John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767–February 23, 1848) was the sixth President of the United States, serving from 1825 until 1829.[1] He is also one of two Presidents to be the son of another President (the other being George W. Bush),[note 1] with his father being John Adams, the second President of the United States.[2] When inaugurated, he swore on a law book rather than a Bible, and he was also the first president to wear trousers instead of knee breaches to his inauguration.[3]
Adams had quite a long career in politics before his time in the White House, although he is most known for his influence in creating the Monroe Doctrine. Originally, Monroe both wanted to release a joint statement along with the United Kingdom and have the declaration not take a stance on any European affairs.[4]
1824 Presidential Election and the "corrupt bargain"[edit]
Adams became President after the 1824 Presidential Election, where four major candidates were all running for the position. Him, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay all ran for President as members of the Democratic-Republican Party.[5]
Jackson won the popular vote (153,544 votes to Adams's 108,740) and even got more electoral votes than Adams (99 to 84), however, the Constitution demands a majority of Electoral Votes be gotten for the person to become President, and Jackson fell short. As such, the election had to go to the House of Representatives,[5] where each state gets one vote and the three candidates with the most Electoral Votes are allowed to qualify.[6]
This is where Henry Clay came in, Clay was the Speaker of the House at the time and as such held a large amount of political influence over who they would pick to be President.[7] Clay was also well aware this election was almost certainly going to go to the House due to the large amount of candidates.[8] Given Clay was running for President, it was obvious what exactly he was hoping would occur: Nobody gets the majority, he gets in the top three, and he uses his power in the House to become President. However, David Stephen Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler noted in his biography on Clay:
The 7 votes Clay should have received from New York with the 5 from Louisiana would have pushed Crawford to a relatively distant fourth, and Clay could have worked his magic in the House, the plan he had long envisioned as the only way to become president in the 1824 election.[9]:176
Clay lobbied the House to vote for Adams, although exactly why is up for debate. Jackson claimed that Clay offered to lobby for him on the condition he was made Secretary of State, as Adams later did. Clay denied these charges, and instead said that he merely did not feel Jackson was qualified enough for the position of President, albeit primarily because Adams more closely aligned with his ideology as opposed to anything objective. Jackson and his supporters, who felt that Clay had overturned the will of the electorate and instead handed the White House to one of his political buddies, began to call this deal the "corrupt bargain" and campaigned heavily on it in 1828.[10]
An Abomination[edit]
Hands down, the most nonsense thing Adams did while in office was sign a piece of legislation called the Tariff of 1828, known as the Tariff of Abominations by its critics primarily due to its high rates.[11] To call the legislation controversial would be an understatement: John C. Calhoun, then the Vice President, wrote a document called South Carolina Exposition where he argued the legislation was unconstitutional and, because of that, South Carolina had the right to nullify it if they so choose.[12]
This, along with the federal government barley reforming the tariff in 1832, led directly to the Nullification Crisis of 1832 and 1833, where South Carolina attempted to nullify the tariff using the aforementioned arguments about constitutionality. Andrew Jackson ultimately had to step in and declare states had no right to nullify the laws of the federal government.[13]
Either way, given how this one piece of legislation marked "the first time that friction between state and federal authority began to create enough tension that it almost led to a civil war,"[14] signing it could easily be seen as at least a reckless move on the part of the President.
Post-presidency[edit]
Like his father, Adams failed to get reelected, with bad feelings over the previous election and the unpopularity of the Tariff of 1828 being major factors that led to him getting obliterated by Andrew Jackson in the 1828 United States presidential election.
He would join the Anti-Masonic Party, a conspiracist party that alleged that Freemasons were secretly controlling everything in the U.S. and would unite mainly as a political vehicle to attack Jackson, who was a Freemason.[15] After a failed run for governor of Massachusetts, Adams would become the first and so far only former president to be elected to the House of Representatives.[16] Having been only the second president after his father to not own any slaves (though, as with any figure from the time, there were still times when he could be said to have benefited from slave labor),[17] he became known for being an opponent of slavery, opposing the infamous "gag rule" that prevented any antislavery petitions from being heard by Congress.[18] Adams argued in the defense for Mende captives who revolted and took control of the Spanish ship La Amistad in order to avoid being sold into slavery. The Supreme Court decision, United States v. The Amistad, ruled that the captives were free and to be returned to their home in Africa, and it's considered a landmark case in both international law and civil rights law.[19]
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Though Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of William Henry Harrison
References[edit]
- ↑ John Quincy Adams
- ↑ WHICH PRESIDENTS ARE RELATED?
- ↑ President John Quincy Adams, 1825, senate.gov Archived 30 January 2009
- ↑ Monroe Doctrine Britannica
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 1824 Presidential Election
- ↑ Frequently Asked Questions
- ↑ The Election of 1824 Was Decided in the House of Representatives
- ↑ The Election of 1824-25: When the House Chose the President
- ↑ Henry Clay: The Essential American by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler
- ↑ ‘CORRUPT BARGAIN’
- ↑ Tariff of 1828 Britannica
- ↑ Rough Draft of What is Called the South Carolina Exposition Teaching American History
- ↑ Nullification Crisis Britannica
- ↑ Andrew Jackson & the Nullification Crisis Andrew Jackson's Hermitage
- ↑ A time of political chaos and conspiracy theories, Sylvia C. Dodge, North Star Monthly 30 January 2022
- ↑ John Quincy Adams’ Congressional Career, Casey Olson, United States Capitol Historical Society
- ↑ The Enslaved Household of President John Quincy Adams, Lindsay M. Chervinsky and Callie Hopkins, The White House Historical Association
- ↑ Struggles over Slavery: The “Gag” rule National Archives
- ↑ Amistad: Legal Battle, National Park Service