By Tom Perry
Continuing my posts about the men who served as POTUS President of the United States, we come to number six, John Quincy Adams, the son of the second President, John Adams. George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush were the second father/son combination to serve as POTUS. I have come across several connections between the Stuart and Adams families in my years of researching the Stuarts.
Judge Alexander Stuart, the grandfather of J. E. B. Stuart, is in many Missouri records. On December 12, 1817, Judge Stuart served as Judge of the General Court in St. Clair County, Illinois. On February 2, 1818, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams recommended the renewal of the commission of Stuart as United States Judge. The following month, Stuart received his commission, signed by President James Monroe, at an annual salary of $1,500. A few weeks later, on February 24, 1818, the inhabitants, including Alexander Stuart of St. Ferdinand in St. Louis County, Missouri, requested a post office.
The Letcher family connected the Stuarts to many important personages. Giles Letcher’s first son, Stephen, was the father of Governor Robert Letcher of Kentucky. Robert Letcher served in the U. S. Congress as Minister to Mexico. Letcher served as a go-between with Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams in the “corrupt bargain” that led to Adams’ defeat in the 1824 presidential election. Clay came in third in the election and threw his support to Adams, even though Andrew Jackson received the most popular votes. Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State.
J. E. B. Stuart’s father, Archibald Stuart, served one term in the United States House of Representatives. During his one term, he experienced some excitement when he found himself facing the son of a “Founding Father,” John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts. Adams, the son of President John Adams, was the only former chief executive of the United States to return to the House of Representatives, serving the people of the “Bay State’s” 12th Congressional District for seventeen years. Not surprisingly, the icon from New England and the lawyer from Ararat voted against each other twenty-nine times and with each other nineteen times in the second session of the 25th Congress, 1837-38, with one or the other being “Not Present” another twenty-one times.
Adams repeatedly attempted to get the House to talk about slavery during Stuart’s one term. This “Gag Rule” kept any discussion of slavery out of Congress. Adams presented multiple petitions from citizens calling for the abolition of slavery or curtailing the slave trade in the District of Columbia, including Washington City.
Stuart and Adams locked horns over this issue on February 26, 1838, as a petition from Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Virginia, within Stuart’s district, arrived on the House floor. The petition, presented by J. Q. Adams, called for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The petition stated, “in our opinions morally and politically wrong and calculated certainly to stir up the deadliest strife between North and South and finally to involve our beloved country in the horrors of a civil war and to lead to the dissolution of the Union.” Stuart “said that the memorial appeared to have come from his district, but he had never heard anything of it.” Stuart per the Congressional Digest asked the clerk to read the names on the petition aloud. After they were read, Stuart “said that he was satisfied the names were all fictitious and moved the resolution be laid on the table.” The petition was laid on the table where it died a quiet death, and the “Gag Rule” not to talk about slavery was maintained, and the United States drifted ever closer to Civil War.
Another memory of J. Q. Adams comes from the Steven Spielberg movie Amistad, in which Sir Anthony Hopkins, in a riveting scene, plays Adams, representing the Africans in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to regain their freedom. Hopkins comes face to face with a bust of his father, John Adams, during his remarks in the film.
J. Q. Adams served his country from youth, acting as his father’s Secretary on trips to Europe, including jobs in Russia, and as Ambassador to Great Britain, alongside his father and son, Charles Francis Adams. He served as James Monroe’s Secretary of State, the stepping stone to the presidency. Adams wrote much of the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers to stay out of America during his time as Secretary of State. He was the first President to be photographed and was in office when his father and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. After losing reelection to Andrew Jackson, Adams returned to the House of Representatives for nearly two decades. He collapsed in the House of Representatives and died in the Speaker’s Office. He is buried with his wife, mother, and father in Quincy, Massachusetts.
• Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams in the movie Amistad, calling on his ancestors with his father’s portrait and bust of his father, John Adams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7BjqVD3I6Q
• Hopkins as J. Q. Adams in Amistad
https://youtu.be/86yzWmrR3Hk?si=5pNiFB4a0fnNuYYE
