📚John Quincy Adams

6th President · 1825–1829 · Democratic-Republican

John Quincy Adams was the son of the second president and, like his father, a one-term president. Perhaps the most impressive part of his career came after the presidency: he served in the House of Representatives for 17 years, where he fought tirelessly against the expansion of slavery and argued (and won) the famous Amistad case before the Supreme Court.

Diplomatic Prodigy

John Quincy Adams accompanied his father on diplomatic missions to Europe as a teenager and was fluent in several languages. By 26 he was U.S. minister to the Netherlands. He served as U.S. senator from Massachusetts, minister to Russia and later to Britain, and then as James Monroe's Secretary of State — where he negotiated the Adams-Onís Treaty and drafted most of the Monroe Doctrine.

The Corrupt Bargain

The 1824 election was a four-way race. Andrew Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes but not a majority. The election went to the House, which chose Adams after House Speaker Henry Clay threw his support behind him. When Adams then made Clay his Secretary of State, Jackson supporters cried "Corrupt Bargain!" — a charge that haunted Adams's single term and fueled Jackson's triumphant rematch in 1828.

Second Act in Congress

Adams was devastated by his 1828 loss but returned to politics by winning a House seat in 1830 — the only ex-president to serve in Congress after leaving office. For the next 17 years he battled the "gag rule" that Southern congressmen had imposed to block discussion of anti-slavery petitions. He finally succeeded in repealing it in 1844. He died at the Capitol in 1848 after suffering a stroke on the House floor.

The Amistad Case

In 1841, the 73-year-old Adams argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Amistad captives — 53 Africans who had been illegally enslaved, had seized the ship transporting them, and were awaiting their fate. Adams won, and the captives were freed and returned to Africa.

JQA Trivia

• He was the first president to be photographed — a daguerreotype from 1843.
• Adams swam nude in the Potomac most mornings during his presidency; the New York Tribune's Anne Royall reportedly held his clothes hostage on the bank until he granted her an interview.
• He and his father John Adams are the only father-son pair of presidents until George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
• He died saying, "This is the last of Earth. I am content."

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