American History - Part 050 - Democratic Party Born

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Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION - American history in VOA Special English. John Quincy Adams was sworn in as president of the United States on March fourth, eighteen twenty-five. A big crowd came to the Capitol building for the ceremony. All the leaders of government were senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices and James Monroe, whose term as president was ending. This week in our series, Steve Ember and Shirley Griffith talk about John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States. John Quincy Adams spoke to the crowd. The main idea in his speech was unity. Adams said the Constitution and the representative democracy of the United States had proved a success. The nation was free and strong. And it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean across the continent of North America to the Pacific Ocean. John Quincy Adams had been raised to serve his country. His father was John Adams, the second president of the United States. His mother, Abigail, made sure he received an excellent education. There were three major periods in John Quincy Adams's public life. The period as president was the shortest. For about twenty-five years, Adams held mostly appointed jobs. He was the United States ambassador to the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and Britain. He helped lead the negotiations that ended the War of Eighteen Twelve between Britain and the United States. And he served eight years as secretary of state. He was president for four years after that. Then he served about seventeen years in the House of Representatives. He died in eighteen forty-eight. As secretary of state, Adams had two major successes. He was mostly responsible for the policy called the Monroe Doctrine. In that policy, President James Monroe declared that no European power should try to establish a colony anywhere in the Americas. Any attempt to do so would be considered a threat to the peace and safety of the United States. Adams's other success was the Transcontinental Treaty with Spain. In that treaty, Spain recognized American control over Florida. Spain also agreed on the line marking the western American frontier. The line went from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains. From there, it went to the Pacific Ocean, along what is now the border between the states of Oregon and California. Others in his administration tried to use the political power that he refused to use. One was Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Calhoun hoped to be president himself one day. He tried to influence Adams's choices for cabinet positions. Adams rejected Calhoun's ideas and made his own choices. Senator James Barbour, a former governor of Virginia, became secretary of war. Richard Rush of Pennsylvania became secretary of the treasury. And William Wirt of Maryland continued as attorney general. Adams thought he had chosen men who would represent the different interests of the different parts of the country. Adams said Congress should not be limited only to making laws to improve the nation's economic life. He said it should make laws to improve the arts and sciences, too. The political picture in the United States began to change during the administration of John Quincy Adams. His opponents won control of both houses of Congress in the elections of eighteen-twenty-six. These men called themselves Democrats. They supported General Andrew Jackson for president in the next presidential election in eighteen twenty-eight. To the Democrats' surprise, many congressmen from the Northeast joined with congressmen from the West to vote for the bill. They did so even though the bill would harm industries in the Northeast. Their goal was to keep alive the idea of protective trade taxes. The bill passed in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This left President Adams with a difficult decision. Should he sign it into law? Or should he veto it? If he signed the bill, it would show he believed that the Constitution permitted protective trade taxes. That would create even more opposition to him in the South. If he vetoed it, then he would lose support in the West and Northeast. Adams signed the bill. But he made clear that Congress was fully responsible for it. At first, the administration's newspaper called for national unity and an end to personal politics. Then it changed its policy. The paper had to defend charges of political wrongdoing within the Republican Party. It needed to turn readers away from these problems. So it printed a pamphlet that had been used against Andrew Jackson during an election campaign. The pamphlet accused Jackson of many bad things. The most damaging part said he had taken another man's wife. That will be our story on the next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION. thanks to manythings.org for text and audio This is a VOA product and is in the public domain