By the Maui Curmudgeon (6th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: 1825-1829 ~ 6th U.S. President

The only elected president who was the son of a president (no, the current occupier of the White House was appointed and doesn’t count), John Quincy Adams was without a doubt one of the smartest men to hold the office. He amplified his father’s dedication to honesty, fought slavery, and was a great president - who had what most every historian considers to be a failed presidency.

In his 54-year span of public service Adams held nearly all principle offices in the United States, with the exception of a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, which he declined in 1811 after being ratified by the Senate. At the age of ten he was with his father in France. By the time he was 17, he spoke seven languages fluently. George Washington appointed the 24-year-old Adams as Ambassador to The Netherlands. Adams was the sole negotiator in Europe for the treaty which ended the War of 1812, as Secretary of State.

His election in 1824 (which his father lived to see) remains one of the most controversial. Neither Andrew Jackson nor Adams received a majority of the electoral votes, so the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. Even though Jackson had received twice the number of popular votes than Adams did, Adam’s connections, political legacy and integrity won him the race, setting the stage for what some historians still consider (amazing given today’s dirty campaigns) to be the nastiest run campaign ever - Jackson’s excoriation of Adams in 1828. It is disheartening to know that illegal tricks and slanderous writings worked with Americans then as they do today.

THE BAD

• If integrity could be considered a bad thing, Adams suffered because of it. He kept on his cabinet openly defiant members, and members accused of crimes. Adams felt compelled to hold these men as showing how balanced his administration was, and how all men were innocent until proven guilty. The problem: such a mess of an administration failed at getting anything substantial accomplished in four years.
• Drafted and implemented a treaty with Spain under which Florida was ceded to the U.S., and the Louisiana Purchase was recognized as stretching to the Pacific Ocean. Adams ignored the cries from natives on these lands.

THE GOOD

• A master of diplomacy, it was Adams who drafted the Monroe doctrine of Western Hemisphere hegemony.
• Despite his own men working against him, he managed to spread the U.S. Postal system from ocean to ocean, began the road from DC to New Orleans, kept peace and general economic prosperity throughout his administration.
• He always argued against slavery, calling it a great moral evil. “If the Union must be disolved, then slavery, the great and foul stain upon our country, is the fault line on which it should break.” It is said that Adam’s failed domestic agenda was the last mechanism under which slavery might have peacebly been aboloished.
• He won the House seat from the Plymouth district in Massachusetts two years after he left the White House, and served until his death, collapsing on the floor of the House from a stroke, in 1848. Most notable during that time was his success at finally defeating the Congressional prohibition against discussing slavery and anti-slavery petitions.

INTERESTING BITS

• Ironically, it was Adams who saved Jackson from a court marshal during the war of 1812. Jackson was a mean-spirited and foul man, though a great commander, who slaughtered hundreds of innocent civilians during the war, and routinely disobeyed orders. He also supported slavery.
• Adams was the first president to call the United States a Democracy in a public address.
• Adams was the first president to be photographed.

Murray-Blessing ranking: #16

My score: 70%

Interesting reading: John Quincy Adams: (The American Presidents Series) by Robert V. Remini.