[00:00:22] Speaker A: You are listening to WriteonRadio on kFAI 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. dot I'm Eric Zimmerman. Josh is joined by historian Randall woods to discuss his deeply researched biography, John Quincy Adams, a man for the whole people. Woods peels back the many layers of John Quincy's long life, exposing a rich and complicated family saga and a political legacy that transformed the American Republic. All of this and more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Joined by historian Randall woods to talk about his new book on John Quincy Adams, titled John Quincy Adams, a man for the whole people. A magisterial journey through the epic life and transformative times of John Quincy Adams. Woods peels back the many layers of John Quincy's long life, exposing a rich and complicated family saga and a political legacy. Woods, a John A. Cooper Distinguished professor of history at the University of Arkansas, where he has taught since 1971. His books include LBJ, Architect of American Ambition, and Fulbright, a biography which won the Robert H. Ferrell Prize. Randall woods, welcome to write on radio.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Thanks so much for having me.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: So how did the familial and community environment in Braintree shape the early political and personal development of John Quincy Adams?
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Well, I, perhaps the most important factor about him and his background was he was the son of John and Abigail Adams, one of the founding fathers. She one of the major intellectuals of their time.
They were not wealthy people. John was a struggling lawyer, but a member of the Continental Congress, one of the authors of the constitution.
John Quincy was the eldest of son and particularly for Abigail, who at that time powerful women could not express their ambition through business or politics.
They did that to their children. And so John Quincy became the avatar of both his parents ambition.
They were extremely bright, very well read, particularly for their time. Quincy Adams was something of a child prodigy. It's estimated that his iq was 170.
He was fluent in French by the time he left with his father at eleven years old, for Paris, where John would oversee the implementation of the franco american treaty. His relationship with his mother was difficult.
She had very high expectations of him while he was traveling to Europe when he was eleven, he wrote in that I would rather you sink to the bottom of the ocean than commit a dishonorable act. He foiled two of his romances.
He was emotionally much closer to his father and remained so throughout their lives.
The Adams were intensely ambitious for themselves and for their country, and Quincy Adams was their, he was a product of those two people, but he eventually transcended them.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Right in your understanding of John Quincy's education abroad, how did his exposure to european culture and politics influence his later diplomatic strategies?
[00:04:35] Speaker C: Well, it was absolutely crucial.
He traveled with his father to Europe, as I said, when he was eleven. And except for a three month period, he remained there until he was 18, when he returned to America to attend Harvard. At 18, he was the most well traveled American of his generation.
His father was in Paris. He was a minister to the Netherlands. Quincy Adams was secretary to Francis Dana, who worked for Adams at the court of Catherine the Great.
He traveled throughout Scandinavia.
He reveled in european culture, the theater arts, literature.
Indeed, Quincy Adams was as much a european as he was an american. And during this period, he met because of his father and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, he met and knew virtually every major figure in european politics and culture.
And after he entered the diplomatic corps in the 1790s and then as secretary of state, his judgment was invariably correct because of all Americans, he was most familiar with how politics at the courts.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Of Europe operated during his time in Paris. How did Adams interactions with key figures and the political environment impact his diplomatic approach and views on international relations?
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Well, in Paris, it was not just in Paris, but in St. Petersburg and, and in the Hague and Amsterdam and Berlin, where he served minister to Prussia.
Now he was present during the implementation of the franco american treaty, and also he was present when his father was a signer, a negotiator of the treaty of 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War. So all of these things made him very special when it came to being a diplomat.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: How did m's education at Harvard contribute to his intellectual development and prepare him for his future career in public service?
[00:07:14] Speaker C: Very little, he thought. Harvard was a joke. In most respects it was. There were only two faculty that he really respected. Most of the teaching was done by tutors. The students knew more than the faculty. His education there came from his interaction with his peers, who were generally brighter than the faculty, but it didn't really play.
His parents began educating him when he was six years old.
In that generation, families like the Adams were obsessed with childrearing. And so from a very early age, his father and mother provided him reading lists in classical literature and modern history. So he was, I think his family and his family's expectations had a much greater impact on his intellectual development.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Can you discuss the significance of Louisa Adams and John Quincy Adams life and career, particularly in terms of her influence and support?
[00:08:27] Speaker C: She was a balance to him, a counterbalance.
Louisa Adams was the daughter of an american merchant, a prominent american merchant in London who was also a us consul to Britain at one point. She was raised in France and great Britain.
