August 1, 2018 • 41 mins
John Quincy Adams probably comes to mind as the son of second U.S. President John Adams, and the 6th president of the U.S. But he and his wife, Louisa Catharine Johnson Adams worked in the realm of international diplomacy for years before his presidency.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We are
just back from our live show at Adams National Historical
Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. Yeah. It was super delightful. We
(00:25):
had a great time, We had a great crowd. Everybody
was awesome and delightful. The park staff was awesome and delightful.
The technology was less awesome and delightful, not on their part. No,
I'm gonna tell the whole story of what happened with
the technology at the end of the show because it
is kind of eerie and weird, so I think folks
(00:48):
might be interested to hear what happened with the technology.
But it's also a bit of a longer story, so
I didn't want to put it at the top of
the show. Just say our apologies that we rather than
having a live recording, we're going to have a studio
version of our show that we did at Adams Nationalist
Darkal Park, which was called John Quincy and Louisa Catherine
(01:10):
Adams Abroad. Yes, so you will miss some of the
funny asides that sometimes happen in live shows. Yeah, you'll
miss the moment where a park ranger rescued a spider
from our table. Yes, that I did not want to hurt.
You won't get to hear me talk about how I
would fight a witch and win, which was unrelated to
(01:30):
the episode. I forgot that even happened. So, uh, if
you did not grow up in the Boston area, you
may wonder why or why we're pronouncing the name Quincy
with the Z in it when Quincy is q U.
(01:50):
I n see why. Uh. That is not a thing
that I learned how to say by moving to Massachusetts
and hearing a local person say it. It's a name
that I learned to say by playing Fallout four, which
is they got that correct and Fallout for So the
ancestor who John Quincy Adams was named for, and who
the city of Quincy is named for, pronounced his name Quincy,
(02:11):
and so these names are pronounced Quincy. It probably shocks
people who have said it Quincy their whole lives, but
that's how it is. What we are talking about in
this episode is really John Quincy Adams as a diplomat.
If you're not really immersed in eighteenth and nineteenth century
(02:32):
US history. John Quincy Adams probably comes to mind more
as the son of President John Adams and then the
sixth President of the United States. Not remembered as a
particularly effective president, but he had a really extensive and
influential career as a diplomat long before becoming president. George
Washington called him the most valuable public character we have abroad.
(02:56):
One of the books that I read about his diplomatic
work leading up to this podcast called him one of
nineteenth century America's most accomplished diplomats and statesman, and his
wife Louisa, was an important part of his work and
really awesome on her own. So that is the show
that we're doing today. So John Quincy Adams was born
(03:17):
on July eleven, seventeen sixty seven, the oldest son of
John and Abigail Adams. His parents were, of course, incredibly
prominent figures in the American Revolution, and he was immersed
in that world basically from birth. He also saw the
Revolutionary War firsthand. On June seventeen, seventeen seventy five, when
he was seven, his mother took him up to the
(03:38):
top of Penn's Hill, which was not far from his birthplace.
Also not really far from where we did that live show.
They could hear the cannons and see the smoke from
the Battle of bunker Hill and from the burning of Charlestown.
Today there is a cairn marking the spot where they
watched that, And that makes it sound like kind of
a fun adventure, but in fact it was really terrifying.
(04:01):
John Adams was away at the time and Abigail was
looking after the children of General Joseph Warren along with
John Quincy and his siblings, and Warren was killed in
the Battle of bunker Hill. Much later, John Quincy described
that period of his life this way, quote, for the
space of twelve months, my mother, with her infant children
dwelt liable every hour of the day and of the night,
(04:24):
to be butchered in cold blood or taken and carried
into Boston as hostages by any foraging or marauding detachment
of men. When he was ten, John Quincy went overseas
with his father, who had been appointed the U. S
Commissioner to France, and this was really the beginning of
John Quincy's career as a diplomat. Frequently over the next
(04:45):
few years he accompanied his father on various diplomatic missions,
and often he would continue his education in schools in
Europe while they were abroad. In seventeen eighty one, at
the age of fourteen, John Quincy Adams went overseas with
fran to Dana, the u s Minister to Russia, and
he acted as Dana's personal secretary and served as an
(05:05):
interpreter of French. This was a really difficult assignment. Russia
did not yet recognize the United States as a sovereign nation,
so it was an uphill battle for Dana to even
be recognized as a diplomat at all. John Quincy also
served as a secretary during the Treaty of Paris negotiations
at the end of the Revolutionary War. It was only
(05:26):
after all those years of experience in the world of
international diplomacy that John Quincy Adams finally went to Harvard.
He graduated in seventeen eighty seven at the age of twenty,
and he graduated second in his class and gave a
speech at commencement on the theme of the importance of
public faith to the well being of a community. Later,
he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar and he started
(05:48):
practicing law in Boston, but soon he was right back
in the world of diplomacy. President George Washington appointed him
Minister Resident to the Netherlands in seventeen ninety four. He
was appointed Minister planet Potentiary to Portugal two years later,
but before John Quincy assumed that role, his father was
elected president and he changed that assignment from Portugal to Prussia.
(06:12):
Before going on to Prussia, though, John Quincy Adams stopped
off in London, where he married Louisa Catherine Johnson on
July twenty six, seventeen ninety seven. So we're gonna rewind
for a minute on and catch up on who she was.
Louisa Catherine Johnson was born in London on February twelve,
seventeen seventy five. Her mother, Catherine, was British and her father, Joshua,
(06:34):
was a merchant who had been born in the American colonies.
The family moved to France during the Revolutionary War. They
were a little uncomfortable in England because they supported the
patriots cause, so it was a little a little dicey
to stay there. Yeah, I went awkward. Luisa was also
really young when they moved to France, and while living there,
she attended a Roman Catholic convents school. She became fluent
(06:58):
in French, and essentially he had to relearn English after
the war was over. She had forgotten most of the
English that she knew, so once they moved back to England,
she had to start over. Aside from all of the
international relocation, Luisa had the upbringing that you would probably
anticipate for an affluent young woman of the time. Her
education had a significant focus on music and literature, although
(07:21):
she also really loved science as well, and her teachers
indulged her study of science from time to time, even
though that was not considered a particularly feminine topic of interest.
After the end of the Revolutionary War, Joshua Johnson became
the first American consul in London, so Luisa became part
of a household that was continually welcoming dignitaries and diplomats,
(07:44):
and one of those was John Quincy Adams. When he
was in London on a temporary assignment, he proposed to
her in May of seventeen nineties six. He was still
serving as Minister Resident of the Netherlands and he needed
to return there, so he couldn't get read right away,
and they kept up their courtships through letters, and that
wedding in finally happened only after a number of delays,
(08:09):
some of which were at the urging of his parents,
who did not really approve of this match. But as
a couple immersed in the world of diplomacy, they actually
were pretty well matched. Both of them became highly respected
in diplomatic circles. John Quincy Adams was known for having
a very cold aloof and stubborn demeanor is probably obvious
(08:30):
if you have ever seen a portrait of him. He
looks even more severe than typical portraiture of the time. Louisa,
on the other hand, was graceful and witty and charming,
and so his aloofness was offset by her charm. She
could be really anxious about making a good impression in
these aristocratic and royal circles, and she was not always
(08:53):
comfortable being in the spotlight, but she made a really
quick study of all the various layers of etiquette protocol
that were required of her. She wound up becoming friends
with a number of royals and dignitaries, and as the
years progressed, she became very good at talking about her
husband and framing his work in really positive terms. She
(09:13):
basically eased the way for him and all these various
diplomatic assignments. Not long after they got married, though, Luisa's
father's business collapsed and she was mortified, and she was
also really worried that people were going to think that
she had tricked John Quincy into getting married. She really
doated on her father, and this bankruptcy meant that her
(09:35):
new husband and father in law were being contacted by
his creditors. She also had to adjust to a much
more modest lifestyle. John Quincy's salary as a diplomat was
really not large, and since her family no longer had
any money, she never really got her dowry. She just
they did not have a lot to live on. This
(09:55):
was especially true since they were supposed to be moving
among Prussia's most affluent and prestigious circles. Luisa really felt
like they couldn't maintain the lifestyle that they needed to
on the amount of money that they had. John Quincy's
work as a diplomat also meant that he was really
busy and he was away from home a lot, including
during Louise's pregnancy with their first child, George Washington Adams,
(10:19):
who was born in Berlin on April twelfth, eighteen o one.
