John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams had a remarkable life. Before entering the White House, he was an extremely successful diplomat. The zenith of his tenure as a diplomat was his work as James Monroe's secretary of state. While a member of Monroe's cabinet Adams helped broker the Transcontinental Treaty with Spain, which diffused various issues that could have sparked a war between the US and the European power. He also helped draft the Monroe Doctrine, an incredibly foreign policy initiative that would define crucial moments in the presidencies of men like John Tyler and Millard Fillmore, as well as shape US diplomacy for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. After exiting the White House, Adams was a brilliant Congressman, working in the House of Representatives and dismantling the Gag Rule, a prohibition on discussing slavery on the floor of Congress. Tucked between these two jobs was his 4 years as president, which many consider his low point. I, however, disagree.

The main reason people consider Adams' presidency the lowest point of his life was how ineffective it was. For nearly two centuries ever since his term expired, the Adams Administration has been routinely scorned for how little it accomplished. However, this depiction of the Adams White House doesn't factor in why Adams was so ineffective. To understand that, you need to understand the circumstances in which Adams became president.

Adams won the presidency in the 1824 election. That year, he faced 3 different opponents: Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. Because of how many candidates were involved in this election, no one actually won a majority of votes in the Electoral College. Consequently, the vital question of who would become president come inauguration day was placed in the hands of the House of Representatives. In other words, the House of Representatives would hold a separate election in which its members would decide the new president. But, Congressmen could only choose from the 3 best-performing candidates. So, Henry Clay, who won the least votes, was automatically disqualified.

On January 9, 1825, Clay and Adams met in private. Exactly one month later, on February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives held its election. Clay, who was a member of the legislative body and actually the speaker of the house, voted for Adams. Because of this, many other people in the House of Representatives were encouraged to support Adams as well. Consequently, Adams became president-elect. Then, a few days after the election, Adams announced that he would make Clay his secretary of state.

Jackson denounced this series of events - the January meeting between Clay and Adams, Clay's support of Adams in the House of Representatives' election, and Adams' decision to nominate Clay for the office of secretary of state - as a part of a plot to rig the 1824 election. In doing this, Jackson forged the corrupt bargain mythos. According to this narrative, when Clay and Adams met back in early January of 1825, the two reached a deal: Clay would use his influence as speaker of the house to ensure Adams won the election. In exchange, Adams would make Clay his secretary of state. Many people found these allegations believable and likely, and so didn't view Adams as a legitimate president. Consequently, Congress, which also bought into the fairy tale, refused to comply with Adams' proposals.

My point is that Adams' ineffectiveness was not his own fault. Had Jackson not tainted Adams' relationship with Congress by levying this slander against him, Adams would have had a successful administration. After all, Adams had more experience than almost any other politician in the nation.

Before I continue, I also want to dispel the nascent argument that Adams stymied his own presidency through the corrupt bargain. That idea rests on the assumption that the corrupt bargain actually did take place. However, if you actually look at Adams and Clay's political views, you will see that they were very similar. Adams and Clay both wanted to abolish slavery (though Adams was much more extreme than Clay), supported tariffs, spoke out in favor of Latin American independence movements, and championed internal improvements. Clay was likely just voting for his ideological ally, rather than attempting to reap the rewards of rigging an election. Additionally, Clay had the experience to be secretary of state, as he was sent by James Madison to help broker the treaty that ended the War of 1812.

Earlier, I stated and substantiated the claim that Adams was not at fault for his ineffectiveness and that it doesn't make sense to blame him for it, as Jackson soiled his presidency from the get-go with the corrupt bargain narrative. I will now say that had Jackson not done this, Adams would have been an amazing president. Adams moved into the White House with an ambitious set of admirable goals. He wanted to drastically increase funding for infrastructure and established various new indigenous reservations across the western US. Adams even wanted to create a state-owned college that people could attend for free.

All of these are wonderful ideas. Increasing funding for infrastructure would have not only improved life in the 1820s and 1830s, around the time that Adams served as president, but may have also contributed to better roads and buildings today. Adams' support of additional indigenous reservations would have carved out a more independent and autonomous Native American population, which would also have been great. Creating a public college would have also helped normalize the idea of free higher education, increasing the chance that we would have implemented such a policy by this point in American history. Even if it wouldn't have done that, it would still leave the country with an institution its poor citizens could use to obtain degrees without needing to spend copious amounts of money. This would open up numerous doors in life to them.

While yes, Adams was quite ineffective as president, he did accomplish some things. His accolades lay mainly in his foreign policy, where he negotiated numerous trade agreements with several different countries. This actually makes sense. Most of Adams' political experience was in the realm of diplomacy. Prior to 1824 and 1825, Adams had served as ambassador to the Netherlands, ambassador to Prussia, ambassador to Russia, ambassador to Britain, and secretary of state.

Really, Adams only had one real flaw as president: The Tariff of 1828. While I am generally quite protectionist, I dislike this specific policy. In the spring of 1828, a deeply mistrusting Congress drafted an excessive tariff specifically so that it would pass, damage southern economies, and hurt Adams' reelection prospects as a result. Despite the fact that the Tariff of 1828 was specifically designed to harm the country and his reelection campaign, Adams still signed the bill on May 11, 1828. Outside of this, though, he was great.

Despite what many people say, John Quincy Adams was a good president. While he did unfairly harm southern economies with the Tariff of 1828, he successfully improved the economy and state of trade in the long term with his various trade agreements. Additionally, while he was ineffective, his ineffectiveness was an issue thrashed onto his administration by Andrew Jackson, not something inherent with Adams himself.