The family John Quincy tended to be somewhat dour, introspective and socially, at times socially inept. But Louisa Johnson, later Adams, Washington, just the opposite. Her family was very socially active, a great sense of humor, a lot of music, a lot of socializing. And she had better political instincts than he did. So after they were married, very difficult courtship after they were married, and they remained married throughout their very long lives, she provided a very good balance to his personality, and it was a political asset.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Chapter 13 is called Cicero's acolyte. I was wondering if you could discuss how Adam's admiration for Cicero influenced his own political and ethical beliefs.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: Well, it did tremendously.
The late 18th and 19th century was the age of orators, rhetoric great speech makers. Daniel Webster, for example, John C. Calhoun. And Quincy Adams was probably foremost among those speakers. And his father and Quincy Adams saw in Cicero the power of the word, the power of speech to move other men, to move nations, to shape policies.
And indeed, between 1806 and 1809, when he was back in the United States, Quincy Adams was the first Boylston professor of rhetoric at Harvard. And he wrote a two volume work, a compilation of his lectures on the use of language to persuade whether it was in the pulpit or whether it was in the courtroom or in the legislature. So, and throughout his life, he remained committed to the idea that skilled speech could shape public affairs.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: What were the main accomplishments and challenges of Adam's tenure as a diplomat in Russia?
[00:11:24] Speaker C: Well, it was crucial.
He was America's first minister to imperial Russia.
Catherine the Great had rejected our overtures during the revolution. He became actually an intimate friend of Alexander I, the emperor, who was, for a russian czar, rather progressive, progressive in his views, but.
And Adams would be there from 1809 through 1815, when the napoleonic wars were coming to a head. During that period, the western world was divided between napoleonic, what was divided between Britain and its allies, and Napoleon and his allies. And both of them tried to prevent the US from trading, trading with the other side.
Russia was neutral and a funnel for us trade throughout Europe.
And Britain was also an ally in America's efforts to.
To resist french and british raiding, control of american shipping.
And, of course, after Napoleon's defeat and the creation of the concert of Europe, the Holy alliance, which Russia dominated.
Quincy Adams's relationship with Alexander the first, approved of great value to the US.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: How did I get time? How Adams was able to reconcile his views on american expansion, but the ethical and political dilemmas it posed?
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Well, he, you know, toward the end of his life, he came to see his public career is something of a failure because, as you know, he was, as secretary of state, generally regarded the most effective secretary of state in american history. He was the chief driving force behind manifest destiny and continental expansion. He concluded the transcontinental treaty. It was a driving force behind the Monroe doctrine.
He was committed. He believed that the United States was either destined or required by strategic considerations to occupy all of North America. And so, but particularly after he was president and entered the House of Representatives, where he became the scourge and slave power, he came to realize that in his advocacy of western expansion, also facilitated the spread of slavery. And so he became deeply conflicted about that.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Could you talk about what role Adams played in the formulation of the Monroe doctrine and what were its immediate and long term effects?
[00:14:49] Speaker C: Well, he was. I mean, the.
The Monroe doctrine had its origins in George Washington's farewell address, which declared that the US should not become involved in european politics or alliances.
But by the time the Monroe doctrine was enunciated in 1823, all of Latin America was in full revolt against spanish and portuguese rule. And the Adams and Monroe believed it was in very. That independent, that an independent central and South America was very much in the interest of the United States. And so the Monroe doctrine declared, as a matter of us policy, that we would not permit further european colonization, that we would not permit military or political intervention in the Americas, and declared that there were really two spheres, the new world and the old.
And implicitly, we would preside over the new world and warn Britain not to interfere. It was a statement of policy that would dominate american foreign relations up until, really the second world war.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Chapter.
Chapter 29 is called liberty is power. I was wondering if you could describe how Adam's belief in the phrase liberty is power manifested in his policies and political actions.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: The United States was a republic. It was a democracy, and almost alone at that time in a world of divine right monarchies.
And Adams believed that a republican form of government, a democracy, was the weight of the future, and that a government that had the consent of its citizens, could act to create a more perfect union at home and act as a shining example to the rest of the world. So in that sense, he believed that liberty was very much power.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: What were the main factors that contributed to Adams defeat in the election of 1828, and how did he respond afterwards?