This was really hard on Luisa. In addition to the
usual stresses of pregnancy and delivering and just dealing with
a newborn, particularly your first child, she had ongoing issues
with her health for her whole life. It's not really
something that we can diagnose today, but a range of
illnesses and fevers, along with symptoms of anxiety and depression
(10:44):
all were part of it. She and John Quincy would
ultimately have four children, but she also heartbreaking Lee had
at least nine miscarriages and a still birth. After John
Adams lost the election of eighteen hundred, he recalled John
Quincy backed the United States. Before he left office, Louisa's
family was living in the States as well. By this point,
(11:05):
her father had been made the Commissioner of Stamps and
was living in Washington, d c. This was a time
of mixed emotions for Louisa. She was still recovering from
her pregnancy and delivery, so she was really happy to
be reunited with her family in her first ever trip
to the United States, but she and her husband were
going to be spending significant amounts of time in Massachusetts.
(11:26):
As well. Abigail Adams still didn't really approve of Louisa
and John Quincy's marriage, and Louisa really wasn't what was
expected of an Adams woman. Abigail Adams was a very
take charge, get things done kind of person, and Luisa,
in contrast, was the product of a very privileged European
upbringing that did not prepare her for things like running
(11:49):
a household and a farm. The adams Is and the
Johnson's were also just very different families. The adams Is
were Unitarians descended from the Puritan founders of Massachusetts, while
Louisa was an Episcopalian and had been educated at a
Catholic school. She was a little suspicious of the Unitarian Church.
She called it quote a sect enveloped in a cloud
(12:12):
of missed. Especially during this stretch of time in the States,
Luisa always felt like she was being judged by Abigail
and that she was always coming up short. She greatly
preferred being in d c. Over being in Massachusetts. The
adams Is were in the United States for the next
few years. John Quincy served in the Massachusetts Senate and
(12:34):
then the US Senate. He also taught rhetoric an oratory
at Harvard, but in eighteen o nine President James Madison
appointed him Minister planet Potentiary to Russia. John Quincy adams
diplomatic mission to Russia led to one of the more
dramatic periods in Louise's life, and we are going to
get to all of that after a quick sponsor break.
(13:01):
After John Quincy Adams was appointed Minister to Russia, he
and Louisa moved to St. Petersburg with their youngest child,
Charles Francis Adams. At this point they had three children.
Their older sons, George Washington Adams and John Adams the second,
were left back in Massachusetts in the care of Abigail Adams,
and as was the case with a lot of household
(13:24):
and family decisions, this one was made without really consulting Louisa.
Her relationship with John Quincy seems to have been loving
and passionate, like when she was sick, he would fret
himself into distraction about her health. They seem to have
really had a lot of tenderness and affection for each other,
but also, unsurprisingly, giving that this was a marriage involving
(13:45):
an international diplomat who would later become President, their relationship
was also frequently contentious, and he didn't often seem to
see her as his equal or include her in a
lot of decision making. One of the things that Louisa
had really not enjoyed about her time in Massachusetts was
the winters, and the winters in Russia were worse. Luisa's
(14:06):
frequent illnesses got worse while she was there, and she
and John Quincy also had a daughter while they were
in Russia. A daughter was also named Louisa Catherine. She
was born on August twelfth, eighteen eleven, but unfortunately she
died a little more than a year later, and of
course Luisa was absolutely devastated. John Quincy's diplomatic work in
Russia played out in the context of the Napoleonic Wars.
(14:28):
Sorry Alexander the First had been allied with Napoleon, but
once that alliance was dissolved, to put it mildly, he
sought stronger ties with the United States. John Quincy Adams
was one of the people working to try to build
those ties and to increase reciprocal trade between the US
and Russia. On June eighth, eighteen twelve, the United States
(14:49):
declared war on Great Britain, Zar Alexander wanted to continue
to trade with both of those nations, and he offered
to try to mediate with the hope of ending the war,
but at that point brit was confident that it was
winning and so refused the offer. Yeah, Britain was basically like,
we don't need your help to We got this. We
got it. Of course, though the war dragged on, it
(15:10):
had its own shifts and who was winning its own
ebbs and flows, And eighteen months later, in January of
eighteen fourteen, both nations finally agreed to peace talks and
the neutral city of Ghent. President James Madison made John
Quincy Adams head of the commission to lead these negotiations,
and he left for Ghent in April of eighteen fourteen,
(15:32):
leaving Louisa and Charles Francis behind in St. Petersburg. Four months,
John Quincy was in Ghent conducting peace talks while his
wife and son were alone in St. Petersburg. And we
should qualify that that alone also included a household of
servants and the tutors that Charles Francis had, But this
was still one of the loneliest stretches of all of
(15:54):
Louise's time as a diplomat's wife. The Treaty of Ghent
was finally signed on to Sep. Twenty four, eighteen fourteen,
although word traveled pretty slowly and fighting continued into eighteen fifteen.
The US had gotten into this war with the hope
of gaining more territory from Canada, but once they got
to the negotiating table, John Quincy's primary goal was to
(16:16):
just put the two nations territory back to where it
was before the war started, and in that he was
successful to quote from the treaty, all hostilities, both by
sea and land, shall cease as soon as this treaty
shall have been ratified by both parties, as here and
after mentioned. All territory, places and possessions whatsoever taken by
(16:39):
either party from the other during the war, or which
may be taken after the signing of this treaty, accepting
only the islands here and after mentioned, shall be restored
without delay. Historian still argue about who really won the
War of eighteen twelve, if anyone, but to the U.
S government, this treaty was viewed as a diplomatic victor.
(17:00):
At the start of the negotiations, Britain had wanted two
and fifty thousand square miles of land in the northwest,
plus a new border for Canada that would give it
the southern shores of the Great Lakes and part of Maine.
With that possibility in mind, just put it back the
way it was was a big win. And we should
(17:20):
note that this treaty was catastrophic for the indigenous population
in the contested areas. The treaty was supposed to restore
quote all possessions, rights, and privileges which they may have
enjoyed or been entitled to in eighteen eleven, but there
was no authoritative map of eighteen eleven and what those
(17:40):
possessions had been. And also that northwestern land that Britain
had wanted was supposed to be used to set up
an independent Native American state, and that obviously did not happen.
On December eighteen fourteen, John Quincy Adams wrote to Louisa,
at her encouragement, he had gone to Paris for something
of a break after the treaty was signed. He directed
(18:03):
her to settle all of their affairs in St. Petersburg,
to pack up whatever she wanted to keep, to sell
everything else, and to join him in Paris with their son.
She got this letter in late January, and she was baffled.
As we mentioned earlier, she had often been completely excluded
from decisions about their household and their family up to
(18:25):
this point, but now he was suddenly entrusting her to
manage all of this by herself. He also made it
sound like it would probably not be that hard um,
whereas when he had made this same basic journey before leaving,
he had made sure that she knew where his will was.
(18:46):
After she recovered from her total astonishment in this whole situation,
though Louisa happily got to work three weeks after getting
the letter. On her forty birthday, she was ready to go.
She had some mixed feelings about leaving, but she was
very eager to be reunited with John Quincy. So on
February twelve, eighteen fifteen, she started a forty day, two
(19:08):
thousand mile journey by sledding carriage through Russia in winter.
It was literally the same path that a lot of
Napoleon's army had been following while retreating, because going into
Russia in winter as a terrible idea. She was traveling
along the post road system, which was really easy to
(19:29):
get lost on and it required her to manage changes
of horses at post stations along the way. She and
her seven year old son were accompanied by two servants.
Everything that I read about this described these two servants
loyalty as questionable. They also had a governess who was
hired on the day that they departed. During this trip,
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there were only nine days that they were not traveling,
and that would have put them on the road in
a horse drawn sleigh or carriage for an average of
ten the hours a day. They spent nights in towns
when possible and at post stations when not, or they
just traveled through the night when there was nowhere to
sleep and it was too cold to bunk in the carriage.
