Born at Braintree, Mass., July 11, 1767; died at Washington, D.C., Feb. 23, 1848. The sixth President of the United States, 1825–29, son of President John Adams. He was graduated at Harvard in 1787, and was admitted to the bar in 1791. He was United States minister to the Netherlands 1794–1797, and to Prussia 1797–1801; United States senator from Massachusetts 1803–08; professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Harvard 1806–09; United States minister to Russia 1809–14; one of the negotiators of the treaty of Ghent, 1814; United States minister to England 1815–17; secretary of state 1817–25; candidate for President, 1824, and, there being no choice by electors, chosen by the House of Representatives. In 1828 Jackson defeated him for the Presidency. He was member of Congress from Massachusetts (Anti-Masonic and Whig), 1831–1848, and unsuccessful candidate for governor of Massachusetts 1834. His diary was edited by C. F. Adams (1874–77).

Personal

  Already there is considerable stir and whispering as to who is to be the next President. It is thought here that J. Q. Adams will not be a successful candidate. It seems that the great objection to him is, that he is retiring and unobtrusive, studious, cool, and reflecting; that he does nothing to excite attention, or to gain friendships. He contents himself with doing his duty without seeking any reward. I suspect that he is not calculated for popularity; the old proverb asserts that “God helps them who help themselves.”

  My Dear Son: I have received your letter of the 9th inst. Never did I feel so much solemnity as on this occasion. The multitude of my thoughts and the intensity of my feelings are too much for a mind like mine in its ninetieth year. May the blessing of God Almighty continue to protect you to the end of your life, as it has heretofore protected you in so remarkable a manner from your cradle. I offer the same prayer for your lady and your family, and am your affectionate father.

  I admire the man for that simple dignity which has marked all his proceedings.

  Hard as a piece of granite and cold as a lump of ice.

  We consider this present active member of Congress as, beyond competition, the most potent spirit in America. “Venerable” he is—and “his hand trembles”—but his venerableness is a cavern of power, and his uplifted forefinger

	“trembles as the granite trembles
	Lashed by the waves.”

We know there is a level on the mountain of life, where the air is pure and cold—a height at which impurity can scarce come, more, between the climber and his God—but, it is above where the lightning comes from—it is above the dark cloud where sleeps the thunder, collected from below, and charged with inseparable good and harm. This incorrupt level is, at least, one step above the cloud in which Mr. Adams has pertinaciously lingered; and if his friends insist that he has been long enough lost to common scrutiny to have reached the upper side of the cloud of dangerous power, we must be excused for pointing our conductor till he is done stirring in the thunder.

	Near this Place
	Reposes all that could die of
	JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
	Son of John and Abigail [Smith] Adams,
	Sixth President of the United States,
	Born 11 July, 1767.
	Amidst the Storms of Civil Commotion,
	He nursed the Vigor
	Which nerves a Statesman and a Patriot,
	And the Faith
	Which inspires a Christian.
	For more than half a Century,
	Whenever his Country called for his Labors,
	In either Hemisphere or in any Capacity,
	He never spared them in her Cause.
	On the twenty fourth of December, 1814,
	He signed the second Treaty with Great Britain,
	Which restored Peace within her Borders,
	On the twenty third of February, 1848,
	He closed sixteen years of eloquent Defence
	Of the Lessons of his Youth,
	By dying at his Post,
	In her Great national Council.
	A son, worthy of his Father,
	A citizen, shedding glory on his Country,
	A Scholar, ambitious to advance mankind,
	This Christian sought to walk humbly
	In the sight of his God.

