John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire

William Earl Weeks

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813184098
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

This is the story of a man, a treaty, and a nation. The man was John Quincy Adams, regarded by most historians as America's greatest secretary of state. The treaty was the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, of which Adams was the architect. It acquired Florida for the young United States, secured a western boundary extending to the Pacific, and bolstered the nation's position internationally. As William Weeks persuasively argues, the document also represented the first determined step in the creation of an American global empire.

Weeks follows the course of the often labyrinthine negotiations by which Adams wrested the treaty from a recalcitrant Spain. The task required all of Adams's skill in diplomacy, for he faced a tangled skein of domestic and international controversies when he became secretary of state in 1817. The final document provided the United States commercial access to the Orient—a major objective of the Monroe administration that paved the way for the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.

Adams, the son of a president and later himself president, saw himself as destined to play a crucial role in the growth and development of the United States. In this he succeeded. Yet his legendary statecraft proved bittersweet. Adams came to repudiate the slave society whose interests he had served by acquiring Florida, he was disgusted by the rapacity of the Jacksonians, and he experienced profound guilt over his own moral transgressions while secretary of state. In the end, Adams understood that great virtue cannot coexist with great power.

Weeks's book, drawn in part from articles that won the Stuart Bernath Prize, makes a lasting contribution to our understanding of American foreign policy and adds significantly to our picture of one of the nation's most important statesmen.

ONE

Destiny

Oh! God, my only trust went there
Through all life’s scenes before
Lo! At the throne again I bow,
New mercies to implore.

Grant active power, grant fervent zeal;
and guide by thy controul;
and ever be my country’s weal
the purpose of my soul.

Extend, all seeing God, thy hand
In memory still decree
And make, to bless thy native land
An instrument of me.

From John Quincy Adams’s diary, 21 September 1817

Fifty years old in 1817, John Quincy Adams stood at the crossroads of an already remarkable life. Returning from his post as United States minister to Great Britain, he prepared to assume the office of secretary of state in the new administration of James Monroe. The appointment represented both an opportunity and a risk for Adams; all his previous accomplishments would count for little if he failed in his new job.

No American had been better prepared to be secretary of state. Adams’s entire life had led to this end; if he failed, it would not be for lack of experience. His diplomatic career had begun at age twelve, when he accompanied his father to Paris to serve as his secretary in the negotiations to end the War of Independence. George Washington, acting as a patron to the young Adams, appointed him to his first diplomatic post in 1794 as United States minister to the Netherlands. At The Hague, Adams received his mature introduction to European diplomacy. It proved a strategic spot from which to watch the balance of the French Revolution unfold. Adams’s reports home told of the extensive influence of Jacobinism in the nominally independent Netherlands. His experiences there reinforced what became a lifelong hostility to the French Revolution and a suspicion of revolutions generally.¹

From The Hague, in 1795 Adams went to London, where he assisted in the final exchange of ratifications of Jay’s Treaty. Though not entirely successful in his mission, he had the opportunity to deal face to face with some of the most skilled diplomats in Europe. It proved an educational if chastening experience.

Adams’s first important diplomatic assignment came in 1797 when his father, now president, appointed his son to be the first United States minister to Prussia. In Berlin he negotiated his first treaty, an agreement outlining commercial relations between the United States and Prussia. The most important issue concerned the maritime rights of neutrals, a cause Adams championed the rest of his life. The negotiations gave him his first opportunity to bargain by diplomatic note; he later became a master of this technique. A keen and tireless observer of people and events, Adams found his four years in Prussia an invaluable part of his education as a diplomat.²

After a brief and uninspiring interlude practicing law in his native Massachusetts, Adams returned to public life in 1803 as a United States senator. Nominally a Federalist, he pursued an independent political course that resulted in his siding frequently with the Republicans. He was the only Federalist from New England in either house to support the Louisiana Purchase; moreover, he strongly supported Jefferson’s embargo, a policy that was anathema to most New Englanders.³ Adams paid a price for his principled stands, being recalled from office prior to the end of his term. Yet he had established a reputation as a powerful spokesman for expansion and nationalism.

