John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams ( born July 11, 1767 in Braintree (now Quincy ), Norfolk County, Massachusetts, † February 23, 1848 in Washington, DC) was a lawyer, an American diplomat in Europe and the sixth President of the United States March 4, 1825 to March 4, 1829. His father John Adams was the second president of the country. He was a member of the famous Adams family.

Life

John Quincy Adams was like his father, an avid Unitarians. He began his studies in law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and graduated in 1787 at Harvard University in Cambridge from. As a lawyer, he practiced first in Boston. 1794 Adams was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands, 1796, he was Ambassador to Portugal and 1797 in Prussia. 1802 Adams was elected to the Massachusetts Senate and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. He was married in 1797 to Louisa Catherine Johnson.

Policy

Adams was in 1803 elected as a Federalist to the Senate and appeared in 1808, six months after he had broken with the Federalists, resigned from his post. From 1809 to 1814 Adams was ambassador to Russia and was one of 1814, the Commission, which negotiated the Treaty of Ghent between the United States and Great Britain. From 1815 to 1817 he was U.S. Ambassador to Britain. From 1817 to 1825 Adams was Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President James Monroe. In this capacity he acted among other things, the Adams - Onís Treaty of 1819 with Spain, the newly defined the borders of the United States with the Viceroyalty of New Spain. For the United States meant that contract, that its territorial claims as far stretched themselves out on the Mississippi River to the west, the Pacific Ocean could be achieved with claims to the Oregon Country. Adams considered this agreement as his greatest success, because he foresaw that it would be possible from Oregon to engage in trade with the Orient and the economic powers in the Pacific.

In the presidential election of 1824 there was a special feature: None of the candidates could achieve an absolute majority of electoral votes and all votes. This put the decision in the hands of the House of Representatives who voted for the surprise of many Adams and not his rival Andrew Jackson, who had originally get more votes. Adams was president from 1825 to 1829. During his tenure, many states have abandoned the requirement of a minimum assets for participation in elections. So were in the presidential elections in 1828 three times as many male voters participate in the election as in 1824; a fact which helped the re antretenden Jackson with his election in 1828. Women and freed slaves were still excluded from the elections. Adams was the first president who was an interview of a woman: The original Anne Royall had stolen his clothes with a swim in a river and threatened them not to return without interview.

In 1831 he won election to the House of Representatives, representing the Nationalrepublikaner. This he was a member until his death. He also served as Chairman of the Economic Committee, the Committee on Indian Affairs and the Foreign Affairs Committee. Adams was the only ex- president, who was elected to the House of Representatives.

Later years

In 1834 he failed in his attempt to be elected as governor of Massachusetts. In 1841 he represented the Amistad processes, the slaves of the Spanish slave ship La Amistad, which had managed to rebel against their oppressors and to land in the U.S., before the Supreme Court, he reached that they were not extradited to Spain, but as free people could return to their homeland.

Adams died in 1848 at the consequences of his second stroke. Both his son, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. and his grandson Charles Francis Adams, Jr. were candidates for the post of Vice President of the United States.

The site of his birth and residential building in Quincy, near Boston, on which lived five generations of politically influential family of Adam is shown as Adams National Historical Park.

Others

Adams, who had learned the German language in his youth, translated in later years, the epic poem Oberon by Christoph Martin Wieland into English. Wieland said to have been very satisfied with the transfer. In the movie Amistad in 1997 Adams was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins.