the Royal Navy did, with the unintended consequence of enforcing the Monroe Doctrine.

JQA Letters in Dispute

The relics of dead presidents still have power over the living. To be more precise, pieces of paper once marked upon by a president can have monetary value, enough to inspire litigation some 200-plus years after their origin.

The Courthouse News Service, which specializes covering civil litigation, reports that Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries has asked a federal court to determine which of two men is the rightful owner of two letters written by John Quincy Adams.

The news service quotes the complaint: "In July 2011, Bradley B. Mugar contracted with Heritage to sell (among other things) two letters signed by John Quincy Adams on consignment. Heritage subsequently made two cash advances totaling $28,000 to Mugar, which were to be repaid from the auction sale proceeds. Before auction, Heritage learned of rival claims to the manuscripts and thus withdrew the two lots from the auction."

The rival claim was made by one Dr. David Light, of Palm Beach County, Fla., who asserts that the letters were stolen from him. For his part, Mugar, of Orange County, Calif., asserts that the letters are his. Heritage is holding onto the letters until the court rules on which of the two is the owner. The full story is here.

One letter is dated April 6, 1783, and the other is dated July 18, 1788, when JQA was quite young -- 16 years old and 21 years old, respectively. But the future president was already no stranger to copious amounts of writing, since he was secretary to Francis Dana on Dana's diplomatic mission to St. Petersburg in 1783, and was enrolled in Harvard College by 1788. Also, he began what would become a 50-volume diary when he was only 11.

February 23, 1848: John Quincy Adams Dies

Only two former presidents have served in the US Congress after their presidencies. John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, was the first to do so. He was a Whig Congressman from 1831 until his death in 1848, representing a Massachusetts district centered on Plymouth. (Andrew Johnson returned to the US Senate shortly before his death in 1875.)

He was also the first president to have a middle name. Before the Civil War, only two other presidents did: William Henry Harrison and James Knox Polk.

There are no photographic images of any of the five presidents before John Quincy Adams. Late in his life, he posed for the daguerreotype reproduced above, becoming the earliest president to leave behind a photographic image of himself.

An entry in The Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography by Charles A. Howe describes President and Rep. Adams final days: "Near the end of his life he summed up his personal credo in these few words: 'I reverence God as my creator. As creator of the world. I reverence him with holy fear. I venerate Jesus Christ as my redeemer; and, as far as I can understand, the redeemer of the world. But this belief is dark and dubious.'

"On the afternoon of February 21, 1848 John Quincy Adams was, as usual, at his desk in the House of Representatives. He had voted 'No' on a bill that would have commended veterans of recent battles in the war with Mexico and was trying to rise to speak, when he suddenly collapsed. Carried to the Speaker's private chamber in the Capitol, he lingered on for two days. By the time Louisa [his wife] got to his bedside, he was unable to recognize her. It was reported that the last words he uttered were either, 'This is the end of earth, but I am content,' or, 'This is the last of earth-- I am composed.'

"Adams would have been amazed at the national outpouring of mourning that followed his death; thousand filed through the Capitol to view his bier. Funeral ceremonies were held in the House, after which the body was carried by train to Boston, where a memorial service was held in Faneuil Hall. At the service in Quincy, the Rev. William Lunt, Adam's pastor and friend, preached on the text, 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.' "