John Quincy Adams: America’s Most Successful Failure
just before we get started i will say that this video is sponsored by quincy 400. for most presidents their long-term reputation lives and dies upon what they did during their administration herbert for example was a great humanitarian now only remembered for a much greater depression no one meanwhile seriously remembers woodrow wilson for overhauling princeton university heck even dwight d eisenhower is better known for his two terms than winning goddamn world war ii but occasionally you get a president whose deeds before or after their administration are central to their place in history of these perhaps none is so fascinating as john quincy adams the sixth president of the united states adams was also the white house's first major disappointment in a single term he failed to do anything much of consequence existing mainly as a human punching bag for his successor andrew jackson yet rather than the pinnacle the presidency would turn out to be a brief dip in his otherwise remarkable life as secretary of state pre-presidency adams helped shape america in profound ways in his post-white house career he became one of the most powerful anti-slavery voices in the nation a mediocre ineffectual president who still transforms the united states this is the life of john quincy adams america's greatest failure when john quincy adams was born in braintree massachusetts later named quincy on july the 11th 1767 it was into a seemingly average family his parents weren't incredibly rich or highly connected and while his father was fiercely interested in politics he wasn't exactly a mover and shaker but of course we already know there was nothing average about adams family his dad was future founding father john adams his mum future first lady abigail adams and that ensured there would be nothing remotely average about john quincy's upbringing things got moving in 1774 with the calling of the first continental congress essentially a big convention dedicated to discussing what a [ __ ] george iii was adams's dad was one of their state's delegates but while this was the family's first flirtation with history it would be what came next that really transformed their fortunes on april 19th 1775 some forgotten soldier at lexington fired their gun during a tense standoff between british forces and american militia it was the opening of the american revolutionary war the shot heard around the world it was also the starting gun on john adams's high velocity career with his dad running off to join the second continental congress that spring john quincy always left to witness the war unfold from his mother's side like literally that summer abigail took her son to the top of a nearby hill from where they could see the distant carnage of the battle of bunker hill the next few years the boy would frequently see soldiers marching through his hometown then there were the fears he felt for his dad on july the 4th 1776 john adams signed his name on the declaration of independence one hour celebrated moment it was at the time treason and adams was paralyzed by the fear that the british might execute his dad not that there was much space for airing these fears at home always a hard woman abigail adams had transformed by the war into a mother determined to raise a future american leader she would truck no emotions from her boy no idleness nothing at all that most of us would associate with childhood and that meant that john quincy grew up faster than even other kids in this turbulent era aged just 10 he was sent with his dad on a dangerous diplomatic trip to europe on which saw british ships stalk and harass their vessel on a second voyage the following year the boat sprang a leak barely making it to the spanish coast getting to paris then required a grueling two-month trek on mules at this time john quincy was also taking on diplomatic responsibilities like teaching the french minister to the united states english or sitting in on meetings between his dad and benjamin franklin it was as if john and abigail were trying to fashion their son into a machine for diplomacy a sort of nerdy robocop built for geopolitics as abigail wrote to her still prepubescent son these are the times in which a genius would wish to live it is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed which was maybe why adam's life in europe was as far from still as it's possible to get over the years of the war john quincy lived in holland and france spending time in sweden and prussia he became fluent in french passable and dutch age 14 he was appointed secretary and translator to the u.s embassy to russia in time he'd master seven languages but his biggest moment came at the age of 16. in 1783 adams served as a secretary to the american delegation in paris watching from up close as a peace treaty was thrashed out with britain ending the revolutionary war it was an invaluable insight into international politics what adams would take into his future diplomatic ventures but first the teenage john quincy wanted to return to america as he reached adulthood john quincy adams had grown into a highly intelligent well-traveled and well-read young man he also however had grown into a neurotic mess an ill-tempered emotionally cold egotist who most people instinctively disliked in short the ideal combination for professional success and personal misery first the professional success back in the us john quincy graduated harvard passed the bar and began practicing law all by the age of 23. he also found a side gig writing articles in support of the new president's articles that soon brought him to george washington's attention it probably didn't hurt that washington's vice president was john quincy's dad in 1794 the president appointed him minister to the netherlands and adams returned to europe okay so that's the amazing career what about the personal misery for that we need to look no further than adams's love life while in the u.s john quincy had fallen spectacularly for a local girl he'd even wanted to propose but then abigail had told him that he needed to focus on his career so adams broke off with the young woman only to regret the decision immediately and intensely in fact he regretted it so much that when he met 22 year old louisa catherine in london he didn't even hesitate before asking her to marry him the daughter of an american expat and an english woman louisa was intelligent creative exactly the sort of things that most people would want in a fiance the problem was adams wasn't most people he actively refused to be in the same room as louisa when she played music and could barely stand talking to her they married in july 1797. by
