John Quincy Adams' Fight Against Slavery

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Few American presidents have embodied such fascinating contradictions as John Quincy Adams. The son of founding father John Adams, he forged a unique political philosophy that would later influence Abraham Lincoln’s approach to slavery and constitutional governance. While history remembers him as an unsuccessful one-term president, Adams’s true legacy lies in his principled stance against slavery and his distinctive vision of American exceptionalism—one that viewed the nation’s revolutionary ideals not as license for expansion, but as a burden to uphold moral principles.

The Making of a Revolutionary Conservative

John Quincy Adams’s intellectual formation reads like a blueprint for enlightenment education. Multilingual from youth, he mastered French, Spanish, Latin, and Greek while traveling through Europe with his father during crucial diplomatic missions. This classical education wasn’t merely academic—it shaped his worldview profoundly. His diaries reveal a man who thought one-third in English, one-third in Greek, and one-third in Latin, constantly drawing parallels between ancient Roman virtue and American republican ideals.

This educational foundation led Adams to develop what can only be called “revolutionary conservatism/” This philosophical stance sought to preserve the American Revolution while rejecting the French Revolution’s excesses. In his first major political work, the “Letters from Publicola” published anonymously in the 1790s, Adams mounted a savage critique of Thomas Paine and indirectly Thomas Jefferson, positioning himself alongside Edmund Burke in condemning French revolutionary radicalism. For Adams, the American Revolution represented a flowering of Western civilization’s classical heritage, while the French Revolution constituted a destructive break from that tradition.

This distinction became central to Adams’s political identity. Unlike typical conservatives who might retreat from revolutionary ideals, Adams embraced the Declaration of Independence as his guiding star, famously holding up the original document in 1821 while proclaiming it “the only lawful ground” for legitimate government. His conservatism lay in method, not goals; he believed in equality and republican government but insisted these principles must emerge from wisdom and virtue rather than popular passion.

Presidential Ambitions and Jacksonian Opposition

Adams’s presidency, achieved through the controversial “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay in 1824, exposed the limitations of his aristocratic approach to democratic politics. While he entered office with grand visions for internal improvements and moral progress, he fundamentally misunderstood the changing nature of American democracy. His patrician bearing and intellectual complexity made him appear elitist to ordinary Americans, while his high-minded rhetoric failed to inspire popular support.

More significantly, Adams viewed Andrew Jackson’s rising populist movement as an existential threat to American republicanism. He saw in Jacksonian democracy two dangerous tendencies: revolutionary Jacobinism that could undo the American Revolution’s achievements, and vulgar interest-based politics that reduced governance to spoils distribution. This wasn’t mere partisan opposition; rather, Adams genuinely believed Jackson represented a “dark force” that would corrupt American political culture.

The 1828 election vindicated Adams’s fears about his own political limitations while confirming Jackson’s popular appeal. Jackson’s decisive victory forced Adams into temporary political retirement, where he retreated into literary pursuits, including Shakespeare criticism. Yet this defeat ultimately liberated Adams from the constraints of executive leadership, allowing him to pursue his true calling as a principled voice for moral politics.

The Anti-Slavery Crusader

Adams’s return to public life as a Massachusetts congressman marked perhaps his most consequential period of service. Dubbed “Old Man Eloquent,” he became the leading voice for constitutional anti-slavery politics, carefully distinguishing his position from both radical abolitionists and pro-slavery forces. While William Lloyd Garrison burned copies of the Constitution on Boston Common, declaring it a “deal with the devil,” Adams argued for harmony between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, believing constitutional politics could ultimately end slavery.

The famous Amistad case exemplified Adams’s approach. When enslaved Africans aboard the ship Amistad sought their freedom in American courts, Adams successfully defended them, receiving a Bible from the grateful survivors that he treasured until death. This wasn’t mere legal advocacy—it represented his broader strategy of using constitutional principles and eloquent argument to advance anti-slavery causes while preserving the Union.

Adams’s anti-slavery philosophy proved prescient. Unlike abolitionists who often dismissed the Constitution as hopelessly compromised, he maintained that Union preservation was slavery’s ultimate enemy. His approach anticipated Lincoln’s later strategy of containing slavery through constitutional means while avoiding the disunion that radical abolitionists sometimes seemed willing to embrace. When Adams died in 1848, Lincoln served as a pallbearer at his congressional memorial service, a symbolic passing of the torch from one principled opponent of slavery to another.

The Paradoxes of Principled Politics

For all his admirable qualities, Adams’s career illuminated the challenges facing intellectual politicians in democratic societies. His elitist tendencies, evident in private correspondence dismissive of ordinary Americans, made him ill-suited for the rough democracy of the post-revolutionary era. His constant self-examination and agonizing over decisions, while morally admirable, often paralyzed him politically when decisive action was needed.

Adams’s religious evolution also reflected his complex character. Unlike his father’s straightforward Enlightenment unitarianism, John Quincy Adams wrestled continuously with questions of faith, oscillating between unitarian and trinitarian beliefs throughout his life. This spiritual restlessness mirrored his political independence—he switched parties when conscience demanded, earning accusations of inconsistency that he wore as badges of principle.

Perhaps most tellingly, Adams lived more as an “antique Roman” than a modern American, finding his true thoughts in classical texts rather than contemporary political discourse. This classical orientation provided moral ballast but also created distance from his fellow citizens. His diary entries reveal a man of profound feeling and romantic temperament, constantly seeking to align intellectual understanding with moral action.

John Quincy Adams’s legacy transcends his presidential failure. He demonstrated how principled opposition to slavery could work within constitutional frameworks, how American exceptionalism might impose moral obligations rather than justify expansion, and how classical education could inform democratic politics. His “revolutionary conservatism” offered a path between radical change and reactionary resistance—a lesson particularly relevant for contemporary American politics seeking to balance foundational principles with evolving challenges.