This July 11 marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of John Quincy Adams. On that day, Robert offered an appreciation at Jihad Watch of our sixth president, who had such a remarkable understanding of Islam. It might be instructive to know a bit more about J. Q. Adams, about both the breadth of his experience and the depth of his education, that help to explain that understanding. He turns out to have been remarkable in a dozen directions, our greatest scholar-president, our greatest historian-president, our most successful diplomat and, next only to Lincoln, the sturdiest of our Presidential moralists.
The first thing that strikes one about John Quincy Adams is his incredible energy, physical and mental. As diplomat, lawyer, statesman, politician, as Senator, President, and finally as Congressman, as professor and orator and writer, he needed all of that energy with which he had fortunately been endowed, because he was constantly active, fulfilling both the high tasks he had been assigned, and those he had not been given, but dutifully took on nonetheless.
Until his old age, he woke every day between 5 and 6, walked four miles whatever the weather, then read several books of the Bible, usually in English, but often, too, in Greek, or French. He then set to work, which for Adams meant reading of all kinds — literature, law, moral philosophy, current events, but above all, the study of history. He knew at least six foreign languages. He was fluent in French and Dutch, having learned French as a child and kept it up when he spent time in Paris with his father between 1778 and 1779, and again in 1783, even attending a French Ecole de mathematiques. When his father was assigned to be Minister to the Netherlands from 1780 to 1782, John Quincy accompanied him, and became fluent in Dutch. He insisted in later life on maintaining his Dutch, long after he would have had any professional need. When he was appointed Minister to Prussia, he immediately began diligently to study German, and did acquire a working knowledge but not, he recognized, the fluency he had in French and Dutch. With German too, he kept at it, long after he had left the Berlin legation, translating German texts to keep up the language.
Throughout his life, too, he continued to study the two classical languages, Greek and Latin, that he had begun to study, with private tutors, as a young boy. Upon entering Harvard (from which he graduated in two years), he had already translated Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, and Aristotle, and within six months had memorized his Greek grammar and translated the New Testament. In later life, he added to this long list of linguistic accomplishments the study of Italian, lamenting that he had no one with whom to speak the language, and thus was not satisfied with his own performance. He far outstripped all other American presidents but one in his knowledge of languages: that one was Jefferson, who had studied five languages to Adams’s six, but appears to have been truly fluent only in French. John Quincy Adams was a deeply cultivated man, who never stopped his studies, including that of languages.
That study sensitized him, even more than he already was, to subtle linguistic differences, sharpened his own sense of language, and ensured that he would use his native English with heightened tact and delicacy. Later, when he served in Congress, he would earn the title of “Old Man Eloquent.”
But he was not just a supremely gifted orator. During a life full of remarkable incident and high responsibility, John Quincy Adams managed to find time to make daily entries, often very long, in the diary that he began keeping diligently at the age of 12. Ultimately he left 51 fat volumes, 14,000 pages, of his daily activities, including discussions with other, often celebrated, political figures, notes on his reading, and his observations on men and events — a keeping of the historical record, as the history happened to someone smack in the middle of it all. He was thus, in addition to being a diplomat, statesman, Senator, Congressman, and President, also a historian, who has left us the greatest diary, both in mass and substance, in American history. Recording a span of sixty-eight years, from 1779 to 1848, it is the most significant contemporaneous work of history of the young Republic that exists.
John Quincy Adams’s experience of the wider world began at an early age, for his father, John Adams, was for half-a-century at the center of American political life, and often took his son with him on his missions, and shared his own observations with his precocious son. John Adams served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he encouraged his fellow delegates to demand independence from Great Britain. John Adams helped Jefferson compose the Declaration of Independence. He later helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the Revolutionary War. He then served as Washington’s Vice President for two terms, and then, as his successor, as America’s second President.
In fulfilling several important diplomatic missions abroad, in London, Paris, and the Netherlands, John Adams was accompanied on these trips by his son, beginning when John Quincy was eleven years old. John Quincy was with his father in Paris in 1779, with him in the Netherlands from 1780 to 1782 (where the elder Adams secured a two million dollar loan from Amsterdam bankers), and in 1783, served as his father’s secretary in Paris, where the elder Adams had gone to negotiate, along with Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, the Treaty of Paris that ended the War for Independence. Franklin enjoyed talking with the boy, impressed both with his store of knowledge and his comprehension. John Quincy Adams was then all of fifteen. Also impressed with John Quincy Adams, somewhat later, was President Washington, who in 1794 appointed Adams, then 27 years old, to be Minister to the Netherlands, a post his father had held 12 years before. By that time, John Quincy Adams had a good deal of diplomatic experience under his belt. He had not only accompanied his father on important diplomatic missions, beginning at the age of 11, but also accompanied Charles Dana, the American chargé d’affaires at the legation in St. Petersburg, to serve as his private secretary and translator from the French. He was 14 years old at the time. Twenty-eight years later, he would return as the American Minister to Russia, serving for five years (1809-1814), and becoming quite friendly, as his diary notes reveal, with the Tsar himself.