the time louise became the first of only two foreign-born first ladies the pair could go literal weeks without speaking but that was still many years away for now the young adams simply kept up his diplomatic work becoming his dad's man in prussia after john adams gained the presidency then returning to america again when his dad lost it not that this loss impacted adams own career elected to the massachusetts state senate in 1802 adams was quickly promoted to one of the state's two congressional senators massachusetts c was controlled by the federalist party since his dad had been a federalist the leadership assumed adams was as safe about as they could make but that assumption couldn't have been more wrong in congress john quincy surprised everyone by frequently siding not with his dad's federalists but with their opponents the democratic republicans this included weighty stuff like the 1807 embargo act which blocked trade with all foreign nations a brave attempt to get britain to respect america's maritime rights but one with the unfortunate side effect of screwing over adams's home base of new england yet adams voted for the measure feeling his conscience would not allow him to do otherwise in massachusetts though the federalists felt that adams consciousness could kiss their butts outraged at his betrayal they announced his replacement before his term was even over five days later adams resigned shortly after he was spotted at the democratic republican convention his switch to the enemy party now official but while this mountain made him as popular with federalists as a carolina reaper enema it was also an excellent career move in the 1808 election democratic republican james madison trounced his federalist rival he awarded john quincy switch of allegiance with the job of u.s minister to russia and so it was back to europe back to a continent broken and bruised by the napoleonic wars from his vantage point in saint petersburg adams was able to witness france's failed invasion of russia to take part in the negotiations with britain that ended the war of 1812 to watch napoleon's collapse at waterloo come 1817 john quincy was living in london with more experiences under his belt the most managed in a lifetime yet it would be the next seven years that saw his greatest achievements of all back home james monroe had just been elected president and he had the perfect role lined up for the worldly intelligent john quincy adams he wanted adams to become his secretary of state although on paper he was the perfect candidate deep down adams was worried worried that monroe had made the wrong choice worried that he'd be a failure as he wrote to abigail he felt that the president had overestimated not the goodness of my intentions but the extent of my talents for a man so egotistical he once called his own diaries the most precious and valuable book ever written by human hands such fears seem remarkable an indication that adams really did sense he might not be fit for high office and while time and the highest office in the land would eventually prove him right in 1817 the opposite happened john quincy adams was about to become perhaps the best secretary of state the u.s ever had adams is genius in his ability to negotiate under his watch vital treaties were signed that changed america forever the most vital of these the treaties with britain and spain at this point remember adams had lived through two major wars with britain and voted for legislation designed to cuddle trade ties with london so he'd have been forgiven for making his official stance screw those limey douchebags but no instead adams spearheaded the convention of 1818 which permanently set the u.s canadian border along the 49th parallel all the way to the rocky mountains with a ban on armaments along the border this treaty helped diffuse 50 years of tensions between london and washington ushering in a new era in which redcoats weren't constantly trying to burn down the white house more important still though may have been the treaty with spain signed in 1819 the treaty saw florida officially handed to the united states and spain give up its claims to territory north of latitude 42 degrees since this included oregon county it set the stage for yet further u.s expansion westward in the future in return the southern border was set with madrid's colony of new spain giving the spaniards control of texas but since spain was about to get booted out of what is now mexico uncle sam wouldn't have to worry about keeping up his end of the bargain for very long impressive as these treaties were though perhaps adams's biggest achievement was a speech which doesn't even bear his name the monroe doctrine takes its name from the president who first articulated it but the idea was nearly all john quincy adams's in a nutshell the doctrine told europe to forget sailing across the atlantic to do more colonizing the newly independent american nations would stay independent and any attempt to say otherwise would result in a star-spangled foot being inserted up the old continent's backside at the time this was a ballsy statement like scrappy doo threatening to go 10 rounds with cujo the u.s simply wasn't powerful enough to be bossing multiple empires around but it was also a sign of how the tides were shifting of how the western hemisphere was turning towards the u.s in decades to come the monroe doctrine would be
