Who is the Real John Quincy Adams? Biography, Education, Quotes (1998)

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John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was an American statesman who served as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. He also served as a diplomat, a Senator and member of the House of Representatives. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Bemis argues that Adams was able to: gather together, formulate, and practice the fundamentals of American foreign-policy – self-determination, independence, noncolonization, nonintervention, nonentanglement in European politics, Freedom of the Seas, [and] freedom of commerce. Adams was the son of former President John Adams and Abigail Adams. As a diplomat, Adams played an important role in negotiating key treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with Britain over the United States' northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, and drafted the Monroe Doctrine. Historians agree he was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history. As president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education. Adams enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt.[7] He was stymied by a Congress controlled by his enemies, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians eager to undercut him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson. Adams is best known as a diplomat who shaped America's foreign policy in line with his ardently nationalist commitment to America's republican values. More recently, he has been portrayed as the exemplar and moral leader in an era of modernization. During Adams' lifetime, technological innovations and new means of communication spread messages of religious revival, social reform, and party politics. Goods, money, and people traveled more rapidly and efficiently than ever before. Adams was elected a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts after leaving office, serving for the last 17 years of his life with far greater acclaim than he had achieved as president. Animated by his growing revulsion against slavery,[9] Adams became a leading opponent of the Slave Power. He predicted that if a civil war were to break out, the president could abolish slavery by using his war powers. Adams also predicted the Union's dissolution over the slavery issue, but said that if the South became independent there would be a series of bloody slave revolts. John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, to John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams (née Smith) in a part of Braintree, Massachusetts that is now Quincy.[11] John Quincy Adams did not attend school, but was tutored by his cousin James Thax and his father's law clerk, Nathan Rice.[12] He was named for his mother's maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is named.[13] His namesake great-grandfather died only two days after he was born. Adams first learned of the Declaration of Independence from the letters his father wrote his mother from the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In 1779, Adams began a diary that he kept until just before he died in 1848.[14] The massive fifty volumes are one of the most extensive collections of first-hand information from the period of the early republic and are widely cited by modern historians.[7] Much of Adams' youth was spent accompanying his father overseas. John Adams served as an American envoy to France from 1778 until 1779 and to the Netherlands from 1780 until 1782, and the younger Adams accompanied his father on these diplomatic missions.[7] Adams acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. He matriculated in Leiden January 10, 1781.[15][16] For nearly three years, at the age of 14, he accompanied Francis Dana as a secretary on a mission to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to obtain recognition of the new United States. He spent time in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark and, in 1804, published a travel report of Silesia.[17] During these years overseas, Adams became fluent in French and Dutch and became familiar with German and other European languages. Adams, mainly through the influence of his father, had also excelled in classical studies and reached high fluency of Latin and Greek. Upon entering Harvard he had already translated Virgil, Horace, Plutarch and Aristotle.[18] He entered Harvard College and was graduated in 1787 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Phi Beta Kappa.[19] Adams House at Harvard College is named in honor of Adams and his father. He later earned an M.A. from Harvard in 1790.[20] He apprenticed as an attorney with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts, from 1787 to 1789. He gained admittance to the bar in 1791 and began practicing law in Boston. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy_Adams