John Quincy Adams thus was an eyewitness to how the American republic came to be, initially as a precocious child, sometimes hearing stories from his father, and later observing directly, his father’s activities, from his intervention at the Continental Congress, to his role in helping compose the Declaration of Independence, to his obtaining funds for Washington’s army from bankers in Amsterdam, right through to the part John Adams played in negotiating the Treaty of Paris that ended the War for Independence. John Quincy Adams knew, too, that the Constitution of the United States itself was modeled on the state constitution of Massachusetts, which had been written solely by his father in 1780. Through his father, John Quincy Adams was present at every step of the creation of the modern world’s first democracy.
Before he was thirty, J. Q. Adams had already lived in all the most important European capitals: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, St. Petersburg, had observed their societies, met their important men, studied their varied political systems, from the absolute monarchies of Russia and Prussia, to the less-absolute monarchy, tempered by the power of its nobles, of pre-Revolutionary France, to the mixed constitution (with both a monarch and both Houses — Lords and Commons — of Parliament) of Great Britain, to the republic (since 1581) of the Netherlands, which was the European country whose political system was closest to the American experiment. He thus could ponder the virtues and defects of these different political systems, not just from books but from direct observation. What shared values were necessary to form a nation? What were the advantages of democracy over a monarchy? What were the dangers of a professional political class? Ought there to be any brake on the popular will, and if so how, in terms of political institutions, could this best be achieved?
It is remarkable, in retrospect, how reluctant John Quincy Adams was early on to remain in public life; he enjoyed the life of the scholar, and the family library in Braintree. He had to be convinced by his father to accept the position Washington offered, as Minister to the Netherlands. Later, Washington would describe him as “the most valuable of America’s officials abroad.” From then on, his life was one long series both of high appointments and elected offices. When abroad, he always seemed to end up as a witness to history. He was present when the Treaty of Paris was negotiated. He was the minister to Russia, when Napoleon’s Grande Armee invaded the country with 600,000 men, and he was still there when Napoleon left Russia in defeat, with only 30,000 men still in battle formation. He happened to be in Paris precisely during the period of the Hundred Days of Napoleon’s return from exile.
Adams’s diaries provide glimpses into a very different, much more intimate world of diplomacy. In St. Petersburg, he would go out for a walk and run into the Tsar, with whom he would chat — in French, of course, the language of diplomacy. By now, he was America’s most experienced diplomat, having been Minister to the Netherlands, Prussia, and Russia. He was called back from Russia to undertake a new task, to negotiate the treaty which would end the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. The resulting Treaty of Ghent reestablished the status quo ante bellum in the relations of the parties, and there were no territorial changes. But the Americans could be well satisfied with an outcome that recognized the United States as having fought to a draw the strongest military power in Europe.
At this point, Adams might well have retired to his study in Braintree. But when President Monroe asked him to become his Secretary of State in 1817, he did not refuse. In that post, he was a whirlwind of activity. He successfully negotiated a treaty with Great Britain in 1818, which resolved long-standing boundary issues between the United States and British North America over the disputed region of the Pacific Northwest known in America as Oregon Country. Now that territory would be shared between the United States and Great Britain. That would have been accomplishment enough. But much more was to come.
Adams’s most important achievement as Secretary of State was the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, by which the United States gained all of Florida from Spain, and the border with New Spain was fixed, all the way to the Pacific. The Adams-Onis treaty has been described as “the greatest diplomatic victory ever won by a single individual in the history of the U.S.” It did not only obtain East and West Florida for the United States, but fixed the western boundary of the United States with New Spain. This boundary now began at the mouth of the Sabine River, and established that river as the eastern border of Texas. The boundary with New Spain ran at a northwest angle until it reached 42 degrees north latitude. It then followed this line of latitude as the northern border of California, west to the Pacific Ocean. Territory lying east and north of this line belonged to the United States; territory lying west and south of this line belonged to Spain. In addition, the United States made provision of five million dollars to pay off claims by Spain for damage done by American settlers in Florida.
As Secretary of State, Adams went from triumph to triumph. Having almost single-handedly established both the borders with New Spain and, in the northwest, with Great Britain, he then suggested, and outlined the contents, of what would become known, not quite accurately, as the Monroe Doctrine. This was a statement included by President Monroe in his annual address of 1823, that any efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.” At the same time, the doctrine noted that the U.S. would recognize, and not interfere with, existing European colonies; nor would it meddle in the internal concerns of European countries.
Adams served as president for one term (1825-1829). As Secretary of State, he had accomplished so much in foreign affairs — the Treaty of 1818 with Great Britain, the Adams-Onis Treaty, the Monroe Doctrine — that there was not much left to do. Among his diplomatic achievements as president, however, were treaties of reciprocity achieved with a number of nations, including Denmark, Mexico, the Hanseatic League, the Scandinavian countries, Prussia, and Austria.
