John Quincy Adams aka #6

Slavery, the Smithsonian, & first and holiest right of humanity

There’s more to be said about John Quincy Adams.

The Smithsonian Institution owes its existence to him. After the death of a surviving nephew, the scientist James Smithson (c. 1765 – 27 June 1829) provided that his substantial fortune would be given "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge ...."

The money amounted to $500,000 US, perhaps $153,000,000.00 million US in 2023 dollars after inflation.

Congress invested the money in state bonds that promptly defaulted; money gone. Gone.

Remember, this takes place 1835 with Adams as congressman long after he had already served as Secretary of State (1817 - 1825) and President (1825 - 1829). Adams led the uphill battle in Congress to restore the funds … with interest. Then the Congress wanted to spend the money for other purposes. In great part through Adam’s efforts, Congress voted in 1846 voted to establish the Smithsonian Institution.

Some have speculated that Adams’ IQ was the highest of any president in history. #45 would doubtless dispute that, a strong indication that the speculation holds true.

Adams litigated the Amistad trial before the Supreme Court of the United States … and his arguments prevailed. If you don’t know the history or missed the movie, here’s a useful link: https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/amistad

Adams on slavery: ”The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim it, and cast it all upon the shoulder of Great Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's manners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs and cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?”

Adams’ antislavery influences and achievements are largely forgotten today, but matched by few during his life. The representatives of the slave owners in the South passed an 1836 gag rule that prohibited debate on abolition petitions in the House of Representatives. Adams fought stubbornly, often single-handedly until it was repealed seven years later in 1844.

Adams opposed America’s first false-flag military expansion, the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 [good time to revisit the previous post, “She Goes Not Abroad in Search of Monsters to Destroy”]. Well, “she” didn’t have to go abroad as yet. There was more vulnerable prey closer to home. General Ulysses S. Grant wrote that “For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation." [from The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant]. Thanks were nevertheless offered to the Almighty when Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. Adams’ and Grant’s weren’t the only voices opposed to this earliest of American adventures in military bullying and land-theft. Abraham Lincoln spoke out against it. Henry David Thoreau was so opposed that he refused to pay a tax to fund it. He was put jail and wrote On Civil Disobedience (1849).

Ponder the significance of this almost entirely forgotten piece of American history while I tell you the tale of the death of John Quincy Adams who died “in the breach,” as we sometimes say.

Still serving in Congress, a stroke left him partially paralyzed in 1846. Adams recovered and returned to a unanimous ovation in Congress, friend and foe alike.

In February of 1848, Congress took up a motion to honor United States Army officers who had served in the Mexican–American War. Congressmen rose up, as they still do today, to be seen and shout a patriotic "Aye!" Adams stood and yelled "No!" He rose again briefly when Speaker of the House Robert Charles Winthrop addressed him … and then dropped to the floor of the House with massive cerebral hemorrhage. He died in the Speaker’s Room of the House of Representatives with his wife beside him. His last words: "This is the last of Earth. But I am composed."

Perhaps the oldest known photo (daguerreotype) of a U.S. president. 1843