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John Quincy Adams vs Andrew Jackson

With age he was looking more like his father than he had, and there was no mistaking his extraordinary intelligence. But he was less ardent, less spontaneous than his father. He had little of John Adams's passion for life or his humor. Whatever prior aversion to politics he had had, or that his parents may have expressed, he was very soon involved.

In April 1802. John Quincy was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. The following November, he ran as a Federalist candidate for Congress and loxt, but by less than 100 votes. He had become a rising star. In February 1803, at the age of thirty-five, John Quincy Adams was elected a United States senator. Abigail told John Quincy to eat well, not work too hard, and mind his appearance.

I do not wish a Senator to dress like a beau, but I want him to conform so far as to fashion as not to incur the character of singularity, nor give occasion to the world to ask what kind of mother he had or to charge upon a wife negligence and inattention when she is guiltless. The neatest man, observed a lady the other day, wants his wife to pull up his collar and mind that his coat is brushed.

John Quincy took his seat in the Senate in time to give Jefferson support in the biggest accomplishment of his presidency, the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. With the acquisition of Louisiana from Spain, Napoleon I3onaparte had begun planning a French empire in North America. But when the army he sent to crush the slave revolt in San Domingo was wiped out by war and yellow fever, Sonaparte abandoned his plans and suddenly, in 1803, offered to sell the United States all of the vast, unexplored territory of Louisiana. It was an astounding turn of events and one that probably would not have come to pass had the QuasiWar burst into something larger. Were it not for John Adams making peace with France, there might never have been a Louisiana Purchase.

Federalists in Congress argued that under the Constitution the powers of the President did not include buying foreign territory. Jefferson, who had for so long advocated less, not more, power in the executive, chose to take a larger view now, given the opportunity he had to double the size of the nation at a stroke. John Quincy crossed party lines to support the purchase, which his father, too, strongly favored. " `Curse the stripling, how he apes his sire,' " declared one irate Massachusetts Federalist.

When John Quincy joined in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the spread of slavery into Louisiana, he found it harder than pulling a "jaw tooth," he told his father. "This is now in general the great art of legislation at this place," he continued, venting his frustration. "To do a thing by assuming the appearance of preventing it. To prevent a thing by assuming that of doing it."

By the time Jefferson's second term was under way, Bonaparte had crowned himself the Emperor Napoleon and with his victorious armies had become master of Europe. France and Britain were still at war, and on the high seas both the French and the British were again attacking American commerce, seizing American ships, and impressing American seamen. More than a thousand ships and millions of dollars in goods had been lost, and everywhere in the country debate raged over what to do.

Determined to avoid war, Jefferson called for an embargo on all American shipping, New Englanders saw it as a catastrophe for New England, if not the nation. But alone of the Federalists in Congress, John Quincy supported and voted for the embargo as a worthy "experiment," the same term used by Jefferson.

When Massachusetts Federalists denounced John Quincy as no longer one of the party, the embargo proved a colossal mistake for the country, and a catastrophe for New England. For John Quincy, it meant the end of his Senate career. In 1808 the Massachusetts legislature elected a successor even earlier than they had to, which prompted John Quincy to resign before his term ended. If he or his father ever entertained any thought that Jefferson, before leaving office, might reward John Quincy for the support he had given, they were greatly disappointed, for this was not to happen. It was Jefferson's successor, James Madison, who after taking office as President, rescued John Quincy from practicing law in Boston by appointing him minister to Russia.

On April 1, 1814, at St. Petersburg, John Quincy received word that he had been appointed a peace envoy to negotiate an end to the War of 1812, and was to proceed at once to Ghent in Flanders (Belgium). It seemed as though history was repeating itself, with John Ouincy taking up the same role his father had played at Paris in 1782.

Events were moving fast. On April 11, after further defeat on the battlefield, Napoleon abdicated his throne and went into exile on the island of Elba. The French monarchy was restored under the Comte de Provence, Louis XVIII. In America, on August 24, British troops made a successful assault on Washington, scattered the government, and set fire to the Capitol and the President's House. American warships had been driven from the sea. The Treasury was empty, the outlook grim.

In December, Federalists from the five New England States, led by Timothy Pickering, met at Hartford to denounce the "ruinous war." There was even talk of New England seceding from the union. At Ghent the same month, the American commissioners led by John Quincy Adams signed a peace treaty with Britain, news that would not reach the United States until February, by which time Americans under General Andrew Jackson had won a decisive victory, on January 15, at the battle of New Orleans. Adams held a dinner in Jackson’s honor.

In 1824, with James Monroe due to retire from the presidency, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was nominated as a candidate to replace him, exactly as long predicted. With three others also nominated, and all, like John Quincy, avowed Republicans - William Crawford of Georgia, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee - it became a crowded contest of "increasing heat." A feud developed between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

After election day, it became known that in Quincy, Braintree, and Weymouth, Massachusetts, John Quincy had received every vote cast for the presidency. The outcome of the contest nationally, however, was not to be resolved until February. The result of the four-way race was that no candidate had a majority in the Electoral College, although Jackson had finished ahead in both popular and electoral votes. It fell to the House of Representatives to choose the winner, and they chose Adams. The deciding vote took place in Washington on February 9, 1825.

Jackson's followers felt a deal had been made between Adams and Henry Clay (who had finished fourth and was ineligible) who as Speaker of the House had a great deal of influence over the voting. When Clay became Adams’ Secretary of State. they cried foul and claimed a “corrupt bargain” had been made. On Friday, March 4, 1825, inside the Hall of the House of Representatives at the Capitol in Washington, John Quincy Adams took the oath of office as the sixth President of the United States, administered by Chief Justice John Marshall.

Jackson’s followers spent the next four years making sure that nothing of importance was accomplished by the Adams administration in preparation for the rematch in 1828. They also succeeded in making Adams’ term extremely uncomfortable and unsatisfying.

The election of 1828 was one of the nastiest in our history. Adams’ followers (though not Adams himself) attacked Jackson and his wife on very personal terms. Jackson and his wife had been married before her divorce had become final due to the poor communications on the frontier where they lived. When they discovered their mistake, they were married again. Throughout his career, his opponents tried to trigger his well-known temper by attacking his wife’s character, accusing her of bigamy and adultery. In this election, she became the favorite target of the opposition on a national level. The attacks on her became so vicious and frequent that her health was affected.

The strain of the humiliation weakened Mrs. Jackson, and she died of a heart attack between Jackson’s victory and his inauguration. Jackson blamed his political opponents for her death and never forgave them. One result was that Jackson removed from office as many members of the opposition party as possible and replaced them with his loyal followers. This extreme use of patronage became known as the Spoils System.

For his part, Adams was as hurt and upset by his defeat in the election of 1828 as his father had been in 1800. Like his father, he left Washington the night before the inauguration of his successor. Unlike his father and Jefferson, he was never reconciled with Jackson. Two years later, Adams returned as a Representative and continued to oppose Jackson and his policies.

Politics became very personal. Our political system underwent dramatic changes as a result. Jackson created a new use of patronage that dramatically increased the political power of the Presidency and set new precedents for the use of appointments for political advantage. After this feud, things would never be the same.

John S. Cooper. Presidential Feuds. Suite101.com: the curious reader's destination for art & science, mind & body, home & abroad: read, respond, relate. November 9, 2001 / November 16, 2001 / November 23, 2001 / November 30, 2001 / December 7, 2001.

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