He did turn most of his attention to domestic affairs, and accomplished much in building domestic infrastructure. In his four presidential years he made considerable progress in support of harbor improvements and road and canal development. Some of the projects he fostered included extending the Cumberland Road into Ohio with surveys for its continuation west to St. Louis, beginning the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, constructing the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal and the Portland to Louisville Canal around the falls of the Ohio, connecting the Great Lakes to the Ohio River system in Ohio and Indiana, and enlarging and rebuilding the Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina. He also managed to reduce the national debt by two-thirds, from $15 million to $5 million. A record to remember.
When presidential historian Richard Norton Smith was recently asked who was the most science-friendly president, he answered, “I’d name John Quincy Adams as the most science friendly president. He’s regarded by many as the legislative father of the Smithsonian. He took great heat politically for proposing a national observatory — a ‘lighthouse of the skies’ in his lovely, hugely disputed phrase — and he was an amateur scientist/botanist himself … a true intellectual who had a broad vision of government’s responsibilities to promote the pursuit of knowledge.” He didn’t manage to get congressional approval for the national university he wanted, but the founding of the Smithsonian gave great impetus to the national promotion of science.
In Indian affairs, which were becoming a national issue, he was noticeably sympathetic to the Indians. He opposed the aggressive westward expansion at the expense of the Indians, who were beginning to be forced to leave their ancestral lands and move to the west, where they were given other, largely uninhabited land, byway of compensation. Adams did not support this policy of taking Indian lands and moving them to the west. Nor did he mince words. He called the American policy toward the Indians — specifically, the Creek Nation — “fraudulent and brutal.” Later, when he was in Congress and asked to serve on the Indian Affairs Committee, he declined: “It is among the heinous sins of this nation,” Adams wrote in his diary in June 1841. “I turned my eyes away from this sickening mass of putrefaction, and asked to be excused from serving as chairman of the committee.”
Adams’ final great achievement was when, still a Congressman, he took up the cause of 53 black slaves from Sierra Leone who had been sold in the slave market of Havana, and then managed to overpower the captain and crew of the Spanish slave ship in which they were being transported, the Amistad, before that ship, in turn, was seized by an American revenue cutter off Long Island, and the Africans taken prisoner. The details of the case are complicated, but its essence is simple: should the Africans be kept as slaves or be freed? Adams, always a firm opponent of slavery, presented the case for the Amistad rebels before the Supreme Court, and convinced the majority, with his mastery of the law, his moral sense, and his eloquence, that it had been illegal to seize the Africans in the first place from their homes in Sierra Leone. The Court ordered that they be freed and sent back to Sierra Leone, which was done. Thus did “Old Man Eloquent” win one of the most important legal — and moral — victories for the abolitionist cause.
It is important to realize that among his many achievements, John Quincy Adams was the greatest defender, in his day, both of Indian rights and of African slaves. His denunciation of Islam does not contradict, but rather, is consonant with those views, and springs from the same sources of moral indignation. It is telling that so many who hail him for his role in standing up for the Indians or, more often, for his central role in obtaining freedom for the slaves in the Amistad case, are silent about his views on Islam. They don’t want to discuss them or draw attention to them. This is because they do not know quite know what to make of them, don’t know how to explain away such cogent and unyielding criticism. They don’t allow themselves to see John Quincy Adams’s criticism of Islam not as an aberration but, rather, as fully in accord with his defense of human rights. He regarded Islam, and Muhammad, with horror. To discover that the undeniably great liberal defender of the rights of oppressed minorities turns out to have been such an implacable enemy of Islam can discombobulate those who assume he would have been a defender of Muslims and of Islam. For some, it doesn’t compute. But that’s only because it is their moral calculator — and not that of the morally steadfast John Quincy Adams — that needs fixing.
Guy Macher says
With such a moral compass, Adams was certain to find Islam and its founder, evil.
Kevin Steidl says
Fantastic article. I look forward to reading more of these type of articles. I hope you will oblige. At 60 years of life ,it is a pleasure to learn this much history in just one article.
tpog says
Off topic, but this is IMPORTANT. Saw a vid today, scary as hell. Imam addressing his congregants in arabic,. The verbal words that jumped out ”ANTHRAX’ and NUCLEAR.
Why aren’t Western govts tracking these animals? I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe — this is sooo crazy!!!
https://youtu.be/ripPSZIDBSol
PLEASE share this vid with as many people as possible
gravenimage says
tpog, do you have a title for this video? I can’t access it here in the US, but I might be able to track it down if I had a title or other information.
tpog says
Hello GI.
“4 lbs anthrax can kill 300K Americans, says muslim imam”
https:www.youtube.com/c/RobLeeTruth
I’m now accessing sites such as JW; Rebel Media through “duckduckgo”
gravenimage says
Thanks for the additional information, tpog. I was able to see the video.
I have no idea whether this vicious Imam is able to carry out his dream of mass murder in America, but the idea that he is even fantasizing about it is deeply disturbing.
As for the rest, he is deeply ignorant. For instance, his idea that militias are using grain silos as missile silos is just stupid. He also appears to believe that a nuclear reactor neat Lake Michigan supplies all the electrical power for North Africa.
