October 17

"Always stand on principle...even if you stand alone."

John Quincy Adams, 6th President, 1825-1829, Attributed to the younger Adams. John Quincy Adams was a hard man to like and a complicated person. Although a successful statesman and one term President, he may almost be seen more as a prophet in the biblical sense, as he fought often solitary and unpopular battles for the conscience of the young and developing Unites States and its people. He had a vast and cultured background, mixed with a stubborn, almost savage nature, and some would say, personal depression. Born on July 11, 1767, the eldest child of John and Abigail Adams, he witnessed from afar the battle of Bunker Hill on June 17,1775 and subsequently experienced the danger and uncertainty of the American Revolution. When his father signed The Declaration of Independence, he feared for his father's life and feared the British might try to take his family hostage. As an adolescent, he spent seven years in Europe with his father who was a special envoy during the Revolution. During that time, at the age of fourteen, young John Quincy served as secretary and translator for his father's own envoy in St. Petersburg, Russia. When the end of the conflict was negotiated in Paris in 1783, Adams returned home with his father and earned his law degree at Harvard College. He pursued his own career as an envoy and statesman, eventually serving as Secretary of state under James Monroe. In 1824, he won the Presidential election in a highly controversial decision when Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, but Adams won the electoral vote after another candidate, Henry Clay, swung his electoral votes to Adams. Never able to gain much support for his policies, Adams served only one term as President. He did go on to serve nine terms in Congress where he fought a long, unpopular battle against slavery. Because slavery was allowed by the constitution, in 1837 Congress even passed a "gag rule" preventing discussions and petitions against slavery. Adams fought for seven years to overturn the rule and continued to speak out against "the merciless scourge of slavery", "the great and foul stain upon the North American Union". (American Statesman: John Quincy Adams, Edited by John T. Morse, Jr., Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Riverside Press, 1883). When asked if he were ever discouraged, Adams replied, "Duty is ours, results are God's." The gag rule was lifted in 1844 and the fight against slavery continued. Adams died February 23, 1848, two days after suffering a stroke on the floor of Congress, while voting against approval of what became the Mexican-American War.