  Gentlemen of the House of Representatives of the United States,—It has been thought fit that the Chair should announce officially to the House, an event already known to the members individually, and which has filled all our hearts with sadness. A seat on this floor has been vacated, towards which all eyes have been accustomed to turn with no common interest. A voice has been hushed forever in this Hall, to which all ears have been wont to listen with profound reverence. A venerable form has faded from our sight, around which we have daily clustered with an affectionate regard. A name has been stricken from the roll of the living statesmen of our land, which has been associated, for more than half a century, with the highest civil service, and the loftiest civil renown. On Monday, the 21st instant, John Quincy Adams sunk in his seat, in presence of us all, owing to a sudden illness, from which he never recovered; and he died, in the Speaker’s room, at a quarter past seven o’clock last evening, with the officers of the House and the delegation of his own Massachusetts around him. Whatever advanced age, long experience, great ability, vast learning, accumulated public honors, a spotless private character, and a firm religious faith, could do, to render any one an object of interest, respect, and admiration, they had done for this distinguished person; and interest, respect, and admiration are but feeble terms to express the feelings, with which the members of this House and the People of this country have long regarded him. After a life of eighty years, devoted from its earliest maturity to the public service, he has at length gone to his rest. He has been privileged to die at his post; to fall while in the discharge of his duties; to expire beneath the roof of the Capitol; and to have his last scene associated forever, in history, with the birthday of that illustrious Patriot, whose just discernment brought him first into the service of his country.

  Thus has “a great man fallen in Israel,”—in many respects the most wonderful man of the age; certainly the greatest in the United States,—perfect in knowledge, but deficient in practical results. As a statesman, he was pure and incorruptible, but too irascible to lead men’s judgment. They admired him, and all voices were hushed when he rose to speak, because they were sure of being instructed by the words he was about to utter; but he made no converts to his opinions, and when President his desire to avoid party influence lost him all the favour of all parties. In matters of history, tradition, statistics, authorities, and practice he was the oracle of the House, of which he was at the time of his decease a member. With an unfailing memory, rendered stronger by cultivation, he was never mistaken; none disputed his authority. Every circumstance of his long life was “Penned down” at the moment of its occurrence; every written communication, even to the minute of a dinner invitation, was carefully preserved, and nothing passed uncopied from his pen. He “talked like a book” on all subjects. Equal to the highest, the planetary system was not above his grasp. Familiar with the lowest, he could explain the mysteries of a mousetrap…. Mr. Adams’s name will be recorded on the brightest page of American history, as statesman, diplomatist, philosopher, orator, author, and, above all a Christian.

	He rests with the immortals; his journey has been long:
	For him no wail of sorrow, but a pæan full and strong!
	So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do,
	To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true.
	Strong to the end, a man of men, from out the strife he passed;
	The grandest hour of all his life was that of earth the last.
	Now midst his snowy hills of home to the grave they bear him down,
	The glory of his fourscore years resting on him like a crown.

  In this long career of public service Mr. Adams was distinguished not only by faithful attention to all the great duties of his stations, but to all their less and minor duties. He was not the Salaminian galley, to be launched only on extraordinary occasions, but he was the ready vessel, always launched when the duties of his station required it, be the occasion great or small. As President, as cabinet Minister, as Minister abroad, he examined all questions that came before him, and examined all in all their parts, in all the minutiæ of their detail, as well as in all the vastness of their comprehension. As Senator, and as a member of the House of Representatives, the obscure committee-room was as much the witness of his laborious application to the drudgery of legislation, as the halls of the two Houses were to the ever ready speech, replete with knowledge, which instructed all hearers, enlightened all subjects, and gave dignity and ornament to debate. In the observance of all the proprieties of life, Mr. Adams was a most noble and impressive example. He cultivated the minor as well as the greater virtues. Wherever his presence could give aid and countenance to what was useful and honorable to man, there he was. In the exercises of the school and of the college—in the meritorious meetings of the agricultural, mechanical, and commercial societies—in attendance upon Divine worship—he gave the punctual attendance rarely seen but in those who are free from the weight of public cares. Punctual to every duty, death found him at the post of duty; and where else could it have found him, at any stage of his career, for the fifty years of his illustrious public life?