Only in Dar-al-Islam would this be considered a learned man.
gravenimage says
Hugh, thank you for your tribute to this great man. John Quincy Adams learned a great deal from his father John Adams and his great friend and colleague Thomas Jefferson.
As you note, he also stood up for American ideals even when it was not always fashionable, as regarding Indians and the issue of slavery.
Of course this erudite and humane giant recognized the evil of Islam.
t. says
I really enjoyed reading about this important part of history, Hugh! Thanks.
tpog says
Yes, GI, because of this crazy imam’s fantasying there are idiot inbred muslims who will get ideas and try to carry it out to fruition
gravenimage says
True, tpog.
mortimer says
Robert Spencer is right again: the Leftards need to have their moral compass fixed by taking a hard look at the GRAND ATTACK AGAINST the HUMAN RIGHTS and CIVIL LIBERTIES found in Sharia law.
Sharia law cannot be modernized or updated because it is the ETERNAL LAW of Allah.
Allah wants to ENSLAVE, SUBJUGATE and REPRESS both WOMEN and the DIRTY, DISBELIEVING KUFAAR.
ENSLAVEMENT is NORMATIVE ISLAM, rather than an aberration.
De Doc says
One of my favorite quotes from JQ Adams, written in 1819 to a German minor noble, sharing his views on immigrants to the US:
“Emigrants from Germany, therefore, or from elsewhere, coming here, are not to expect favors from the governments. They are to expect, if they choose to become citizens, equal rights with those of the natives of the country. They are to expect, if affluent, to possess the means of making their property productive, with moderation, and with safety;—if indigent, but industrious, honest and frugal, the means of obtaining easy and comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families.
They come to a life of independence, but to a life of labor—and, if they cannot accommodate themselves to the character, moral, political, and physical, of this country, with all its compensating balances of good and evil, the Atlantic is always open to them, to return to the land of their nativity and their fathers.”
So, to all the a-hole politicians in D.C. – Adams’ words describe exactly the desirable immigrant to the US. The principles he laid out are an embodiment of ‘who we are.’
Richie says
If you ever visit the Boston area, you can visit the graves of Pres John Adams and John Quincy Adams (and their respective wives/first ladies) in the crypt of their church (The United First Parish church) in Quincy MA. Interestingly that JQA is buried in what is now a hard left Unitarian universalist church.
yohanan says
One suggestion: include the link in the opening reference to Robert’s Spencer’s article of July 11 which quotes Adams on Islam with citation to American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9. (The link four pages back is easys to find now, but add it for the fuller longer record.) https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/07/today-is-250th-birthday-of-the-president-most-knowledgeable-about-islam-john-quincy-adams
Thanks to Hugh Fitzgerald for historical tribute to JQA, eye opener on the sixth US president. A picture of moral, competent, industrious, intellectual leader. “There were giants in the earth in those days…”
dumbledoresarmy says
I followed that link to the digitised ‘Annual Register’ and read Adams’ essays.
I commend them to *all* jihadwatchers, whether lurkers or posters, regulars or visitors.
They are dense and erudite but also a pleasure to read. One must take the time to absorb them.
They desperately need to be republished in a nice clean accessible pamphlet form, preferably with attached maps and some attendant notes/ comments by the likes of Mr Fitzgerald.
gravenimage says
+1
Vann Boseman says
John Quincy Adams was not next to Lincoln in being the “sturdiest of our American Presidents.” Adams was better than Lincoln. He appreciated the short list of natural rights philosophers that the colonies had begun pointing to as early as 1700. He understood correctly that those rights conflicted with the acceptance of slavery. He understood that the reality that the Constitution concerning Islam was not a suicide pact. But he understood the terms that the Constitution was ratified under too. In his Jubilee of the Constitution he wrote:
The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right but in the heart. If the day should ever come (Heaven avert it!) when affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political association shall not long hold together parties no longer drawn together by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by restraint. Then will be the time of reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.
Nancy Albert says
Lincoln was the absolute worst president in history! Who could laud an arrogant intransigent leader who presided over the slaughter of 600,000 of his own people? The trajectory of history was ending slavery in Christian lands during the 19th century. It was done across the Americas without much disturbance.
Lincoln’s cunning and sudden release of all slaves in the South destroyed the economy, caused social upheaval unimaginable and the awful repercussions will always haunt America. Most people today think America is the only country that ever had slaves so our blacks will always ply the river of victimization! People’s homes were looted, daughters raped, livestock stolen, farms bankrupted, and the forests of the Southeast were clear-cut. Even today the forests are spindly secondary growth full of opportunistic species. To stem the erosion and flooding caused by decimation of our forests, the great gift of Kudzu is covering the South.
Hollywood couldn’t possibly make a movie that depicts most slave-owners as well-intentioned who cared for their slaves from the injection to the resurrection. Slaves cost a lot of money and owners wanted them to work, become Christians, marry and have babies. A better life than in Africa. Muslims had no regard for African lives. Slavery would have ended gradually and relatively peacefully, there is no question about it.