(20:12):
They also had to keep a supply of food and
beverages in the carriage because they never knew what provisions
might be like at the more remote post stations. This
journey took them through places that had been devastated during
the Napoleonic Wars, and a lot of times the soldiers
who had been fighting were all still there, either theoretically
protecting the peace or pretty much waiting to go to
(20:34):
battle again, sometimes just causing trouble, and all of this
was on top of the usual threats involved with travel,
which also included bandits and highwaymen on the road. When
she got to Germany in mid March, Luisa started hearing
rumors that Napoleon had returned from exile. By the time
she got to Frankfurt, it was clear that this was
(20:56):
not just a rumor, and that she needed to get
to her husband as quickly as possible. Napoleon was indeed
on the move again and terrorizing the very area that
they were traveling through. Louisa wrote numerous accounts of this journey,
including one in her autobiography, which I love. The title
of it was Adventures of a Nobody, and one of
(21:17):
these accounts here is how she described her state as
they crossed into France. Quote, my health was dreadful, and
the excessive desire which I felt to terminate this long
and arduous journey absolutely made me sick. I had been
absent a year from my husband and five long, long
years and a half from my two eldest born sons,
(21:39):
whom I had left in America with their grandparents. War
had intervened and free communication, in addition to the accustomed
impediments from the climate had conduced to add to my anxieties.
Every letter had brought me accounts of the loss of
near and dear relatives whom I never more should see.
And nothing but the buoyant hope of soon embracing those
(22:02):
long separated and loved sustained me through the fatigue and
excitement to which I was necessarily exposed. Outside of eper
May very roughly a hundred miles as like a hundred
and fifty kilometers from Paris, they traveled past a group
of camp followers who saw the carriage, assumed its passengers
were Russian and started shouting threats and epithets at them.
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Soon they were surrounded by Napoleon's imperial guard, who looked
at Luisa's passport and saw that she was an American
en route to Paris. The fact that she was fluent
in French came in really handy here, but they still
only let her go if she would shout Viva Napoleon.
She shouted it a lot, and very enthusiastically. They were
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ultimately allowed to go, although the soldiers stayed with their
carriage all the way to the next post house. They
also threatened to shoot them and generally menaced them bayonets
if they made the horses go any faster than a walk.
Charles Francis was terrified, and in Luise's own account, the
next several hours were pretty much a blur, but she
(23:12):
finally arrived at John Quincy's rented rooms in Paris on
March fifteen. With the two of them reunited, it seems
like another good place for a quick sponsor break. This
arduous wintertime journey through Europe shifted several relationships in Louise's life.
(23:37):
Number one, it really clued her husband into the fact
that she was indeed smart, trustworthy and capable. She became
a bigger part of his working life after this. It
also brought into focus that he'd probably been underestimating women
in general, and Abigail Adams finally started warming up to
Louisa after this too. She had demonstrated that she was
(23:58):
actually quite hardy of out. A month before Louisa arrived
in Paris, John Quincy was named Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Planet Potentiary to Britain. This was a post his father
had held, and it was one that his son Charles
Francis would eventually hold as well. Once they got there,
the adams Is found a nice little house in the country,
(24:18):
and they brought their oldest sons over from the US.
They spent most of the next two years in Britain
until John Quincy was appointed Secretary of State under James
Monroe on March five, eighteen seventeen. This was a role
that he was highly qualified for thanks to all of
that time overseas on various diplomatic assignments. His experience and
(24:39):
international diplomacy really shaped his work as Secretary of State,
and his work as Secretary of State continues to affect
the United States in a lot of ways. In eighteen nineteen,
he negotiated the Transcontinental Treaty a k a. The Adams
Ownee Treaty, which is what transferred what is now Florida
to the United States from Spain. Parts of this territory
(25:01):
had long been in dispute, and that dispute was only
resolved after the US used Andrew Jackson's campaign against the
Seminoles as leverage. And this was another part of John
Quincy Adams's career that was viewed as a diplomatic triumph
that one sentence obviously does not do. Andrew Jackson's campaign
against the seminoles justice at all. But that's the whole
(25:24):
other topic. On December two, of President Monroe gave his
seventh annual Message to Congress, basically a State of the
Union address. He talked about negotiations with Russia and Great
Britain about their respective rights and interests in the Northwest,
and he said, quote in the discussions to which this
interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which
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they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for
asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests
of the United States are involved, that the American continents,
by free and independent condition which they have a oomed
and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects
for future colonization by any European powers. He went on
(26:10):
to elaborate from there with three basic ideas. First, that
the United States wouldn't interfere with European colonies in the
Western Hemisphere that existed already, but that the Western Hemisphere
was off the table for future colonization. Second, if a
European power did try to establish colonial rule in the
(26:30):
Western Hemisphere, the US would see that as a hostile
action against the United States, and third, the US would
not get involved in European affairs. These ideas have come
to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, and John Quincy
Adams was a huge part of its development. The Monroe
Doctrine grew in part out of a fear that Spain
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would try to recolonize South America. At this point, most
of Spain's former South American colonies had had their own
movements for independence that had been successful. There's a fear
that Spain was going to try to take all that
back over. Initially, British officials had proposed that the United
States and Britain issue a joint statement about this, but
John Quincy insisted to the President that the United States
(27:15):
should act on its own, in part because teaming up
with Britain would just make it look like Britain was
doing all the work and the United States just kind
of a hanger on. So he influenced what the Monroe
Doctrine said. Along with the fact that the Monroe Doctrine
existed at all, the US was not a military superpower
at this point, so the idea that the nation could
(27:36):
actually enforce the principles outlined in the Monroe Doctrine was
almost laughable. So the response from the major European powers
was somewhere on a spectrum between dismissive and irked. But
the Monroe Doctrine became the cornerstone of US foreign policy
and continued to be cited and to influence international relations
for a very long time. The Monroe Doctrine was a
(28:00):
huge part of John Quincy's legacy as a diplomat, but
that was also just one part of it. Through his
time abroad and his time as a Secretary of State,
he set and reinforced a lot of precedents in US
foreign relations, for good or for ill, really, including the
idea of freedom of the seas and overall non intervention
in other nations affairs. He was also a supporter of
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the idea of manifest destiny, or the idea that the
US was destined to spread itself and democracy all across
North America. He shifted that opinion a little when it
looked like expanding into Texas would also expand the institution
of slavery. He was in favor of expanding the nation,
but not if it brought slavery along with it. John
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Quincy Adams ran for president in eighteen twenty four in
what was a highly contentious election, and Luisa was at
the heart of his campaign. She held Tuesday Night sociables
along with all kinds of other events, and they made
extensive connections among Washington, d C's most influential people. Louisa
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was a gracious and delightful hostess, and she really encouraged
her husband to try to be more chariusmatic in his
campaign and shake off a little bit of that cold demeanor.
Andrew Jackson won more popular and electoral votes than any
other candidate in this election, but he did not have
the electoral majority that was needed to win, so the
(29:25):
election fell to the House of Representatives. Louisa held her
last campaign sociable on February. At least sixty members of
the House were there, and in a surprise upset, the
House of Representatives elected John Quincy president the next day.
He was inaugurated on March fourth and reportedly sworn in
(29:45):
with his hand on a book of law. This show
is more about John Quincy Adams's work as a diplomat
than about his time as president, but just to touch
on it overall, it was not a successful presidency and
it was not a happy time for the family. That
contentious election left him without support in Congress. John Quincy
(30:06):
also made Henry Clay, who had also run for president,
his secretary of State, and this led to accusations that
John Quincy Adams had made a corrupt bargain to secure
the presidency, something that John Quincy steadfastly denied. As president,
he had really lofty goals. He thought the government should
be a force for public goods, so he wanted to
(30:27):
establish a national University fund, a variety of scientific expeditions,
start a huge infrastructure project that would include highways and canals.
