Posted on 02/21/2017 1:52:41 PM PST by iowamark
On this day in 1848, just as he stands up from his desk in the House of Representatives to defend his no vote on a bill, former President John Quincy Adams suddenly collapses from a cerebral hemorrhage. House members carried him to a bed in the Speaker of the House’s private chambers and immediately summoned his wife Louisa. By the time she arrived, he was not able to recognize her. His last words supposedly were, This is the end of earth, but I am content.
Born on July 11, 1767, in Braintree (later renamed Quincy), Massachusetts, Adams was the son of the second U.S. president, John Adams. He inherited his father’s passion for politics, accompanied his father on diplomatic missions from the time he was 14 and, once grown, entered the legal profession. As a young man, he served as minister to a variety of countries including Prussia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and England. In 1803, he began his first term in the Senate and later helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. From 1817 to 1824, he served President James Monroe as secretary of state.
In 1824, Adams ran against Andrew Jackson for the presidency. A tie put the deciding vote in the House of Representatives, and Adams emerged victorious. He served only one fairly uneventful term–his greatest contributions to American politics occurred before and after his term as president. In fact, in his memoirs, he admitted to preferring legislative duties to being president and that he considered his time in the White House the four most miserable years of his life.
Rather than retire from politics after his term ended in 1829, Adams decided to run for a seat in the House of Representatives and he remained a formidable figure in Congress until his death in 1848. He chaired congressional committees on the economy, Indian affairs and foreign relations, and even found time to argue the controversial Amistad slave ship case in the Supreme Court. His eloquent argument for returning the ship’s illegally transported cargo of slaves to Africa cemented his reputation as a dedicated abolitionist.
Adams had suffered and survived a previous stroke in 1846. Two days after collapsing from the second stroke in 1848, he died in a bed in the Capitol building in which he had performed so many years of public service.
So there is historical precedent for a President returning to office afterwards.
Maybe (perish the thought) BHO will run for lesser office so he can chair the Black Caucus.
Abraham Lincoln was a member of the House at this time and was on the Adams funeral committee. This was only 13 years before the Civil War. It illustrates what a young country the US still was.
Abraham Lincoln was a member of the House at this time and was on the Adams funeral committee. This was only 13 years before the Civil War. It illustrates what a young country the US still was.
My mom, as a little girl, remembers seeing Civil War veterans marching in the 4th of July parade.
I can’t see that happening. BHO couldn’t handle being on an equal footing with a bunch of Congressmen or Senators. He would still expect to be treated like the king.
That, and it would also require him to show up to work rather than spending his time on the golf course or in Hawaii.
From time to time on this web site, the question arises as to whether the United States Constitution structured a “democracy” or a “republic.” Freepers generally understand the difference, but today, we might explore that question again—especially for the benefit of our youth and on this thread about John Quincy Adams.
What if we had an answer on the “democracy/republic” question from an original source who actually lived through the Revolutionary Period? What if that source also provided the Framers’ rationale for the underlying principle and the reason for Benjamin Franklin’s purported response to the question?
John Adams’ son, John Quincy, was 9 when the Declaration of Independence was written, 20 when the Constitution was framed, and from his teen years, served in various capacities in both the Legislative and Executive branches of the government, including as President. His words on this subject should be instructive on the subject at hand.
In 1839, JQA was invited by the New York Historical Society to deliver the “Jubilee” Address honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington. He delivered that lengthy discourse which should be read by all who love liberty, for it traced the history of the development of the ideas underlying and the actions leading to the establishment of the Constitution which structured the United States government. His 50th-year summation seems to be a better source for understanding the kind of government the Founders formed than those of recent historians and politicians. He addresses the ideas of “democracy” and “republic” throughout, but here are some of his concluding remarks:
“Every change of a President of the United States, has exhibited some variety of policy from that of his predecessor. In more than one case, the change has extended to political and even to moral principle; but the policy of the country has been fashioned far more by the influences of public opinion, and the prevailing humors in the two Houses of Congress, than by the judgment, the will, or the principles of the President of the United States. The President himself is no more than a representative of public opinion at the time of his election; and as public opinion is subject to great and frequent fluctuations, he must accommodate his policy to them; or the people will speedily give him a successor; or either House of Congress will effectually control his power. It is thus, and in no other sense that the Constitution of the United States is democratic - for the government of our country, instead of a Democracy the most simple, is the most complicated government on the face of the globe. From the immense extent of our territory, the difference of manners, habits, opinions, and above all, the clashing interests of the North, South, East, and West, public opinion formed by the combination of numerous aggregates, becomes itself a problem of compound arithmetic, which nothing but the result of the popular elections can solve.