History is wrongly condemned by applying today’s climate of opinion. As a Southern old white woman, the smug assumption that I’m ignorant and racist persists. (This rant will probably seal that in stone!)
Vann Boseman says
Nancy,
I have no assumption that you are either ignorant or racist. I agree that Lincoln was, on balance, the worst president ever. But a lot of what you said I do not know about, disagree with, or is the subject of ongoing debate that that does not necessarily point back to Lincoln.
I totally agree with your first paragraph. Other reasons that slavery was going to die out included advances made as a part of the industrial revolution that the South could not get around profitably and the exhaustion of land striped of its nutrients by planting only cotton. The people of the South did not need the Southern planters running the governments to lie in the creation of the proclamations of secession that slavery was the main cause, but that is what they did. It was known by many if not most people at that time that slavery as it was practiced was coming to an end. Even Jefferson Davis was on record as predicting the end of it. I agree with parts of other paragraphs.
There are plenty of reasons that you did not mention to come to the conclusion that Lincoln was the worst president. As a history student seeking my masters I totally agree with Thomas DiLorenzo’s assesment that there is a Church of Lincoln. If you say something bad about Lincoln, then you are in for a fight. It doesn’t matter if you can prove it or not. I fought through 3 classes focused on the Civil War including Reconstruction, the Civil War itself, and the antebellum period focusing only this only as a period leading up to the Civil War.
Wellington says
Disagree with you completely, Nancy. Rather, I accept General Douglas MacArthur’s view, to wit, that George Washington created the United States and Abraham Lincoln saved it.
Lincoln never wanted, before the Civil War, to end slavery in the Southern states. What he did want was no extension of slavery into the territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 did exactly this with its repeal of the Missouri Compromise line. This foolish act is what brought Lincoln out of political retirement (he had served in the Illinois legislature and one term in Congress) because he knew, as he eloquently stated, that America could not survive half free and half slave——one had to go and the allowance of slavery north of the Missouri Compromise line (36 degrees, 30 minutes) tilted things in a slavery direction which Lincoln simply could not abide (and the Supreme Court Dred Scott decision of 1857 tilted matters even more in this direction). He stated again and again that he would not touch slavery in the states which already had it but this was not good enough for the slave holding class which took the step of pulling out of the United States, something which Lincoln felt was completely unconstitutional, as a later Supreme Court Case, Texas v. White (1869), upheld.
As for your comment that most slave owners were well-intentioned, may I suggest you read Frederick Douglass’ Autobiography for a different point of view from someone who experienced the many horrors of black slavery, including not even knowing when one was born, to being separated from your mother when barely out of infancy, to being denied the right to learn how to read, to being treated as pure property, to being denied the right to legal marriage, never mind not being able to experience what is so important to a fulfilled life——–freedom.
This is enough for now except to say that I taught American history for a third of a century so I know something about it and I would rate Abraham Lincoln as the greatest President of all, with George Washington second. Consider again what MacArthur said and reflect, if you will, upon no united United States during the twentieth century, which would have resulted if the Confederacy had won (and surely you know that further division was in the offing if the Confederacy had succeeded——for instance, towards the end of the war Georgia was threatening to leave the Confederacy and some Midwestern states like Missouri were contemplating forming their own nation). As awful as the twentieth century was, it would have been far worse if a united America had not existed. Abraham Lincoln, more than any other person, is responsible for this event not happening and thus his contribution to mankind continues to this very day. He was about as great as a human being could be. I know of few his equal and none his superior in all of the pages of history. Reconsider.
Barbcvm says
How many of the southern plantations were owned by black owners? They had black slaves just like the white owners.
The northern states had slaves but were not released after the war ended. Their freedom came at a later date. Many of the northern had as many slaves as the southern states.
Any slave owner who freed his slaves was fined a penalty by the state. For each freed slave they would be fined. At a set fee that added up to a financial cost they could not survive.
Vann Boseman says
Wellington,
First, you quoted Patton. Patton was a famous general so it is reasonable to assume that you are quoting Patton to use his fame to bolster your argument. The thing is, there are a lot of people who liked what he did. Adolph Hitler, in Mein Kampf, said, “The individual states of the American Union could not have possessed any state sovereignty of their own. For it was not these states that formed the Union, on the contrary it was the Union that formed a great part of the so-called states.” Lincoln shoveled out this same sort of view in the false narrative of first inaugural address. Eric Foner, one of the most famous historians of the narrative you seem to want to trot out, is a strong apologist for the old Soviet Union urged Gorbachev to deal the the break away states the same way that Lincoln dealt with the seceding states. The relevant article here was in The Nation and entitled Lincoln’s Lesson.