Rebuked by his own party, Adams formally switched allegiance to the Republicans in 1808. Not long after, President James Madison rewarded his support by appointing him minister to Russia. Adams stayed in St. Petersburg from 1809 to 1814 and developed a cordial relationship Tsar Alexander I. The two men went on long walks together, during which Adams gained further insight into the intricacies of European balance-of-power politics.⁴ The dazzling court life of St. Petersburg enlightened but did not beguile him; the soirees permitted him to observe and study the European diplomatic corps. Adams’s most important achievement in Russia concerned a conflict over the northwest coast of North America: he instinctively refused a Russian offer that would in effect have recognized the Russian right to fur trading posts in the region. This turned out to be the first step in a long strategy that eventually resulted in the formal statement prohibiting further European colonization in the Western Hemisphere—the Monroe Doctrine.

From St. Petersburg, Adams went directly to the city of Ghent in Belgium, where he chaired the American peace comission negotiating an end to the War of 1812. Here he had the opportunity to duplicate the peacemaking achievements of his father. Many of the issues in dispute were the same as those in 1782: boundaries, fishing rights, and the status of the native peoples of North America. At first, a favorable settlement seemed unlikely; however, a shift in battlefield fortunes and the determined work of the American commissioners salvaged an agreement based on the status quo ante bellum. In light of the circumstances, it was a formidable diplomatic accomplishment.

For Adams, the triumph at Ghent opened the door to the preeminent position in the American foreign service—minister to Great Britain. The rising diplomat made the most of his opportunity. He participated in the negotiation of the Anglo-American Commercial Convention of July 1815, having been at his post less than a month. He laid the foundation for the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817, a pact limiting Anglo-American naval forces on the Great Lakes. Most important, he worked diligently to cultivate good relations between the United States and Great Britain.

British Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh joined Adams in the quest for closer Anglo-American ties. Though of very different personalities, the two men were like-minded when it came to the necessity of ending hostilities between the two nations. The dawn of the post-Napoleonic era made clear the interest each nation had in peace, trade, and expansion. The alignment of forces making possible the Monroe Doctrine began to evolve at this time; Castlereagh and Adams played a central role in that evolution.⁵

In sum, John Quincy Adams had led a life of distinguished achievement. His career to a remarkable degree mirrored that of his father, yet he had not reached the presidency, the post for which all previous accomplishments had been mere preparation. Adams had spent seventeen of the previous twenty-three years abroad, establishing an enviable reputation in European courts from St. Petersburg to London. Now it was time to assume a position of leadership at home and perhaps a place in history on a par with the near-mythical figures of the previous generation. To Adams it must have seemed that in some ways his career was only beginning.

It is therefore not surprising that Adams suffered from anxiety and self-doubt in the weeks and months before his return to America. Plagued with sleeplessness and physical ailments, he toyed with the idea of turning down the offer to head the Department of State. Even before Monroe offered the position, Adams wrote to William Eustis, a family friend, that he had “several strong, personal motives” for not accepting and that “the pros and cons [are] so nearly balanced that I willingly postpone the decision until there shall be a certainty that it will be called for.”⁶ Formal nomination to the post did not end his indecision; he wrote to his mother on 23 April 1817 of his “very serious doubts” as to his competency for the job. He feared that he could not “conciliate” his self-respect and “spirit of personal independence” with the subordination the job would require. Ultimately, as he did so often in times of crisis, Adams relied on his faith in God to assuage his uncertainties; he wrote his mother that “the disposer of every gift can alone enable me faithfully and acceptably to perform my duties.”⁷ In retrospect, Adams’s doubts as to his competency seem more coquettish than sincere. No American had more reason for confidence about his ability to discharge the duties of secretary of state.

Yet no American bore a greater burden of history and destiny than John Quincy Adams. Success for him was measured in terms far grander than for other men. The Founding Fathers had taken an active interest in him from the time he assisted his father in Europe. George Washington (after whom Adams named his firstborn) had launched his diplomatic career. Thomas Jefferson played a large role in his personal development: John Adams once wrote to the Sage of Monticello that John Quincy “appeared to be as much your boy as mine.”⁸ Finally, there was the example of his father—peace negotiator, vice-president, president—a giant among giants, constantly held up to the young boy as the personification of virtue and wisdom. Against this backdrop of immortality, John Quincy Adams hesitantly approached his term as secretary of state, unsure of his ability to measure up to his father’s generation yet compelled by his family to try.