used to justify all sorts of unwelcome intrusions in latin america but it's no doubt its unveiling was a pivotal moment so that was john quincy's career as his time as secretary of state drew to a close while with the track record of three major wins plus a minor victory professionalizing the diplomatic service stacked together all this made adams feel like it got a pretty good shot at taking over from monroe when the president left office the trouble was he wasn't the only one as the election year of 1824 dawned it was on a country that had dramatically changed the federalist party heard collapsed male suffrage had been expanded 18 of the 24 states now chose their presidential electors by popular vote it would in short be a watershed election one that would fulfill john quincy's wildest dreams even as it laid the groundwork for his political destruction although only one party contested the 1824 election that doesn't mean there was only one candidate alongside adams three other men all vied for the top job each with their own bases of power it was the fire brand house speaker henry clay of kendaki the favorite of the elites william h crawford but it was the outsider candidate that would throw all of adams's hopes into disarray the popular and populist tennessee general andrew jackson from the get-go the race was messy divided and as bitter as cyanide that summer crawford was put forward under the old caucus system selected not by voters but by congressmen leaning on crawford's selection as undemocratic massachusetts legislature instead nominated adams down in kentucky the same thing happened with henry clay but it was andrew jackson who put up the most vigorous opposition putting on rallies that made the pro adams faction's efforts look like the class nerd's unattended birthday parties because the class nerd is kind of what adams was he was clever yes even brilliant but he was also widely disliked the martin prince of presidential politics there was no way in this era when the popular vote actually mattered that cerebral adams could win against a natural populist like jackson when the results came it was clear john quincy's presidential bid had failed while it left client crawford eating his dust taking 30.9 percent of the popular vote adams had only won new england and new york jackson meanwhile had captured 11 states and 41.4 percent of the vote and you don't need to be a john quincy style genius to know that 41 was a much higher number than 31. so this is it then the moment when we reveal that all of this has just been an incredibly long intro to our andrew jackson biography well not exactly see jackson may have taken the most votes and states but his delicate count at the electoral college was 99 to 32 short of a majority that meant the 12th amendment kicking in meaning the house would now decide the outcome on a one-state one-vote basis and with clay prevented from moving to the second round that meant vital delegates were still in play on february 9 1825 the house held its contingent election disgusted by jackson clay convinced all of his states to back adams he and former federalists then began pressuring others to back the sensible john quincy over the fiery andrew jackson incredibly the campaign worked on the first ballot 13 states threw their support to adams giving him the simple majority needed to be declared winner john quincy adams would now become the sixth president of the united states to call jackson outraged would be to underestimate how volcanically his rage erupted on hearing the results the general accused adams and clay of conspiring to make a corrupt bargain a charge adam seemed to confirm when he appointed clay his secretary of state while historians today don't think that any shady bargain existed the optics were still terrible for anyone even remotely pro-jackson it appeared the election had been stolen even adam seemed to recognize this acknowledging to the american people i am less possessed of your confidence in advance than any of my predecessors yet ultimately it wouldn't matter as he assumed the presidency john quincy adams did so with a bold plan for the future one that would be so transformative so beneficial that andrew jackson would soon be forgotten yeah about that as adams was about to discover being president is not the same as being an old timey king you need support in both chambers broad following among the public the sixth president had none of these things and now adams was going to find out just how hard ruling as a lame duck really is there can be few u.s presidents with such a stark gap between what they intended to achieve and what they actually managed to do when john quincy adams entered the white house it was with an ambitious program designed to wed the states into a true nation with a vast internal market and a strong executive adams wanted to construct roads and canals to connect americans to standardize weights and measures to build universities and observer trees and dispatch survey teams to map everything the continent had to offer yet while he would see modest success with construction projects including the lake erie canal mostly what adams would see would be endless failure 1820s america didn't see an early new deal in his plans for massive public works no what they saw were attempts to drain power from states and pump it directly to washington more to the point they also saw a president elected in a contentious manner suddenly acting like he was the messiah of government reform but rather than the messiah congress would treat adams as a very naughty boy from the get-go the sixth president was hampered in all his goals spurned even by former supporters for two years things just about held together but then 1826 rolled around and adam's world fell apart first his father always his staunchest supporter died from a heart attack with his dad gone adams lost the one person he could truly count on yet his personal isolation would soon be compounded by a second disaster in the midterm elections that year jacksonians took