In the antebellum South, virtually the entire white population of the North and the South was openly racist. This has everything to do with the popularity of the Free Soil party that joined with others to form the early Republican Party. White people in the more western states in the North did not want black people in their states or on the frontier of America. While Lincoln’s approach to Black people as human being changed politically over time, he was indistinguishable from most people in the United States at that time in being an adamant racist throughout his entire life. On a purely incidental note, Jefferson Davis raised a black child in his home and was not in his personal life as racist as most Americans contemporary to this time. The affection held for this child in Davis’s family is documented by his children who wrote to inquire about him when he disappeared during the war.
Frederick Douglas is not a particularly good person to consider when trying to learn about what slavery was like in the United States, even if I do not doubt that he was speaking from his experience. Slavery has existed throughout most of human history. Usually, slaves have been viewed as livestock. Douglas was not treated this way. The otherwise free market nature of the United States during this time influenced the value of slaves making them more and more valuable. Over time, the United States became the best in the world at breeding slaves and could afford to, even if hypocritically, oppose the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the open seas. This happened way before the Civil War. Usually, slaves were, purely because of slave owners self interest, treated better in the United States than in other places. But you are certainly correct that most slave owners were not well-intentioned.
I do not dispute that you may have taught history for a third of a century. That does not mean that what you taught was true. Certainly what you have trotted out is the popular narrative, but that does not mean that it is true either. I believe the best approach to history does not involve making “what if” statements, but instead involves embracing specific understanding. This is best to me even if you are trying to use history to make some point about something current. What you do not know, or do not acknowledge is that secession was threatened and advocated for OFTEN in the North and the South during the antebellum period. Thomas Jefferson went out of his way to support the right of the New England states to discuss this when they threatened this. Abolitionists advocated for secession of the North from the South before the Civil War. Few people believed that if states ever did secede, that they would stay separate permanently, or even for very long. There is evidence that Lincoln recognized this when he was considering raiding the South but decided to raid anyway. “What about my tariff/” “What about my revenue?” Lincoln was about a whole approach to government that advocated for a rich central government that could favor some industry over others. You have no integrity in assuming that any states that would have seceded in the antebellum period would have remained separate from the United States into the 20th century.
There are plenty of leaders throughout history that have forced states with the same background together through brutal slaughter and suspension of rights. Lenin was an example of this. Bismark was perhaps a better example of this.
Wellington says
No, Vann Bosemann, that quote is from MacArthur, not Patton, though to be absolutely correct MacArthur used the word “founded” and not “created.” As for all else that you wrote, it does not negate anything I averred in my first post on this thread. Your invocation of Hitler’s assessment borders on the bizarre and it is wrong in any case (strange too is your invoking Lenin and Bismarck). A tremendous amount of state sovereignty existed before the Civil War. This is why before the war the term was “the United States are” while after the war it became “the United States is.” Nor do I dispute that previous secession attempts, like that of New England during the War of 1812 or that of South Carolina in the early 1830s over tariff matters occurred (without success of course) but so what?
Surely you at least realize that you adhere to a view of Lincoln that is held by virtually no major historian in this generation or any generation for that matter. Think about it. In all rankings of Presidents Lincoln is ordinarily first and no lower than third, yet you agree with Nancy that he is the worst President ever (my choice would be Obama). Uh-huh. See the problem for yourself? I hope so.
Vann Boseman says
Wellington,
If I was looking for major historians from the early 20th century that would likely place Lincoln at the bottom, I would start with Claude Bowers, William Archibald Dunning, James Ford Rhodes, and James G. Rhodes. I am not sure what constitutes a major historian to you but I am certainly not alone in my views with respect to modern historians either.
Virtually all of the main stream media and academia recognize Islamophobia and the set of ideas that go with it. That does not make these ideas and views realistic or moral just because there are many people saying that they are. Islamophobia is to mainstream media and academia as Lincoln placing at the top is to history.
I showed where Hitler’s view in Mein Kampf paralleled to Lincoln’s view in his first inaugural address. You say that I am wrong. But you did not explain why I am wrong. This is because you cannot do that.
Methods of states rights popularly discussed during the antebellum period included state nullification and secession. These methods or threat of using these methods succeeded sometimes and other times they did not.
So what?
The Constitution was changed in some ways forever in a negative direction because of Lincoln without any formal process either under the Constitution or otherwise. The precedent for a sitting president attempting to arrest the Supreme Court Chief Justice was set because the president did not like a ruling. The precedent for a president crushing freedom of the press was set. A state election was largely voided because a president did not like the result. As a citizen of a country uniquely founded on natural rights and the rule of law, I find these things intensely ugly. The main person presiding over all of this was Abraham Lincoln.
You manipulated (When you mentioned efforts of Lincoln to restrict the spread of slavery, you failed to mention the motivating force of racism leading the reader to interpret the North as largely morally superior. Context matters.) and negated facts to present Lincoln as something he was not. A lot of other history teachers do that too.
I appreciate that countries rightly want there to be national heroes. While no one is perfect, I strongly believe that this country has many individuals to offer for this. There is no reason to present a weak, fake case for a hero like a sanitized Abraham Lincoln when this country has so many other real heroes to offer.