[00:17:38] Speaker C: He was a terrible politician. Both he and his father were awful politicians. They didn't like to slap backs or kiss babies, and they looked down on people who did that. And you know, when they were both in office, they refused to reward their supporters and penalize their enemies. Both John and John Quincy had in their cabinet, partisans who were working for the other side refused to dismiss them. So, Quincy Adams, in the 1820s, the franchise began to expand in this country, that the qualifications for voting, of course, were restricted to white males, but they were expanded to include, you know, virtually in many states, virtually all free white males, and so much broader, and also people who were far less educated.
And it paved the way for the rise of Andrew Jackson and the democratic Republican party.
The role of. A major role of the press in determining elections.
Quincy Adams, simply, he regarded these trends as.
As a threat to the republic. He thought people like Jackson were demagogues, appealing to the fears and prejudices of the people. So he refused to get out in the trenches and do battle. And so he was really easy pickings for Jackson in 1828.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Okay, you just mentioned he had a concern then of people seeing politicians as demigods, being a threat to the republic. I was wondering if you could talk a bit further about other key threats to the american republic that Adams identified and how he proposed to address them.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Well, that's a good question. I mean, a simple question, because throughout his career, public career, he was obsessed with maintaining, protecting the Union.
He was a New Englander. But when he was senator from Massachusetts and the war was looming with Great Britain, New England, which was very pro british, certain individuals hatched a plan to secede, to have, led by Aaron burst, to have the mid Atlantic, to have the northeastern states and New England secede. And Adams exposed that plot. He went to Jefferson, who supposedly was his political enemy, and exposed that plot later on, as he would fight states rights in regard to indian removal and states like Georgia's threat to secede.
He fought the whole idea of nullification, interposition, the idea that states rights trumped the power of the federal government. And then, of course, he became very conflicted because this was a man who was committed to preserving the union at all costs. And yet, particularly after he became. Went to Congress in 1831, he was obsessed with undermining slavery.
He introduced legislation to abolish the three fifth clause to provide for the gradual emancipation of slaves, and he attacked the slave power. And initially, he believed that through the public abhorrence of slavery, the economic, the economic flaws that slavery presented could bring the institution down. But by the end of his career, rather tragically, he decided that civil war is probably inevitable. So here's a man who had to choose between. And he was, you know, he was morally conflicted. And for once, his I, his morals and his religious belief came in conflict with his patriotism. But in the end, he decided that probably civil war was inevitable. He did console himself with the belief that he had made the country strong enough to withstand a civil war and not be gobbled up by some foreign power.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: You just. Yeah, you just mentioned show how Adam's view on slavery and abolition evolved. Can you talk a little about Adam's involvement in the Amistad case and its significance for his legacy?
[00:22:43] Speaker C: Sure. And, you know, Quincy Adams is not nearly as well known, I think, undeservedly, as Jefferson and John Adams and Andrew Jackson.
But in many ways, I think he transcends those figures.
But he is known for representing the slaves on the Amistad in their appeal to the supreme court.
The Amistad was a spanish slaver that had harvested slaves in West Africa. At this point in 1841, that was illegal under spanish law. They transported them to Cuba, where they were sold.
But on their way, during a coastal voyage, on their way to the destination, the midday, the african slaves rebelled, seized control of the ship, forced it to sail in the north american waters, where it was captured. So the abolitionists took up the cause of the mutineers, the Amstad mutineers, claiming that they were free and had been illegally enslaved and ought to be returned home. And so Adams agreed to take that, take the case, and represent the Amistad slaves, the Amistad Africans, before the supreme Court. And he won, and they were free.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: And I believe my last question for you, how did Adams reflect on the costs and benefits of american expansion and empire in his later years?
[00:24:33] Speaker C: I don't think he regretted it in the end. I think that, again, he had been instrumental in continental expansion, the acquisition of the Floridas, the eventual Oregon treaty, which added the Pacific Northwest to the union. He fought against the annexation of Texas because it was going to be a slave state.
But he came to believe that that was, in a sense, a secondary issue. Slavery already existed in the union, and the annexation of Texas might tip the political balance in favor of slave states. But with or without Texas, the country was going to have to resolve the slavery issue, probably through force of arms.
So, as I said, this consolation was perhaps he made the country strong enough to withstand to survive a similar war.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: This has been my time talking to Randall woods about his deeply researched and well written John Quincy Adams, a man for the whole people. Randall, thanks for being on the show.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Oh, thanks very much for having me. I really appreciate it.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: And now this.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: You have been listening to. Right on radio on KFAI, 90.3 FM in Minneapolis and streaming live
[email protected]. dot I'm Eric, and we would like to thank Randall woods and all of our listeners. Without your support, KFAI would not be possible.
