JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (DR) - 1825-1829
The 6th president became the first one to be the son fo a previous president, and like his father, he only served one term.
He'd lived abroad for years and could speak multiple languages by the time he became president. He was a great diplomat for these young United States.
He was the last Democratic-Republican candidate. In fact by that time the Federalists had been phased out and several regional candidates ran. Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and had the most electoral votes, but he didn't have enough to be considered the outright winner. Under the Twelfth Amendment, the election then went to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay was Speaker of the House, and he'd run but came in fourth. He gave his support to Adams, and the House awarded him the presidency. Jackson and his supporters were outraged. To make it worse, Adams made Clay his Secretary of State. As three presidents had held that position before their elections, it was seen that Adams was anointing Clay his successor for giving him the presidency now. Jackson was a fierce critic of Adams his entire term and came back to defeat him in a landslide.
Adams had the same prickliness of his father and wasn't good at building coalitions for domestic support. He's one of the only presidents to not attend the inaugeration of his successor, so deep was the animosity between him and Jackson. Adams was more effective as Secretary of State under Monroe, and post-presidency, in the House of Representatives, where he grew increasingly anti-slavery, also lending his help to the Amistad case.
No comments:
Post a Comment