I agree that on certain aspects that Obama was the worst president and have to acknowledge that there is a good case for believing that he is the all time worse president. Still, on balance, Lincoln was worse to me.
Wellington says
Hitler’s statement from Mein Kampf that you quoted, to wit, “The individual states of the American union could not have possessed any state sovereignty of their own” is simply flat out wrong, legally and constitutionally. It’s a nonsense statement not rooted in any facts. Hitler often made nonsensical statements. This is one of them.
The historians you mentioned, like Dunning, were from a long time ago and have been widely discredited by virtually all major historians over the last fifty years or more. The Dunning school of historiography, while sometimes making valid points, essentially took the view that Northern treatment of the South was awful after the war. The reality is that almost never in history has the defeated element in a civil war been treated so leniently. For instance, only one Southern Confederate was executed, Henry Wirz, who ran Andersonville prison. And by 1877 the South had gone back into complete control by the Democratic Party, the party of rebellion and slavery, and was allowed to carry on as it wished until the Second Civil Rights Era which began in the 1950s. I have to laugh when I hear how terrible the South was treated after the war. Quite the contrary. The Military Reconstruction Acts of 1867-68 basically boiled down to little more than Southern states having to ratify black suffrage and accept the Fourteenth Amendment. Oh the humanity!
Finally, I am well aware that Lincoln and almost all other Northern whites thought blacks were inferior. The mindset of the time made it very difficult for a white to think otherwise (Thaddeus Stevens is an exception, as evidenced by his requiring that he be buried in a cemetery which included blacks. I have been to that cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and visited his grave.) But just because one thinks blacks are inferior does not mean that you think enslaving them is OK. Also, slave labor impacted adversely on free labor, very well understood by blue collar workers in England who wrote that magnificent Manchester declaration to Lincoln in 1863.
As for the dire measures Lincoln took to save the Union, he had to. What good was observing strict Constitutional requirements if it meant the end of the United States by doing so? Lincoln is the closest America ever came to a dictator. Thank God it was Abraham Lincoln.
Finally, I will close by stating that I find it stunning you can’t see the greatness of Lincoln and how what he did affects the world even to this day. He saved the United States, he and Grant did, and for all those who cherish freedom and cherish America as the greatest proponent of freedom in all of history, even more so than ancient Athens and England, such people should be eternally grateful to these two men. BTW, Google rankings of Presidents and see what comes up, for instance the Wikipedia article on this which shows rankings going back to 1948. In none is Lincoln less than third and in most he is first. Boy, that means a lot of historians, political science professors and lawyers have gotten things terribly wrong since 1948 and you got things right. Right. And the comparison you made to Islamophobia as being accepted by so many is bogus because those who really think Islamophobia exists and is a problem are ignorant or malevolent human beings. Not so for historians, et al. who have ranked the Presidents since 1948. Huge difference. Couldn’t be much bigger.
Vann Boseman says
Wellington,
I am happy here. I feel I have raised valid objections to your arguments and had my say. I have offered plenty for those who may wish to check for themselves should they wish. It may happen that on another day someone may again bring up Lincoln in an unrealistic way and I may again jump in.
gravenimage says
Fine posts, Wellington. Thank you.
Mark Swan says
Absolutely Wellington thank you.
gravenimage says
Nancy, you believe that our living up to our values and ending slavery makes Lincoln the worst president?
Why don’t you just convert to Islam now? Islam *loves* slavery.
Mark Swan says
Please, excuse me Wellington.
Vann Boseman, are you a Son Of The South—
Much of what you have tried to put forward is based on,
your own personal opinion.
You flippantly dismiss President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, which like
most of his speeches are incredibly rich with truth, you say it is “false narrative“.
You put down a great man for doing the right thing for his country.
Few Americans were ever critiqued and appreciated as much as Mr. Lincoln.
You reveal no reasonable evidence, here, to criticize such a Man.
President Lincoln was in the right place and at the right time.
Overseeing such a horrific war was more than a man sized job,
he was that more than a man.
It seems as though, he accomplished what he was born to do,
then he left when it was over.
General W.T. Sherman’s Personal impression of President A. Lincoln—
“Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other.”
This was in his personal memoirs, written more than
a decade after president Lincoln’s death.
I have lived a full rich life up until now, and I hope you have as well,
yet both of us, put together, amount to little, compared to one of these men,
President Lincoln or General Sherman.
Tony says
where are the great statesmen today? And to think, if we did they would be slandered, and ridiculed in the media
annmarie says
Hugh,…..This is a beautifully written synopsis of John Quincy Adams. I’m sending it to my grand children. Thank you for reminding Americans about our history and our moral compass.
dumbledoresarmy says
Yes. Any jihadwatchers who are engaged in, for example, homeschooling their children – or whose children or other kin or acquaintance are so doing – could make use of this essay… and *also* would be well advised to look up JQA’s own original essays from which Hugh quotes on the subject of Islam.
And those who are history teachers or know history teachers – at high school or at university – should circulate it as well.
rubiconcrest says
I enjoyed this greatly, Hugh. If one wanted to read more about JQA what books would you recommend?