control of congress determined to block everything adams tried to do in the two years since the contingent election jackson hadn't remotely mellowed instead launching an endless campaign against the president all while building an election-winning machine with congress now solidly against him adams would spend the rest of his presidency unable to do anything but helplessly watch as his ambitions crumbled to dust there were the delegates adams wanted to send to panama for a meeting of american nations only for congress to block their funding or the tariff package congress forced him to authorize that was so unpopular it became known as the tariff of abominations even when adams tried to do rights such as supporting the rights of creek indians to have their territory respected congress still rejected him now this doesn't mean adams was an actively bad president stacked next to him james buchanan it looks positively great but it does mean that he became a mediocre president one whose term would be defined by inertia drift and ever shrinking expectations against this backdrop the 1828 election was almost a mercy killing now at the head of the newly formed democratic party andrew jackson was back and he was ready for vengeance that winter the general won a crushing victory taking 55.5 percent of the vote and dominating the electoral college like his father before him john quincy was now officially a one-term president and just like his father before him adam's left under a grumpy cloud refusing to attend his successors inauguration but while this would be the end of most presidential bios barring a quick paragraph explaining how they died adams's biography still has a final chapter because after a disappointing presidency his career was going to have one last glorious high in the coming years john quincy adams was going to reinvent himself as nothing less than the conscious of his nation in the 1840s there was nothing guaranteed to silence the house faster than old man eloquent standing up to speak as the 70-something john quincy adams rose a hush would descend representatives from the democrats and whigs alike would wait in respectful quiet to see what their elder had to say but this respect wasn't just due to adams age or the fact that he'd once been president rather it was due to his long and extraordinary post-white house career after he lost the election john quincy had gone into retirement moping miserably around massachusetts as the jacksonian revolution got underway but then some neighbors had pressured him to run for congress and adams had won entering the house in december of 1831. at the time many thought it beneath him a former president reduced to just one of
hundreds of representatives as adams put it though no person could be degraded by serving the people and serve was exactly what adams intended to do over 16 plus years john quincy would forge a second career speaking out forcefully against aggressive expansion against the war with mexico but his greatest most lasting achievement would be his opposition to slavery of the first 12 presidents the only ones who didn't own enslaved people were john quincy and his dad and while john quincy would never publicly declare himself an abolitionist his actions in the house sure suggest that he was leaning that way his biggest battle was against the gag rule which banned debate on any petition concerning slavery convinced this was an insult to the first amendment adams launched what can only be described as a crusade against it from 1836 he violated the rule whenever he could attempting to get anti-slavery petitions read into record risking the wrath of southerners for years it looked like a fool's errand but you know that old quote often misattributed to gandhi first they ignore you then they laugh at you then you win well adams kept going until he won in 1844 the house relented voting to end the gag rule by then adams was already fighting slavery on other fronts in 1841 he'd gone before the supreme court to argue the amistad case on behalf of slaves who'd mutineed aboard a spanish ship only to be captured by american sailors adams argument was a blistering denunciation of slavery is against american founding principles saying the moment you come to the declaration of independence that every man has a right to life and liberty an inalienable right this case is decided i ask nothing more in behalf of these unfortunate men than this declaration he won the case and the former slaves went free yet while john quincy would spend his latter years chipping away at the edifice of slavery he sadly wouldn't live to see the whole rotten system collapse on february 21 1848 adams had just finished making a passionate speech in the house when he suffered a massive stroke carried to a sofa in the speaker's office he died two days later his last words were this is the end of earth but i am content john quincy adams passed away at the age of 80 leaving behind a career so long and complex that even now it's impossible to neatly summarize on the one hand his time as president was a disappointment a single term in which little was accomplished on the other though his careers both pre and post-presidency were seemingly sprinkled with gold dust charmed things that glittered brightly next to the dreary grave is one term it's fascinating isn't it how ill-equipped we often are to deal with a narrative that subverts our expectations that doesn't climax with the presidency but with the roles of secretary of state and representative roles we assume are somehow lesser but the life of the sixth president shows us this isn't the case the presidential rankings can never capture all the good and bad of a person's life in summing up john quincy adams then perhaps we should instead look to the words of his wife louisa who once described him as exasperating tendentious self-absorbed and yet in the end magnificent i hope you found today's video interesting if you did please do hit that like button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching
2022-04-01 08:26