“It has been my purpose, Fellow-Citizens, in this discourse to show:-
“1. That this Union was formed by a spontaneous movement of the people of thirteen English Colonies; all subjects of the King of Great Britain - bound to him in allegiance, and to the British empire as their country. That the first object of this Union,was united resistance against oppression, and to obtain from the government of their country redress of their wrongs.
“2. That failing in this object, their petitions having been spurned, and the oppressions of which they complained, aggravated beyond endurance, their Delegates in Congress, in their name and by their authority, issued the Declaration of Independence - proclaiming them to the world as one people, absolving them from their ties and oaths of allegiance to their king and country - renouncing that country; declared the UNITED Colonies, Independent States, and announcing that this ONE PEOPLE of thirteen united independent states, by that act, assumed among the powers of the earth, that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitled them.
“3. That in justification of themselves for this act of transcendent power, they proclaimed the principles upon which they held all lawful government upon earth to be founded - which principles were, the natural, unalienable, imprescriptible rights of man, specifying among them, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that the institution of government is to secure to men in society the possession of those rights: that the institution, dissolution, and reinstitution of government, belong exclusively to THE PEOPLE under a moral responsibility to the Supreme Ruler of the universe; and that all the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed.
“4. That under this proclamation of principles, the dissolution of allegiance to the British king, and the compatriot connection with the people of the British empire, were accomplished; and the one people of the United States of America, became one separate sovereign independent power, assuming an equal station among the nations of the earth.
“5. That this one people did not immediately institute a government for themselves. But instead of it, their delegates in Congress, by authority from their separate state legislatures, without voice or consultation of the people, instituted a mere confederacy.
“6. That this confederacy totally departed from the principles of the Declaration of independence, and substituted instead of the constituent power of the people, an assumed sovereignty of each separate state, as the source of all its authority.
“7. That as a primitive source of power, this separate state sovereignty,was not only a departure from the principles of the Declaration of Independence, but directly contrary to, and utterly incompatible with them.
“8. That the tree was made known by its fruits. That after five years wasted in its preparation, the confederation dragged out a miserable existence of eight years more, and expired like a candle in the socket, having brought the union itself to the verge of dissolution.
“9. That the Constitution of the United States was a return to the principles of the Declaration of independence, and the exclusive constituent power of the people. That it was the work of the ONE PEOPLE of the United States; and that those United States, though doubled in numbers, still constitute as a nation, but ONE PEOPLE.
“10. That this Constitution, making due allowance for the imperfections and errors incident to all human affairs, has under all the vicissitudes and changes of war and peace, been administered upon those same principles, during a career of fifty years.
“11. That its fruits have been, still making allowance for human imperfection, a more perfect union, established justice, domestic tranquility, provision for the common defence, promotion of the general welfare, and the enjoyment of the blessings of liberty by the constituent people, and their posterity to the present day.
“And now the future is all before us, and Providence our guide.”
In an earlier paragraph, he had stated:
“But this institution was republican, and even democratic. And here not to be misunderstood, I mean by democratic, a government, the administration of which must always be rendered comfortable to that predominating public opinion . . . and by republican I mean a government reposing, not upon the virtues or the powers of any one man - not upon that honor, which Montesquieu lays down as the fundamental principle of monarchy - far less upon that fear which he pronounces the basis of despotism; but upon that virtue which he, a noble of aristocratic peerage, and the subject of an absolute monarch, boldly proclaims as a fundamental principle of republican government. The Constitution of the United States was republican and democratic - but the experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived; and it was obvious that if virtue - the virtue of the people, was the foundation of republican government, the stability and duration of the government must depend upon the stability and duration of the virtue by which it is sustained.”
I’ve enjoyed Traub’s biography of John Quincy Adams. It shows him as a non-party person in the tradition of many of the founders. It covers his virtual creation of the ambassador to Sec State to President relationship and standards for a republic of our nature.
He was not all that likable of a person, but honest to a fault and dedicated to living his role as his father’s successor. As a youngster witnessed initial battles of the revolution and then lived to the time of Marx issuing his vile Manifesto. WOW.
That was before they could cash in with half a million dollar speeches.
How old is your mother?
That was a high point of the tour- together with the story of John C. Calhoun being carried on to the Senate floor during the debate over the Compromise of 1850.
Now they're saying the Adams story isn't true, but was invented by guides after the roof was changed and a "whispering gallery" effect resulted -- long after Adams died.
Online you can read that the sofa Adams was taken to after his stroke -- the one he died on -- is still in the Capitol in the Boggs Congressional Women's Reading Room.
Maybe that will also turn out to be a myth.
You mean, high speaking fees prolong life? /S
She was born in 1923
You are so lucky to have her.
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