But with a lot of Congress actively working against him,
he could not get any of it done. Even though
he could be really pragmatic when it came down to
actually implementing his more idealistic goals. I mean, he understood
(30:50):
sometimes that what he was doing, or what he was
wanting to do, was really ambitious, and he understood that
sometimes it was not realistic to get there. The fact
that it was just stonewalled the whole way was a
huge blow. We mentioned at the top of the episode
that this was originally prepared for a live show, and
we normally have a rule about live shows that we
(31:11):
don't want to do bummer topics. But the adams Is
life at this point really did become quite difficult. They
faced ongoing animosity in Washington at the time and for
almost two hundred years after. Louisa was the only First
Lady that was not born in the United States, and
as a consequence, she was subject to intense scrutiny. The
(31:34):
pressures of being the first family were also really hard
on all of the Adams as some of their surviving
children had a range of problems during and after these years,
including alcohol abuse and drug addictions. Their son George died
in an apparent suicide not long after they left the
White House. And to end the discussion of the presidency
(31:54):
on a lighter note, but with the caveat that this
is apocryphal, or at least it could be a Acerples right.
This is not clear as to how truthful this is.
The MARKETA. Lafayette gave John Quincy an alligator as a
pet during his tour of the United States, and for
a while, according to the story, the adams Is kept
(32:15):
it in a bathtub at the White House, and then
they would show it off to guests who came to visit.
After serving one term as president, John Quincy Adams lost
to Andrew Jackson in the election, but he did not
stay out of politics for long. In eighteen thirty he
ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. He
was elected by a landslide and stayed in office literally
(32:38):
until the day he died. So we are nearing the
end of our episode. So we're going to be summing
up about twenty years of legislative work, and obviously we
can't do that in great detail in what's left, but
one of the big highlights was his fight against the
Gag rule. And the Gag rule was instituted on May
(32:58):
eighteen thirty six, and it forbade the House of Representatives
from considering anti slavery petitions. John Quincy Adams was stridently
against the Gag rule. He and Louisa were both morally
opposed to slavery. He called it a great and foul
stain upon the North American Union. At the same time,
he thought the federal government had no constitutional power to
(33:22):
abolish slavery in the states where it existed. Obviously, that
is not the whole story of how their lives were
connected to slavery or to race. But John Quincy also
found the gag rule to be a violation of the
constitutional freedom of speech, and he fought against it from
the moment it was introduced until it was finally lifted
(33:42):
on December three, eighty four. It was also during these
years in the House of Representatives that John Quincy Adams
defended thirty nine Africans who had been enslaved and sent
to Cuba before embarking on an uprising aboard the slave
ship Amistade. This case went all the way to the
Supreme Court, and there is actually an episode about it
(34:03):
in our archive. And as we noted earlier, John Quincy
Adams continued to be a public servant until the day
he died. He stayed in office after having a paralytic
stroke in eighteen forty six, and then on February one,
eighty eight, he had another stroke while on the floor
of the House of Representatives. Later, he collapsed at his desk.
(34:24):
He was taken to the Capitol rotunda and then to
the Speaker's room, where he fell into a coma and
died two days later, having not ever left the building again.
Luisa had a stroke less than a year after that,
and she died on May fourteenth, eighteen fifty two. Congress
adjourned for her funeral on the eighteenth, which they had
never done for a first lady before, and both she
(34:45):
and her husband are buried at the First Parish Church
in Quincy, Massachusetts. So that was John Quincy and Louisa
Catherine Adams abroad. We also have some thank you's before
I get to the story of why we didn't have
the live show to share with you. We want to thank,
obviously Adam's National Historical Park. Thank you so much for
inviting us. We had a great time. It was the weather.
(35:07):
Thank you to the weather for collaborating. It was a
beautiful day. It was a beautiful day. It had been
above ninety degrees for the high for more than a week,
which is hot, especially in a place where no one
has central air conditioning. UM, so I was very glad
that the weather turned out to be lovely that day.
(35:27):
We would like to thank Jessica Pilkington and Carolyn Kinna
from the Park. They were the people that we talked
to as the most as we were organizing all of this.
We'd also like to thank Mark Carrey from the Quincy
Mayor's office. Who helped us out with the p A
system for the show and with spare batteries, which we're
gonna get to in a second. Thanks to the Park
(35:48):
also for arranging an A s L interpreter for the show,
and thanks as well to the interpreter whose name I
unfortunately did not write down. And thank you so much
to everyone who came. You were a great crowd with
so many folks who stayed behind to say hello to us.
I think that was one of the longest post show
meet and greets that we have had, and it was
just a true pleasure. We also for sure have to
(36:09):
thank Igor Nikki, which is what it says on the card.
I thought she introduced herself as Nick and Ari for
bringing us some beautiful gifts and being really sweet. So
in lieu of listener mail, here's what happened. Whenever whenever
we do a live show, I always travel with our
digital recorder cables to connect the digital recorder to a
(36:30):
mixing board, the the power cable, and fresh batteries in
the recorder and spare batteries just in case. Uh. Normally
we tried to plug in the recorder, but sometimes, as
was the case this time, because we were doing an
outdoor show that was being powered by a very long
extension cord. We didn't have an outlet available to plug
(36:50):
in the recorder, so with fresh batteries in there, I
was like, cool, it's no problem, it'll be fine. We
did a sound check, everything sounded beautiful. We went back
to the indoor location where Holly and I were like
waiting to prepare for the show. And then when I
came out to start the recorder recording for the show,
(37:12):
the battery symbol was empty instead of full like I
left it, and so I was like, oh no, this
is unfortunate. Um and Mark Carey from the Mayor's office
had batteries that were closer by than mine, which were
back in my bag, so he went out brought us
back this gigantic sleeve of double A batteries. I replaced
(37:35):
the batteries, I started the thing recording in we did
the show. When the show was over, I went to
turn off and unplug the recorder and it was already
off for mysterious reasons, and it was able to turn
back on, and I could see that I had a
file there of the recording. So I was quite relieved
(37:57):
by all of that. And then I stopped looking at
it because we wanted to talk to the people who
had stayed behind to talk to us. After the show.
We told the park staff what weird thing had happened
with the recorder, and they said, oh, here in the
Adams Triangle and told us a number of stories about
things that have mysteriously gone technologically wrong with no explanation
(38:20):
at various other events. So, okay, sidebar, this is the
first time hearing about it. Oh yeah, I missed the
Adams Triangle discussion. I was probably talking with a listener
at the time you were. You had immediately started talking
to folks, and I was like, I've got to just
worry about this later, because I can't stand here messing
with the digital recorder while people are waitings talk to us.
(38:42):
So when I got back home and I went to
pull the recordings off the recorder, I discovered that the
recording from the actual show part of it, not the
sound check recordings, was zero kilobytes of data. And I
was like, well, this is unfortunate. I cannot do anything
(39:02):
about it right now because it's like nine pm, so
I will save this for tomorrow. Uh. This was all
on Sunday, so yesterday I magically recovered the sound file.
I would like to state that I felt like a
wizard after doing this. Number one, the sound file was
exactly thirteen minutes long, so that's weird. UH Number two,
(39:27):
it had a strange feedback on it that had not
been there during the sound check and was not there
in the sound check files that we're still on the recorder.
So since we had thirteen minutes of weird feedback the audio,
we redid this show as a studio version, rather than
subjecting anyone to that piece of the recording. It's kind
(39:49):
of a bummer when something like that happens, but in
this case, it seems to have been a weird confluence
of technical events. I want to make it clear this
is not a solicit tation for troubleshooting. I've done a
whole bunch of testing with the recorder. We've got it
all figured out. We have a sense, not a totally
(40:10):
explained sense. Because the various UH tests that I ran
at my desk yesterday, I was like, I can't quite
replicate this. I think I know what happened, but I
can't make it happen exactly the same way now. But
that's why we have shared a studio version, and that
is the somewhat unexplained phenomenon of the Adams Triangle which
is apparently causing technical problems at Adams National Historical Park.
(40:35):
No idea, there was a spooky explanation. This is super
exciting now yeah so uh so, thank you again to
everyone who came out. Thank you again to the park.
Thank you everyone, Thank you. Uh If you would like
to send us an email about this or any other
podcast or history podcast at how stuffworks dot com and
then we're on all over social media at missed in History,
(40:57):
you can come to our website, which is missed in
History dot com, were you will find show notes for
all the episodes that Holly and I have worked on
together and a searchable archive of all the episodes we
have ever done. You can also subscribe to our show
on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or wherever else to
get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands of
(41:20):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We are
just back from our live show at Adams National Historical
Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. Yeah. It was super delightful. We
(00:25):
had a great time, We had a great crowd. Everybody
was awesome and delightful. The park staff was awesome and delightful.
