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National Geographic : 1964 Nov
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SIXTH PRESIDENT 1825-1829 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS served his Na tion with selfless, intelligent devotion from the age of 14, when he went to Rus sia as secretary to the United States Minister, until nearly 80, when he was fatally stricken in the House of Representatives. His four years as President were, ironically, less dis tinguished than his long career in foreign affairs before he went to the White House and the 17 years he spent thereafter in Con gress as a defender of civil liberties. Adams was the only President who was the son of a President, and in many respects his career as well as his temperament and view points paralleled those of his famous father. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1767, he witnessed, with his mother, Abigail Adams, the Battle of Bunker Hill from the top of Penn's Hill above the family farm. A stone cairn marks the spot today. With his father in Europe, he became an accomplished linguist and assiduous diarist, and served as secretary not only at the St. Petersburg Legation but also at the Paris 684 peace negotiations in 1783-all before he entered Harvard College. After graduation he became a lawyer. His essays defending Washington's neutrality pol icy so favorably impressed the first President that he was appointed, aged 26, as Minister to The Hague. As President, John Adams pro moted his talented son to the Berlin Legation. In 1802 John Quincy Adams was elected to the United States Senate, and for several years served simultaneously as Boylston Pro fessor of Rhetorick and Oratory at Harvard. In both positions he encountered hostility because he would not act as an orthodox New England Federalist. In 1808 Massachusetts Federalists forced him out of the Senate, but within the following year the Republican President, James Madison, appointed him as Minister to Russia. Diplomat Scorned Politics But Adams would not follow strict Repub lican positions either. Rather, like his father, he demonstrated a lifelong disdain for fixed party ideology and refused to practice the arts of the politician. For some years this disdain was little handicap as he served on the com mission to negotiate an end to the War of 1812, became Minister to Great Britain, and, beginning in 1817, served as Secretary of State under President Monroe. He was one of America's great Secretaries of State, arrang ing with England for the joint occupation of Charming Louisa Adams, born in London to an American merchant, married John Quincy Adams when she was 22. After four years in Europe as a diplomat's wife, she saw the United States for the first time. "Old Man Eloquent," John Quincy Adams alone of Presidents' sons occupied the White House in his own right. Reserved and con scientious, he won his Presidency by vote of the House of Representatives over Andrew Jackson, who gathered a plurality of elec toral votes but not a majority. The austere and plain-minded Adams took early morn ing swims in the Potomac. One day a startled servant had to dash back to the White House to get a carriage for the dripping President, whose boat had swamped. PAINTING BY GEORGEP. A . HEALY
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