Indeed, he has the distinction of being, as Samuel Flagg Bemis observed, the only national leader whose parents planned his life for him that way.⁹ John Quincy Adams bore the responsibility of extending the fame of a family convinced of its role as an agent of national destiny—a responsibility made greater by the alcoholism and dissipation of his two brothers. For Adams, success required extending the achievements of his father’s generation. Anything less would be failure. Abigail Adams continually reminded her eldest son of his special destiny as “a guardian of the laws, liberty, and religion of your country, as your father . . . had already been.”¹⁰ She stressed the heritage of previous generations and the need for their work to be continued: “Glory my son in a country which has given birth to characters, both in the civil and military departments, which may vie with the wisdom and valor of antiquity. As an immediate descendant of one of these characters, may you be led to an imitation of that disinterested patriotism and that noble love of country, which will teach you to despise wealth, titles, pomp, and equipage, as mere external advantages, which cannot add to the internal excellence of your mind, or compensate for the want of integrity or virtue.”¹¹ The emphasis was on service, integrity, and, most important, a conformity between one’s personal values and public actions.

John Adams, despite his long absences from home (he was away for all but six months of the years between 1774 and 1781), took an active interest in the upbringing of his children. His letters to Abigail continually stress that she must be attentive to the moral, religious, and educational training of their brood. He urged her to “mould the minds and manners of our children. . . . teach them not only to do virtuously but to excell.” Abigail was to “train them to virtue, habituate them to industry, activity, and spirit. Make them consider every vice, as shameful and unmanly.” He feared his absence would hinder the educational and moral development of his children. “Truth, sobriety, and industry” were to be “perpetually inculcated upon them.”¹² The lessons were of the utmost importance, for John Adams believed that the survival of the republic depended on “a small number of the ablest men” serving their nation virtuously and unselfishly.¹³ John Quincy Adams was from birth groomed to be one of these men.

While both his parents envisioned John Quincy as a future leader, it was Abigail who did the most to mold his mind. During her husband’s long absences she formed an especially close attachment to John Quincy. One historian writes that “she attended to every aspect, from his appearance to his soul.”¹⁴ Her precocious son provided sorely needed conversation and companionship during John’s absences.¹⁵ From his early teens she treated John Quincy as an adult, referring to him from time to time as “young Hercules.”¹⁶ Ardently interested in the success of her husband, Abigail deemed John Quincy the heir to greatness. She groomed him for future responsibilities, admonishing him at age twelve that “nothing is wanting from you but attention, diligence, and steady application. Nature has not been deficient.”¹⁷

Abigail and John knew that destiny, in order to be fulfilled, had to be prepared for. The success of the United States as the redeemer nation required that it be led by virtuous and learned men. Consequently, religion and education became the cornerstones of John Quincy Adams’s world. Abigail wrote to him in 1780: “The only sure and permanent foundation of virtue is religion. Let this important truth be engraven upon your heart.”¹⁸ She cultivated in her son a belief in an infinitely wise, just, and good God who held out the promise of eternal life to those who lived on earth the principle of the Golden Rule, thus reinforcing the relationship between right conduct and earthly reward. Moreover, she stressed to him that “you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.”¹⁹ John Quincy took to heart his mother’s religious instruction. Christian belief guided his life more than that of any other American political leader of his age. Adams read the Bible daily upon arising, believing it to be divine revelation. As an adult he read it in French and German translations.²⁰

John Quincy Adams came to rely heavily on his faith in God to surmount the frequent crises he faced. His belief in the power of human reason did not prevent him from appreciating the essentially unknowable nature of the universe. In this vein he wrote: “That same God who in one person exacts the punishment, in another person sustains it [and] thus makes his own mercy pay the satisfaction to his own injustice—this is not reason—it is mystery.”²¹ Religious faith provided Adams with a justification for life’s sufferings that his rationalist philosophy could not.

Education served as the other cornerstone of John Quincy Adams’s life, the second means by which one prepared to serve destiny. Bemis writes that his parents “prescribed his education to a degree that would stagger a modern psychologist.”²² As a toddler, the first book he read was Giles Gingerbread: A Little Boy Who Lived upon Learning, which taught that “merit and industry may entitle a man to any thing.” The stories in the book stressed the importance of familial duty, rigid adherence to moral precepts, piety, hard work, and a love for learning. In later years Abigail fondly recalled John Quincy’s learning the lessons of Giles Gingerbread by heart.²³ By age ten he had read most of the works of Shakespeare and Pope. His travels with his father gave his education a strongly European flavor. After attending prep schools in Paris and Amsterdam (and gaining the benefits of his father’s tutoring), he enrolled for a while at the University of Leyden. By his teenage years he had mastered French, Latin, German, and Dutch; he would later acquire Greek and a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish. His fluent French allowed him to serve at age fourteen as interpreter on Francis Dana’s mission to Russia.

Reading “the great books” proved a majo...