The technology was less awesome and delightful, not on their part. No,
I'm gonna tell the whole story of what happened with
the technology at the end of the show because it
is kind of eerie and weird, so I think folks
(00:48):
might be interested to hear what happened with the technology.
But it's also a bit of a longer story, so
I didn't want to put it at the top of
the show. Just say our apologies that we rather than
having a live recording, we're going to have a studio
version of our show that we did at Adams Nationalist
Darkal Park, which was called John Quincy and Louisa Catherine
(01:10):
Adams Abroad. Yes, so you will miss some of the
funny asides that sometimes happen in live shows. Yeah, you'll
miss the moment where a park ranger rescued a spider
from our table. Yes, that I did not want to hurt.
You won't get to hear me talk about how I
would fight a witch and win, which was unrelated to
(01:30):
the episode. I forgot that even happened. So, uh, if
you did not grow up in the Boston area, you
may wonder why or why we're pronouncing the name Quincy
with the Z in it when Quincy is q U.
(01:50):
I n see why. Uh. That is not a thing
that I learned how to say by moving to Massachusetts
and hearing a local person say it. It's a name
that I learned to say by playing Fallout four, which
is they got that correct and Fallout for So the
ancestor who John Quincy Adams was named for, and who
the city of Quincy is named for, pronounced his name Quincy,
(02:11):
and so these names are pronounced Quincy. It probably shocks
people who have said it Quincy their whole lives, but
that's how it is. What we are talking about in
this episode is really John Quincy Adams as a diplomat.
If you're not really immersed in eighteenth and nineteenth century
(02:32):
US history. John Quincy Adams probably comes to mind more
as the son of President John Adams and then the
sixth President of the United States. Not remembered as a
particularly effective president, but he had a really extensive and
influential career as a diplomat long before becoming president. George
Washington called him the most valuable public character we have abroad.
(02:56):
One of the books that I read about his diplomatic
work leading up to this podcast called him one of
nineteenth century America's most accomplished diplomats and statesman, and his
wife Louisa, was an important part of his work and
really awesome on her own. So that is the show
that we're doing today. So John Quincy Adams was born
(03:17):
on July eleven, seventeen sixty seven, the oldest son of
John and Abigail Adams. His parents were, of course, incredibly
prominent figures in the American Revolution, and he was immersed
in that world basically from birth. He also saw the
Revolutionary War firsthand. On June seventeen, seventeen seventy five, when
he was seven, his mother took him up to the
(03:38):
top of Penn's Hill, which was not far from his birthplace.
Also not really far from where we did that live show.
They could hear the cannons and see the smoke from
the Battle of bunker Hill and from the burning of Charlestown.
Today there is a cairn marking the spot where they
watched that, And that makes it sound like kind of
a fun adventure, but in fact it was really terrifying.
(04:01):
John Adams was away at the time and Abigail was
looking after the children of General Joseph Warren along with
John Quincy and his siblings, and Warren was killed in
the Battle of bunker Hill. Much later, John Quincy described
that period of his life this way, quote, for the
space of twelve months, my mother, with her infant children
dwelt liable every hour of the day and of the night,
(04:24):
to be butchered in cold blood or taken and carried
into Boston as hostages by any foraging or marauding detachment
of men. When he was ten, John Quincy went overseas
with his father, who had been appointed the U. S
Commissioner to France, and this was really the beginning of
John Quincy's career as a diplomat. Frequently over the next
(04:45):
few years he accompanied his father on various diplomatic missions,
and often he would continue his education in schools in
Europe while they were abroad. In seventeen eighty one, at
the age of fourteen, John Quincy Adams went overseas with
fran to Dana, the u s Minister to Russia, and
he acted as Dana's personal secretary and served as an
(05:05):
interpreter of French. This was a really difficult assignment. Russia
did not yet recognize the United States as a sovereign nation,
so it was an uphill battle for Dana to even
be recognized as a diplomat at all. John Quincy also
served as a secretary during the Treaty of Paris negotiations
at the end of the Revolutionary War. It was only
(05:26):
after all those years of experience in the world of
international diplomacy that John Quincy Adams finally went to Harvard.
He graduated in seventeen eighty seven at the age of twenty,
and he graduated second in his class and gave a
speech at commencement on the theme of the importance of
public faith to the well being of a community. Later,
he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar and he started
(05:48):
practicing law in Boston, but soon he was right back
in the world of diplomacy. President George Washington appointed him
Minister Resident to the Netherlands in seventeen ninety four. He
was appointed Minister planet Potentiary to Portugal two years later,
but before John Quincy assumed that role, his father was
elected president and he changed that assignment from Portugal to Prussia.
(06:12):
Before going on to Prussia, though, John Quincy Adams stopped
off in London, where he married Louisa Catherine Johnson on
July twenty six, seventeen ninety seven. So we're gonna rewind
for a minute on and catch up on who she was.
Louisa Catherine Johnson was born in London on February twelve,
seventeen seventy five. Her mother, Catherine, was British and her father, Joshua,
(06:34):
was a merchant who had been born in the American colonies.
The family moved to France during the Revolutionary War. They
were a little uncomfortable in England because they supported the
patriots cause, so it was a little a little dicey
to stay there. Yeah, I went awkward. Luisa was also
really young when they moved to France, and while living there,
she attended a Roman Catholic convents school. She became fluent
(06:58):
in French, and essentially he had to relearn English after
the war was over. She had forgotten most of the
English that she knew, so once they moved back to England,
she had to start over. Aside from all of the
international relocation, Luisa had the upbringing that you would probably
anticipate for an affluent young woman of the time. Her
education had a significant focus on music and literature, although
(07:21):
she also really loved science as well, and her teachers
indulged her study of science from time to time, even
though that was not considered a particularly feminine topic of interest.
After the end of the Revolutionary War, Joshua Johnson became
the first American consul in London, so Luisa became part
of a household that was continually welcoming dignitaries and diplomats,
(07:44):
and one of those was John Quincy Adams. When he
was in London on a temporary assignment, he proposed to
her in May of seventeen nineties six. He was still
serving as Minister Resident of the Netherlands and he needed
to return there, so he couldn't get read right away,
and they kept up their courtships through letters, and that
wedding in finally happened only after a number of delays,
(08:09):
some of which were at the urging of his parents,
who did not really approve of this match. But as
a couple immersed in the world of diplomacy, they actually
were pretty well matched. Both of them became highly respected
in diplomatic circles. John Quincy Adams was known for having
a very cold aloof and stubborn demeanor is probably obvious
(08:30):
if you have ever seen a portrait of him. He
looks even more severe than typical portraiture of the time. Louisa,
on the other hand, was graceful and witty and charming,
and so his aloofness was offset by her charm. She
could be really anxious about making a good impression in
these aristocratic and royal circles, and she was not always
(08:53):
comfortable being in the spotlight, but she made a really
quick study of all the various layers of etiquette protocol
that were required of her. She wound up becoming friends
with a number of royals and dignitaries, and as the
years progressed, she became very good at talking about her
husband and framing his work in really positive terms. She
(09:13):
basically eased the way for him and all these various
diplomatic assignments. Not long after they got married, though, Luisa's
father's business collapsed and she was mortified, and she was
also really worried that people were going to think that
she had tricked John Quincy into getting married. She really
doated on her father, and this bankruptcy meant that her
(09:35):
new husband and father in law were being contacted by
his creditors. She also had to adjust to a much
more modest lifestyle. John Quincy's salary as a diplomat was
really not large, and since her family no longer had
any money, she never really got her dowry. She just
they did not have a lot to live on. This
(09:55):
was especially true since they were supposed to be moving
among Prussia's most affluent and prestigious circles. Luisa really felt
like they couldn't maintain the lifestyle that they needed to
on the amount of money that they had. John Quincy's
work as a diplomat also meant that he was really
busy and he was away from home a lot, including
during Louise's pregnancy with their first child, George Washington Adams,
(10:19):
who was born in Berlin on April twelfth, eighteen o one.