  Few public men in any country have possessed attainments more varied than were those of Mr. Adams. Every department of literature and science received more or less of his attention—every path of human improvement seems to have been explored by him. As a statesman, he was unrivalled in the profundity of his knowledge. His state papers—given to the world while Minister, Secretary of State, President, and Member of Congress—his numerous addresses, orations, and speeches, are astonishing in number, and in the learning they display. No man was more familiar with modern history, with diplomacy and international law, and the politics of America and Europe for the last two or three centuries. In other departments he appeared equally at home. His acquaintance was familiar with the classics, and several modern languages. In oratory, rhetoric, and the various departments of belles-lettres, his attainments were of more than an ordinary character. His commentaries on Desdemona, and others of Shakspeare’s characters, show that he was no mean critic, in the highest walks of literature, and in all that pertains to human character.

  The basis of his moral character was the religious principle. His spirit of liberty was fostered and inspired by the writings of Milton, Sydney, and Locke, of which the American Declaration of Independence was an emanation, and the constitution of the United States, with the exception of the clauses conceded to slavery, an embodiment. He was the associate of statesmen and diplomatists at a crisis when war and desolation swept over Europe, when monarchs were perplexed with fear of change, and the welfare of the United States was involved in the common danger. After leading the councils which restored peace to conflicting nations, he returned to support the administration of a veteran statesman, and then wielded the chief powers of the republic with unsurpassed purity and steadiness of purpose, energy, and wisdom. Removed by faction from the helm of state, he re-entered the national councils, and, in his old age, stood panoplied in the principles of Washington and his associates, the ablest and most dreaded champion of freedom, until, from the station assigned him by his country, he departed, happy in a life devoted to duty, in a death crowned with every honor his country could bestow, and blessed with the hope which inspires those who defend the rights, and uphold, when menaced, momentous interests of mankind.

  The circumstances connected with the decease of Mr. Adams are so well known as to require little development here. On the 20th of February he seemed as well as he had been, and had attended divine service morning and afternoon. On the 21st he went up to the Capitol as usual and took his customary seat in the House of Representatives, with no appearance whatever of illness. A question had sprung up touching a vote of thanks to certain military officers for services rendered during the Mexican War; and the Speaker was rising to put the motion to the House, when he was arrested by Mr. Washington Hunt, a member from New York, sitting near to Mr. Adams, who perceived him in a state of convulsion, and interposed to stop the proceedings. Not being in a condition for removal to his own house, he was placed in one of the Committee-rooms. No medical service was found to be possible, and he lingered with little apparent consciousness till the evening of the 23d, when he died.

  After his term in the presidency expired, he made the novel experiment of a retired president serving in the house of representatives, and it was the most successful, although not the most practical part of his life. He was called by the notorious Tom Marshall, the “Old Man Eloquent,” and he used his eloquence with a power which few could resist…. Mr. Adams’ speeches from 1833 to 1842, on the subject of slavery and right of petition, and the annexation of Texas, were the best, the ablest, and the most effective made in the country. For his course in the anti-slavery movement, for his clear views of the constitution, and his defense of human freedom, he will be remembered in after ages. He was never popular with politicians, nor even regarded as a party leader. No man ever questioned his integrity. No man ever doubted his patriotism. Of him, with more truth than of Chatham, it might be said: “The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him.”

  He lies buried “under the portal of the church at Quincy” beside his wife, who survived him four years, his father and his mother. The memorial tablet inside the church bears upon it the words “Alteri Sæculo,”—surely never more justly or appropriately applied to any man than to John Quincy Adams, hardly abused and cruelly misappreciated in his own day but whom subsequent generations already begin to honor as one of the greatest of American statesmen, not only pre-eminent in ability and acquirements, but even more to be honored for profound, immutable honesty of purpose and broad, noble humanity of aims.

  In Congress the commanding voice for freedom was that of the most learned, experienced, and courageous of American statesmen, the voice of a scholar and an old college professor, John Quincy Adams.