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Possibly that by Paul Nagel,first published in 1997.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Hugh. I will look it up.
commonsense says
Let me add my name to those who find this to be an outstanding article, which is what one has come to expect from Hugh Fitzgerald. Please never leave Jihad Watch again, Hugh – we need you here.
gravenimage says
Hear, hear!
Ed_L says
Speaking of morality, the brief exposé on one of America’s more brilliant Presidents, whose considerable accomplishments were in part owing to his appetite for reading a wide selection of literature and diligent study of law, moral philosophy, current events and history, is an excellent adjunct. A lengthy read by marginally literates’ standards, it is notable that out of all JQ Adams’ accomplishments, he did not possess an MBA nor was he out lookin’ to make “munny” as his sole ambition – assuming one’s perseverance in reading to the bottom. All things being cyclical, may we yet see the reprise of a more humanistic era? Looking forward to reading Part II as a minimum. (Bravo on the summation.)
Thanks, Robert.
Jay says
Our generation, unfortunately, has to firmly take matters into hand. We in North America have enjoyed the Life of Riley for several decades…especially in Canada. But our freedom and advanced civilization is facing a totalitarian threat which seems unbelievable. It may be too late for Britain,France,Netherlands,Sweden etc… Freedom and Christianity must be paid for…it does not come cheap….ie..WW1 and WW 11. Christianity has taught us to love our neighbours, no matter how evil they are….and tolerate,tolerate, tolerate. U.S., Canada and Australia must unite with Poland and Czech in the OCS…..Organization of Christian States to show opposition to the OIS Organization of Islamic States. There is no time for delay.God Bess Trump ( despite his issues..haha) for having the guts to start the wipeout of Islam from the US. Please support his efforts. Canada is currently lead by a ‘ brainless no-backbone Trudope’ but we will work to kick him out. I am pleading to Americans and Australians and all our Western allies to STOP worrying what other countries think about you. !! Do what you need to do. Do what Poland does. Join the Chrstian protection movement. I don’t like this any more than you do. But what kind of country do you want your children and grandchildren to live in? What price did our forefathers pay for us to inherit such a wonderful CULTURE . Islam is a cancer to civilized society. Yes…CANCER! and I have had cancer and I know that you must treat it early and harshly ( it’s awful) before it metastisizes and is too late!
Hugh Higgins says
Hugh, I am Hugh too, and I applaud this magnicent, thoroughly researched piece. My disappointment is that, unless I read carelessly, you delay all discussion of Adams’s opinions about Islam until the final paragraph, and that is hardly at all revealing. This is only an introduction to the article you need to write. Please.
gravenimage says
Hugh, this is *Part 1*–there *is* more to come.
Vann Boseman says
Mark,
I appreciate from the tone of your response that you are not ready to seriously consider Lincoln. In attributing to Lincoln god-like status, I believe you will inevitably be blinded by your bias and bigotry towards anyone who does not hang on every word of Lincoln.
Still, you brought up my denunciation of Lincoln’s first inaugural address. While I was not flippant in my remark on this, I was brief. I can add more.
Before presenting evidence that Lincoln presented a false narrative, it is important to not forget the threat of war Lincoln made in his address. Here, historian Molyneux begins addressing at 14:45 the tariff that Lincoln loved so dearly that he was willing to have 600,000 people die to preserve while destroying almost half of the wealth of the United States:
https://youtu.be/c-W5fGCAzOk
The false narrative of Lincoln in the address is the following:
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? 13
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.”
Donald Livingston, in his essay “The Secession Tradition in America”, destroys key aspects of Lincoln’s address from a utilitarian perspective. He demonstrates how Lincoln’s ideas in the address concerning this as “not merely false, but spectacularly so.” Though not my favorite essay covering this topic, I mention it first because here Livingston establishes that if you oppose secession, then you oppose the founding of the United States of America. For me, I support the founding of the United States of America.
David Gordon, in his introduction to Secession, State, and Liberty, the book that contains the above essay, notes the wording of the Declaration of Independence. While Unionists such as Lincoln may point to the phrase stating that governments should not be changed for “light and transient reasons”, he notes that the classical liberal views dominating the discussion at the time held that governments reason for existing is merely to protect rights. Additionally, he points out that the Declaration used the word “should” concerning changing governments. What someone should do has nothing to do with what they have a right to do.
James Ostrowski wrote another essay in this book entitled “Was the Union Army’s Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act: An Analysis of Lincoln’s Legal Arguments Against Secession.” His essay tackles Lincoln’s first inaugural address and Lincoln’s special message to congress too. I especially like that Ostrowski introduces Thomas Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolution in support of his position. It is important that a denouncing Lincoln’s first inaugural address include a denouncing of Lincoln’s special message because Lincoln digs his delusional, alchemical hole even deeper in the message. Ostrowski offers a point by point denunciation of each element that Lincoln attempted to use to justify the history of union that I mentioned above from Lincoln’s first inaugural.