This was really hard on Luisa. In addition to the
usual stresses of pregnancy and delivering and just dealing with
a newborn, particularly your first child, she had ongoing issues
with her health for her whole life. It's not really
something that we can diagnose today, but a range of
illnesses and fevers, along with symptoms of anxiety and depression
(10:44):
all were part of it. She and John Quincy would
ultimately have four children, but she also heartbreaking Lee had
at least nine miscarriages and a still birth. After John
Adams lost the election of eighteen hundred, he recalled John
Quincy backed the United States. Before he left office, Louisa's
family was living in the States as well. By this point,
(11:05):
her father had been made the Commissioner of Stamps and
was living in Washington, d c. This was a time
of mixed emotions for Louisa. She was still recovering from
her pregnancy and delivery, so she was really happy to
be reunited with her family in her first ever trip
to the United States, but she and her husband were
going to be spending significant amounts of time in Massachusetts.
(11:26):
As well. Abigail Adams still didn't really approve of Louisa
and John Quincy's marriage, and Louisa really wasn't what was
expected of an Adams woman. Abigail Adams was a very
take charge, get things done kind of person, and Luisa,
in contrast, was the product of a very privileged European
upbringing that did not prepare her for things like running
(11:49):
a household and a farm. The adams Is and the
Johnson's were also just very different families. The adams Is
were Unitarians descended from the Puritan founders of Massachusetts, while
Louisa was an Episcopalian and had been educated at a
Catholic school. She was a little suspicious of the Unitarian Church.
She called it quote a sect enveloped in a cloud
(12:12):
of missed. Especially during this stretch of time in the States,
Luisa always felt like she was being judged by Abigail
and that she was always coming up short. She greatly
preferred being in d c. Over being in Massachusetts. The
adams Is were in the United States for the next
few years. John Quincy served in the Massachusetts Senate and
(12:34):
then the US Senate. He also taught rhetoric an oratory
at Harvard, but in eighteen o nine President James Madison
appointed him Minister planet Potentiary to Russia. John Quincy adams
diplomatic mission to Russia led to one of the more
dramatic periods in Louise's life, and we are going to
get to all of that after a quick sponsor break.
(13:01):
After John Quincy Adams was appointed Minister to Russia, he
and Louisa moved to St. Petersburg with their youngest child,
Charles Francis Adams. At this point they had three children.
Their older sons, George Washington Adams and John Adams the second,
were left back in Massachusetts in the care of Abigail Adams,
and as was the case with a lot of household
(13:24):
and family decisions, this one was made without really consulting Louisa.
Her relationship with John Quincy seems to have been loving
and passionate, like when she was sick, he would fret
himself into distraction about her health. They seem to have
really had a lot of tenderness and affection for each other,
but also, unsurprisingly, giving that this was a marriage involving
(13:45):
an international diplomat who would later become President, their relationship
was also frequently contentious, and he didn't often seem to
see her as his equal or include her in a
lot of decision making. One of the things that Louisa
had really not enjoyed about her time in Massachusetts was
the winters, and the winters in Russia were worse. Luisa's
(14:06):
frequent illnesses got worse while she was there, and she
and John Quincy also had a daughter while they were
in Russia. A daughter was also named Louisa Catherine. She
was born on August twelfth, eighteen eleven, but unfortunately she
died a little more than a year later, and of
course Luisa was absolutely devastated. John Quincy's diplomatic work in
Russia played out in the context of the Napoleonic Wars.
(14:28):
Sorry Alexander the First had been allied with Napoleon, but
once that alliance was dissolved, to put it mildly, he
sought stronger ties with the United States. John Quincy Adams
was one of the people working to try to build
those ties and to increase reciprocal trade between the US
and Russia. On June eighth, eighteen twelve, the United States
(14:49):
declared war on Great Britain, Zar Alexander wanted to continue
to trade with both of those nations, and he offered
to try to mediate with the hope of ending the war,
but at that point brit was confident that it was
winning and so refused the offer. Yeah, Britain was basically like,
we don't need your help to We got this. We
got it. Of course, though the war dragged on, it
(15:10):
had its own shifts and who was winning its own
ebbs and flows, And eighteen months later, in January of
eighteen fourteen, both nations finally agreed to peace talks and
the neutral city of Ghent. President James Madison made John
Quincy Adams head of the commission to lead these negotiations,
and he left for Ghent in April of eighteen fourteen,
(15:32):
leaving Louisa and Charles Francis behind in St. Petersburg. Four months,
John Quincy was in Ghent conducting peace talks while his
wife and son were alone in St. Petersburg. And we
should qualify that that alone also included a household of
servants and the tutors that Charles Francis had, But this
was still one of the loneliest stretches of all of
(15:54):
Louise's time as a diplomat's wife. The Treaty of Ghent
was finally signed on to Sep. Twenty four, eighteen fourteen,
although word traveled pretty slowly and fighting continued into eighteen fifteen.
The US had gotten into this war with the hope
of gaining more territory from Canada, but once they got
to the negotiating table, John Quincy's primary goal was to
(16:16):
just put the two nations territory back to where it
was before the war started, and in that he was
successful to quote from the treaty, all hostilities, both by
sea and land, shall cease as soon as this treaty
shall have been ratified by both parties, as here and
after mentioned. All territory, places and possessions whatsoever taken by
(16:39):
either party from the other during the war, or which
may be taken after the signing of this treaty, accepting
only the islands here and after mentioned, shall be restored
without delay. Historian still argue about who really won the
War of eighteen twelve, if anyone, but to the U.
S government, this treaty was viewed as a diplomatic victor.
(17:00):
At the start of the negotiations, Britain had wanted two
and fifty thousand square miles of land in the northwest,
plus a new border for Canada that would give it
the southern shores of the Great Lakes and part of Maine.
With that possibility in mind, just put it back the
way it was was a big win. And we should
(17:20):
note that this treaty was catastrophic for the indigenous population
in the contested areas. The treaty was supposed to restore
quote all possessions, rights, and privileges which they may have
enjoyed or been entitled to in eighteen eleven, but there
was no authoritative map of eighteen eleven and what those
(17:40):
possessions had been. And also that northwestern land that Britain
had wanted was supposed to be used to set up
an independent Native American state, and that obviously did not happen.
On December eighteen fourteen, John Quincy Adams wrote to Louisa,
at her encouragement, he had gone to Paris for something
of a break after the treaty was signed. He directed
(18:03):
her to settle all of their affairs in St. Petersburg,
to pack up whatever she wanted to keep, to sell
everything else, and to join him in Paris with their son.
She got this letter in late January, and she was baffled.
As we mentioned earlier, she had often been completely excluded
from decisions about their household and their family up to
(18:25):
this point, but now he was suddenly entrusting her to
manage all of this by herself. He also made it
sound like it would probably not be that hard um,
whereas when he had made this same basic journey before leaving,
he had made sure that she knew where his will was.
(18:46):
After she recovered from her total astonishment in this whole situation,
though Louisa happily got to work three weeks after getting
the letter. On her forty birthday, she was ready to go.
She had some mixed feelings about leaving, but she was
very eager to be reunited with John Quincy. So on
February twelve, eighteen fifteen, she started a forty day, two
(19:08):
thousand mile journey by sledding carriage through Russia in winter.
It was literally the same path that a lot of
Napoleon's army had been following while retreating, because going into
Russia in winter as a terrible idea. She was traveling
along the post road system, which was really easy to
(19:29):
get lost on and it required her to manage changes
of horses at post stations along the way. She and
her seven year old son were accompanied by two servants.
Everything that I read about this described these two servants
loyalty as questionable. They also had a governess who was
hired on the day that they departed. During this trip,
(19:50):
there were only nine days that they were not traveling,
and that would have put them on the road in
a horse drawn sleigh or carriage for an average of
ten the hours a day. They spent nights in towns
when possible and at post stations when not, or they
just traveled through the night when there was nowhere to
sleep and it was too cold to bunk in the carriage.