  President Adams, although at heart instigated by a Puritan intolerance of those who failed to conform with himself, was a true patriot, and as a public man was moved by the highest moral motives. He was a great statesman in so far as the comprehension of the principles of government and a mastery of a wide field of information were concerned, but he could not practically apply his knowledge. Instead of harmonizing the personal feuds between the friends of those who had been candidates with him, he antagonized each one with his Administration at the earliest possible moment, and before the expiration of his first year in the White House he had wrecked the Republican party left by Monroe, as completely as his father had wrecked the Federal party established by Washington…. Mr. Adams used to rise between four and six o’clock, according to the season, and either take a ride on horseback or walk to the Potomac River, where he bathed, remaining in the water for an hour or more in the summer. Returning to the White House, he read two chapters of the Bible and then glanced over the morning papers until nine, when he breakfasted. From ten until four he remained in the Executive Office, presiding over Cabinet meeting, receiving visitors, or considering questions of state. Then, after a long walk, or a short ride on horseback, he would sit down to dine at half-past five, and after dinner resume his public duties.

  Mr. Adams’s speech upon the right of petition in 1837 was one of the most effective and triumphant speeches ever made in Congress. The great speech of Mr. Webster, in reply to Hayne, was not listened to with more interest. Mr. Adams was one of the most remarkable men that this country has produced, and in no respect was he more remarkable than in the fact that he became a great offhand speaker after he had left the Presidency and had reached the period in life after which there is usually a decline instead of improvement in intellectual vigor…. He was a free lance, and hard hitter. With his armor always on, he was never unprepared for a tilt with any one who was bold enough to enter the lists. His great learning and command of language made him a most formidable and dangerous antagonist. Pugnacious by temperament, he loved a fight better than he loved his friends, of whom there were few, and with none was he ever long in perfect accord. Before he commenced his Congressional career, he had alienated from himself his old Federal allies, and he entered into no alliances afterwards. He was hated as few public men have been, but his great ability, perfect independence, and thorough uprightness, commanded the respect even of those who hated him. In the great speech to which I have referred, he achieved the very highest reputation as a debater and orator. It was a speech in which learning and argument and the bitterest satire were so combined as to overwhelm his opponents, and secure for himself the name of the “Old Man Eloquent,” which he afterwards retained.

  The peculiar features of his father’s character were so intensified in him that he may be deemed the typical figure rather than his father.

  It was what he said, more than the way he said it, which told. His vigorous mind never worked more surely and clearly than when he stood alone in the midst of an angry House, the target of their hatred and abuse. His arguments were strong, and his large knowledge and wide experience supplied him with every weapon for defense and attack. Beneath the lash of his invective and his sarcasm the hottest of the slave-holders cowered away. He set his back against a great principle. He never retreated an inch, he never yielded, he never conciliated, he was always an assailant, and no man and no body of men had the power to turn him. He had his dark hours, he felt bitterly the isolation of his position, but he never swerved. He had good right to set down in his diary, when the gag rule was repealed, “Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God.”

  From the time he crawled over the kitchen floor and pushed a chair, learning to walk, or tumbled down the stairs and then made his way bravely up again alone, he knew that he would arrive. Precocious, proud, firm, and with a coldness in his nature that was not a heritage from either his father or mother, he made his way. It was a zigzag course, and the way was strewn with the flotsam and jetsam of wrecked parties and blighted hopes, but out of the wreckage John Quincy Adams always appeared, calm, poised, and serene. When he opposed the purchase of Louisiana it looks as if he allowed his animosity for Jefferson to put his judgment in chancery. He made mistakes, but this was the only blunder of his career.

General

  John Quincy Adams belongs to neither of the prominent political parties, fights no partisan battles, and cannot be prevailed upon to sacrifice truth and principle upon the altar of party expediency and interest. Hence neither party is interested in defending his course, or in giving him an opportunity to defend himself. But however systematic may be the efforts of mere partisan presses to suppress and hold back from the public eye the powerful and triumphant vindication of the Right of Petition, the graphic delineation of the slavery spirit in Congress, and the humbling disclosure of Northern cowardice and treachery contained in these letters, they are destined to exert a powerful influence upon the public mind. They will constitute one of the most striking pages in the history of our times. They will be read with avidity in the North and South, and throughout Europe. Apart from the interest excited by the subjects under discussion, and viewed only as literary productions, they may be ranked among the highest intellectual efforts of their author. Their sarcasm is Junius-like,—cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness, directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with O’Connell’s celebrated “Letters to the Reformers of Great Britain.” They are the offspring of an intellect unshorn of its primal strength, and combining the ardor of youth with the experience of age…. On his “gray, discrowned head” the entire fury of slave-holding arrogance and wrath was expended. He stood alone, beating back, with his aged and single arm, the tide which would have borne down and overwhelmed a less sturdy and determined spirit.