(20:12):
They also had to keep a supply of food and
beverages in the carriage because they never knew what provisions
might be like at the more remote post stations. This
journey took them through places that had been devastated during
the Napoleonic Wars, and a lot of times the soldiers
who had been fighting were all still there, either theoretically
protecting the peace or pretty much waiting to go to
(20:34):
battle again, sometimes just causing trouble, and all of this
was on top of the usual threats involved with travel,
which also included bandits and highwaymen on the road. When
she got to Germany in mid March, Luisa started hearing
rumors that Napoleon had returned from exile. By the time
she got to Frankfurt, it was clear that this was
(20:56):
not just a rumor, and that she needed to get
to her husband as quickly as possible. Napoleon was indeed
on the move again and terrorizing the very area that
they were traveling through. Louisa wrote numerous accounts of this journey,
including one in her autobiography, which I love. The title
of it was Adventures of a Nobody, and one of
(21:17):
these accounts here is how she described her state as
they crossed into France. Quote, my health was dreadful, and
the excessive desire which I felt to terminate this long
and arduous journey absolutely made me sick. I had been
absent a year from my husband and five long, long
years and a half from my two eldest born sons,
(21:39):
whom I had left in America with their grandparents. War
had intervened and free communication, in addition to the accustomed
impediments from the climate had conduced to add to my anxieties.
Every letter had brought me accounts of the loss of
near and dear relatives whom I never more should see.
And nothing but the buoyant hope of soon embracing those
(22:02):
long separated and loved sustained me through the fatigue and
excitement to which I was necessarily exposed. Outside of eper
May very roughly a hundred miles as like a hundred
and fifty kilometers from Paris, they traveled past a group
of camp followers who saw the carriage, assumed its passengers
were Russian and started shouting threats and epithets at them.
(22:26):
Soon they were surrounded by Napoleon's imperial guard, who looked
at Luisa's passport and saw that she was an American
en route to Paris. The fact that she was fluent
in French came in really handy here, but they still
only let her go if she would shout Viva Napoleon.
She shouted it a lot, and very enthusiastically. They were
(22:49):
ultimately allowed to go, although the soldiers stayed with their
carriage all the way to the next post house. They
also threatened to shoot them and generally menaced them bayonets
if they made the horses go any faster than a walk.
Charles Francis was terrified, and in Luise's own account, the
next several hours were pretty much a blur, but she
(23:12):
finally arrived at John Quincy's rented rooms in Paris on
March fifteen. With the two of them reunited, it seems
like another good place for a quick sponsor break. This
arduous wintertime journey through Europe shifted several relationships in Louise's life.
(23:37):
Number one, it really clued her husband into the fact
that she was indeed smart, trustworthy and capable. She became
a bigger part of his working life after this. It
also brought into focus that he'd probably been underestimating women
in general, and Abigail Adams finally started warming up to
Louisa after this too. She had demonstrated that she was
(23:58):
actually quite hardy of out. A month before Louisa arrived
in Paris, John Quincy was named Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Planet Potentiary to Britain. This was a post his father
had held, and it was one that his son Charles
Francis would eventually hold as well. Once they got there,
the adams Is found a nice little house in the country,
(24:18):
and they brought their oldest sons over from the US.
They spent most of the next two years in Britain
until John Quincy was appointed Secretary of State under James
Monroe on March five, eighteen seventeen. This was a role
that he was highly qualified for thanks to all of
that time overseas on various diplomatic assignments. His experience and
(24:39):
international diplomacy really shaped his work as Secretary of State,
and his work as Secretary of State continues to affect
the United States in a lot of ways. In eighteen nineteen,
he negotiated the Transcontinental Treaty a k a. The Adams
Ownee Treaty, which is what transferred what is now Florida
to the United States from Spain. Parts of this territory
(25:01):
had long been in dispute, and that dispute was only
resolved after the US used Andrew Jackson's campaign against the
Seminoles as leverage. And this was another part of John
Quincy Adams's career that was viewed as a diplomatic triumph
that one sentence obviously does not do. Andrew Jackson's campaign
against the seminoles justice at all. But that's the whole
(25:24):
other topic. On December two, of President Monroe gave his
seventh annual Message to Congress, basically a State of the
Union address. He talked about negotiations with Russia and Great
Britain about their respective rights and interests in the Northwest,
and he said, quote in the discussions to which this
interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which
(25:46):
they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for
asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests
of the United States are involved, that the American continents,
by free and independent condition which they have a oomed
and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects
for future colonization by any European powers. He went on
(26:10):
to elaborate from there with three basic ideas. First, that
the United States wouldn't interfere with European colonies in the
Western Hemisphere that existed already, but that the Western Hemisphere
was off the table for future colonization. Second, if a
European power did try to establish colonial rule in the
(26:30):
Western Hemisphere, the US would see that as a hostile
action against the United States, and third, the US would
not get involved in European affairs. These ideas have come
to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, and John Quincy
Adams was a huge part of its development. The Monroe
Doctrine grew in part out of a fear that Spain
(26:52):
would try to recolonize South America. At this point, most
of Spain's former South American colonies had had their own
movements for independence that had been successful. There's a fear
that Spain was going to try to take all that
back over. Initially, British officials had proposed that the United
States and Britain issue a joint statement about this, but
John Quincy insisted to the President that the United States
(27:15):
should act on its own, in part because teaming up
with Britain would just make it look like Britain was
doing all the work and the United States just kind
of a hanger on. So he influenced what the Monroe
Doctrine said. Along with the fact that the Monroe Doctrine
existed at all, the US was not a military superpower
at this point, so the idea that the nation could
(27:36):
actually enforce the principles outlined in the Monroe Doctrine was
almost laughable. So the response from the major European powers
was somewhere on a spectrum between dismissive and irked. But
the Monroe Doctrine became the cornerstone of US foreign policy
and continued to be cited and to influence international relations
for a very long time. The Monroe Doctrine was a
(28:00):
huge part of John Quincy's legacy as a diplomat, but
that was also just one part of it. Through his
time abroad and his time as a Secretary of State,
he set and reinforced a lot of precedents in US
foreign relations, for good or for ill, really, including the
idea of freedom of the seas and overall non intervention
in other nations affairs. He was also a supporter of
(28:22):
the idea of manifest destiny, or the idea that the
US was destined to spread itself and democracy all across
North America. He shifted that opinion a little when it
looked like expanding into Texas would also expand the institution
of slavery. He was in favor of expanding the nation,
but not if it brought slavery along with it. John
(28:43):
Quincy Adams ran for president in eighteen twenty four in
what was a highly contentious election, and Luisa was at
the heart of his campaign. She held Tuesday Night sociables
along with all kinds of other events, and they made
extensive connections among Washington, d C's most influential people. Louisa
(29:04):
was a gracious and delightful hostess, and she really encouraged
her husband to try to be more chariusmatic in his
campaign and shake off a little bit of that cold demeanor.
Andrew Jackson won more popular and electoral votes than any
other candidate in this election, but he did not have
the electoral majority that was needed to win, so the
(29:25):
election fell to the House of Representatives. Louisa held her
last campaign sociable on February. At least sixty members of
the House were there, and in a surprise upset, the
House of Representatives elected John Quincy president the next day.
He was inaugurated on March fourth and reportedly sworn in
(29:45):
with his hand on a book of law. This show
is more about John Quincy Adams's work as a diplomat
than about his time as president, but just to touch
on it overall, it was not a successful presidency and
it was not a happy time for the family. That
contentious election left him without support in Congress. John Quincy
(30:06):
also made Henry Clay, who had also run for president,
his secretary of State, and this led to accusations that
John Quincy Adams had made a corrupt bargain to secure
the presidency, something that John Quincy steadfastly denied. As president,
he had really lofty goals. He thought the government should
be a force for public goods, so he wanted to
(30:27):
establish a national University fund, a variety of scientific expeditions,
start a huge infrastructure project that would include highways and canals.