  Not many persons have left behind them a greater variety of papers than John Quincy Adams, all more or less marked by characteristic modes of thought, and illustrating his principles of public and private action. Independently of a diary kept almost continuously for sixty-five years, and of numbers of other productions, official and otherwise, already printed, there is a variety of discussion and criticism on different topics, together with correspondence public and private, which, if it were all to be published, as was that of Voltaire, would be likely quite to equal in quantity the hundred volumes of that expansive writer.

  Mr. Adams seems, in fact, to have positively loved to use his pen. His habit was to get up at a very early hour, often before sunrise; and this he did even when resident at courts, where he was forced to attend parties kept up inordinately late. His working day was thus much longer than that of most of his associates, and was filled by the pen, which indefatigably committed to paper what appear to have been in most cases his first thoughts on every conceivable subject which presented itself, whether in talk, reading, silent observation in company, or solitude. It was, we believe, rarely his habit to revise; and the resulting mass of manuscript is almost beyond precedent in the lives of even industrious men. But it strongly reminds us of the work achieved by one man, of whose writings Mr. Adams was a constant and devoted student, and whose character, though strongly alien to his in many points, was strongly akin to it in others: that is, Cicero. Nor in any point is this resemblance more curiously marked than in the fondness alike of the Volscian and the Yankee for verse composition, of a kind that both contemporaries and posterity persist in thinking the reverse of poetical. The editor has very properly included a few of his father’s pieces in these volumes, justly remarking that no true notion of his character can be acquired without them. He retained the habit of translating and composing in verse.

  The author of a diary conspicuous for its malignity, and father of a son unwise enough to publish it.

  He undoubtedly kept gall and wormwood in his inkstand for daily use, but he was a charming old man all the same. He fulfilled the character which he gave to Roger Williams,—“that conscientious, contentious man.”

  Adams has a distinct claim to be remembered in literature, though not for the highest work. His numerous occasional discourses, biographical sketches and eulogies, published together as “Lives of Celebrated Statesmen,” his translations and forgotten verses, amongst them an epic poem, testify to his aspiration if not his inspiration.

  Literature had always possessed strong charms for him, and he had cultivated it after his usual studious and conscientious fashion. But his style was too often prolix, sententious, and turgid—faults which marked nearly all the writing done in this country in those days. The world has probably not lost much by reason of the non-completion of the contemplated volumes. He could have made no other contribution to the history of the country at all approaching in value or interest to the Diary.

  Volumes [“Memoirs”] of surpassing interest on the personal and political life of one of the noblest and most accomplished of our public men. The most striking and interesting peculiarity of the diary is the fulness of the author’s reflections and comments on the men and on the events among which he lived. It was his constant habit to jot down his thoughts on what was taking place about him. Accordingly, there is scarcely an event of importance during the long years of his public career on which he has not expressed an opinion.

  A minutely faithful diary, worthy of the Adams name, and surpassing in length (twelve octavo volumes), though certainly not in readableness, those of Pepys and Samuel Sewall…. John Quincy Adams, like Washington, John Adams, Jefferson and Madison, was a man of culture, which occasionally clothed itself in literary garb.

  Was far more learned and accomplished than his father, though greatly inferior to him in native ability. Though a constant writer, publishing during his life works on rhetoric, European travel, Shakespearean criticism and biography, besides a book of poems and many political articles, he deserves mention rather as a statesman than an author. Like his father, he kept a full diary, and like him maintained a voluminous and charming correspondence.