But with a lot of Congress actively working against him,
he could not get any of it done. Even though
he could be really pragmatic when it came down to
actually implementing his more idealistic goals. I mean, he understood
(30:50):
sometimes that what he was doing, or what he was
wanting to do, was really ambitious, and he understood that
sometimes it was not realistic to get there. The fact
that it was just stonewalled the whole way was a
huge blow. We mentioned at the top of the episode
that this was originally prepared for a live show, and
we normally have a rule about live shows that we
(31:11):
don't want to do bummer topics. But the adams Is
life at this point really did become quite difficult. They
faced ongoing animosity in Washington at the time and for
almost two hundred years after. Louisa was the only First
Lady that was not born in the United States, and
as a consequence, she was subject to intense scrutiny. The
(31:34):
pressures of being the first family were also really hard
on all of the Adams as some of their surviving
children had a range of problems during and after these years,
including alcohol abuse and drug addictions. Their son George died
in an apparent suicide not long after they left the
White House. And to end the discussion of the presidency
(31:54):
on a lighter note, but with the caveat that this
is apocryphal, or at least it could be a Acerples right.
This is not clear as to how truthful this is.
The MARKETA. Lafayette gave John Quincy an alligator as a
pet during his tour of the United States, and for
a while, according to the story, the adams Is kept
(32:15):
it in a bathtub at the White House, and then
they would show it off to guests who came to visit.
After serving one term as president, John Quincy Adams lost
to Andrew Jackson in the election, but he did not
stay out of politics for long. In eighteen thirty he
ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. He
was elected by a landslide and stayed in office literally
(32:38):
until the day he died. So we are nearing the
end of our episode. So we're going to be summing
up about twenty years of legislative work, and obviously we
can't do that in great detail in what's left, but
one of the big highlights was his fight against the
Gag rule. And the Gag rule was instituted on May
(32:58):
eighteen thirty six, and it forbade the House of Representatives
from considering anti slavery petitions. John Quincy Adams was stridently
against the Gag rule. He and Louisa were both morally
opposed to slavery. He called it a great and foul
stain upon the North American Union. At the same time,
he thought the federal government had no constitutional power to
(33:22):
abolish slavery in the states where it existed. Obviously, that
is not the whole story of how their lives were
connected to slavery or to race. But John Quincy also
found the gag rule to be a violation of the
constitutional freedom of speech, and he fought against it from
the moment it was introduced until it was finally lifted
(33:42):
on December three, eighty four. It was also during these
years in the House of Representatives that John Quincy Adams
defended thirty nine Africans who had been enslaved and sent
to Cuba before embarking on an uprising aboard the slave
ship Amistade. This case went all the way to the
Supreme Court, and there is actually an episode about it
(34:03):
in our archive. And as we noted earlier, John Quincy
Adams continued to be a public servant until the day
he died. He stayed in office after having a paralytic
stroke in eighteen forty six, and then on February one,
eighty eight, he had another stroke while on the floor
of the House of Representatives. Later, he collapsed at his desk.
(34:24):
He was taken to the Capitol rotunda and then to
the Speaker's room, where he fell into a coma and
died two days later, having not ever left the building again.
Luisa had a stroke less than a year after that,
and she died on May fourteenth, eighteen fifty two. Congress
adjourned for her funeral on the eighteenth, which they had
never done for a first lady before, and both she
(34:45):
and her husband are buried at the First Parish Church
in Quincy, Massachusetts. So that was John Quincy and Louisa
Catherine Adams abroad. We also have some thank you's before
I get to the story of why we didn't have
the live show to share with you. We want to thank,
obviously Adam's National Historical Park. Thank you so much for
inviting us. We had a great time. It was the weather.
(35:07):
Thank you to the weather for collaborating. It was a
beautiful day. It was a beautiful day. It had been
above ninety degrees for the high for more than a week,
which is hot, especially in a place where no one
has central air conditioning. UM, so I was very glad
that the weather turned out to be lovely that day.
(35:27):
We would like to thank Jessica Pilkington and Carolyn Kinna
from the Park. They were the people that we talked
to as the most as we were organizing all of this.
We'd also like to thank Mark Carrey from the Quincy
Mayor's office. Who helped us out with the p A
system for the show and with spare batteries, which we're
gonna get to in a second. Thanks to the Park
(35:48):
also for arranging an A s L interpreter for the show,
and thanks as well to the interpreter whose name I
unfortunately did not write down. And thank you so much
to everyone who came. You were a great crowd with
so many folks who stayed behind to say hello to us.
I think that was one of the longest post show
meet and greets that we have had, and it was
just a true pleasure. We also for sure have to
(36:09):
thank Igor Nikki, which is what it says on the card.
I thought she introduced herself as Nick and Ari for
bringing us some beautiful gifts and being really sweet. So
in lieu of listener mail, here's what happened. Whenever whenever
we do a live show, I always travel with our
digital recorder cables to connect the digital recorder to a
(36:30):
mixing board, the the power cable, and fresh batteries in
the recorder and spare batteries just in case. Uh. Normally
we tried to plug in the recorder, but sometimes, as
was the case this time, because we were doing an
outdoor show that was being powered by a very long
extension cord. We didn't have an outlet available to plug
(36:50):
in the recorder, so with fresh batteries in there, I
was like, cool, it's no problem, it'll be fine. We
did a sound check, everything sounded beautiful. We went back
to the indoor location where Holly and I were like
waiting to prepare for the show. And then when I
came out to start the recorder recording for the show,
(37:12):
the battery symbol was empty instead of full like I
left it, and so I was like, oh no, this
is unfortunate. Um and Mark Carey from the Mayor's office
had batteries that were closer by than mine, which were
back in my bag, so he went out brought us
back this gigantic sleeve of double A batteries. I replaced
(37:35):
the batteries, I started the thing recording in we did
the show. When the show was over, I went to
turn off and unplug the recorder and it was already
off for mysterious reasons, and it was able to turn
back on, and I could see that I had a
file there of the recording. So I was quite relieved
(37:57):
by all of that. And then I stopped looking at
it because we wanted to talk to the people who
had stayed behind to talk to us. After the show.
We told the park staff what weird thing had happened
with the recorder, and they said, oh, here in the
Adams Triangle and told us a number of stories about
things that have mysteriously gone technologically wrong with no explanation
(38:20):
at various other events. So, okay, sidebar, this is the
first time hearing about it. Oh yeah, I missed the
Adams Triangle discussion. I was probably talking with a listener
at the time you were. You had immediately started talking
to folks, and I was like, I've got to just
worry about this later, because I can't stand here messing
with the digital recorder while people are waitings talk to us.
(38:42):
So when I got back home and I went to
pull the recordings off the recorder, I discovered that the
recording from the actual show part of it, not the
sound check recordings, was zero kilobytes of data. And I
was like, well, this is unfortunate. I cannot do anything
(39:02):
about it right now because it's like nine pm, so
I will save this for tomorrow. Uh. This was all
on Sunday, so yesterday I magically recovered the sound file.
I would like to state that I felt like a
wizard after doing this. Number one, the sound file was
exactly thirteen minutes long, so that's weird. UH Number two,
(39:27):
it had a strange feedback on it that had not
been there during the sound check and was not there
in the sound check files that we're still on the recorder.
So since we had thirteen minutes of weird feedback the audio,
we redid this show as a studio version, rather than
subjecting anyone to that piece of the recording. It's kind
(39:49):
of a bummer when something like that happens, but in
this case, it seems to have been a weird confluence
of technical events. I want to make it clear this
is not a solicit tation for troubleshooting. I've done a
whole bunch of testing with the recorder. We've got it
all figured out. We have a sense, not a totally
(40:10):
explained sense. Because the various UH tests that I ran
at my desk yesterday, I was like, I can't quite
replicate this. I think I know what happened, but I
can't make it happen exactly the same way now. But
that's why we have shared a studio version, and that
is the somewhat unexplained phenomenon of the Adams Triangle which
is apparently causing technical problems at Adams National Historical Park.
(40:35):
No idea, there was a spooky explanation. This is super
exciting now yeah so uh so, thank you again to
everyone who came out. Thank you again to the park.
Thank you everyone, Thank you. Uh If you would like
to send us an email about this or any other
podcast or history podcast at how stuffworks dot com and
then we're on all over social media at missed in History,
(40:57):
you can come to our website, which is missed in
History dot com, were you will find show notes for
all the episodes that Holly and I have worked on
together and a searchable archive of all the episodes we
have ever done. You can also subscribe to our show
on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or wherever else to
get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands of
(41:20):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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