50 Fun Facts About John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was which number president of the United States?

He followed James Monroe and preceded Andrew Jackson, serving a single term from 1825 to 1829.

Adams's father was which number US president?

He was the first presidential son to win the White House; George W. Bush repeated the feat 176 years later.

In which Massachusetts town was Adams born in 1767?

The part of Braintree where he was born is now Quincy, named for his great-grandfather Colonel John Quincy.

After whom was Adams given his middle name?

Colonel John Quincy died two days after his great-grandson's birth; the city of Quincy is also named for him.

At 14, Adams went to which city as secretary to diplomat Francis Dana?

He returned to Russia as US minister in 1809 and befriended Tsar Alexander I.

Which university did Adams graduate from, near the top of his class, in 1787?

He had attended Leiden University in the Netherlands as a boy and later held Harvard's Boylston chair of rhetoric.

Which president appointed the 27-year-old Adams minister to the Netherlands?

His chief job in Amsterdam was keeping the Dutch loans that propped up US finances.

In which city did Adams marry Louisa Catherine Johnson in 1797?

They wed at All Hallows-by-the-Tower; her merchant father then fled his creditors and the promised dowry never came.

Louisa Adams was the first First Lady to be what?

She was born in England and did not see the United States until adulthood.

Adams was the lone Federalist in Congress to back which Jefferson policy?

His drift from the party cost him his Senate seat; Massachusetts Federalists denied him re-election.

While a senator, Adams held the Boylston professorship in which subject?

He also taught logic at Brown; classical rhetoric shaped his public style for life.

Which 1809 Supreme Court case did Adams argue, winning on the Contract Clause?

The Court agreed Georgia could not cancel a land sale to out-of-state buyers.

Which president made Adams the first US minister to Russia in 1809?

Louisa dreaded the posting but became a popular figure at the Russian court.

Adams led the American negotiators for which 1814 agreement that ended the War of 1812?

The British had wanted an Indian barrier state near the Great Lakes; the Americans unanimously refused.

Under which president did Adams serve as secretary of state?

Monroe wanted a Northerner in the job for national unity; the last three presidents had all held it first.

The 1818 treaty Adams negotiated set the US–Canada border along which line?

It ran from the Great Lakes to the Rockies; Oregon was left to joint occupation.

Which territory did the United States acquire from Spain under the Adams–Onís Treaty?

In return the US gave up claims to Spanish Texas and fixed its first transcontinental boundary.

The Adams–Onís Treaty set the boundary with Spanish Texas along which waterway?

Expansionists wanted the Rio Grande; Adams accepted the Sabine but made Spain drop its claim to Oregon.

Which Spanish minister signed the 1819 treaty with Adams?

The treaty was formally terminated only in 1902.

Which 1823 statement warning Europe off the Americas did Adams chiefly draft?

It warned European powers against recolonising the Americas.

Who won the most electoral votes in 1824 yet lost the presidency to Adams?

Jackson took 99 of 261 electors to Adams's 84; with no majority, the House decided.

Which body chose Adams as president in February 1825?

He won the contingent election on the first ballot with 13 of 24 state delegations.

Which Speaker of the House threw his support to Adams and became his secretary of state?

Clay thought Jackson a dangerous demagogue and Crawford too ill to serve.

What two-word phrase did Jacksonians use for the Adams–Clay deal of 1825?

The charge was the Democrats' main campaign theme for the next four years.

On what did Adams place his hand when taking the presidential oath in 1825?

His inaugural promised to avoid party-building and politically motivated appointments.

Which of these did Adams propose to Congress in his ambitious 1825 message?

He also wanted a national university and a naval academy; Congress killed most of it.

Which highway did the Adams administration extend towards Zanesville, Ohio?

The Army Corps of Engineers surveyed roads, canals and railroads across the country from 1824 to 1828.

What nickname did Southern opponents give the protective duties of 1828?

Jacksonians designed it to woo the West while hitting New England; Van Buren shepherded it through.

Adams suspended a treaty forced on the Muscogee (Creek) by the governor of which state?

Governor George Troup had pushed the Treaty of Indian Springs through; Adams favoured consensual, gradual assimilation.

Adams said America "goes not abroad in search of" what?

The line comes from his 1821 Fourth of July address urging neutrality towards Latin America's revolutions.

Which 1826 conference of New World republics did Adams want the US to attend?

Simón Bolívar organised it; Adams and Clay hoped to counter British economic influence.

Who was Adams's running mate in his losing 1828 campaign?

It was the first race pitting two Northerners against two Southerners; Jackson won 178 of 261 electors.

Adams is the only former president to serve in which body?

He won election in 1830 and stayed until his death in 1848.

Adams won his 1830 House seat as a member of which party?

He later joined the Whigs after losing bids for governor and senator in Massachusetts.

Which House practice of automatically tabling anti-slavery petitions did Adams fight?

It was imposed in 1836 partly in response to Adams's relentless presentation of abolition petitions.

In which 1841 Supreme Court case did Adams defend enslaved Africans who had seized a ship?

The 73-year-old spoke for four hours; the Court freed the Africans and they went home.

Which actor played Adams in Steven Spielberg's 1997 film about the case?

Ebon Moss-Bachrach later played him in HBO's John Adams.

Adams led the fight in Congress to use whose bequest to found the Smithsonian?

The money had been lost in defaulted state bonds; Adams forced Congress to restore it with interest.

Which annexation did Adams call "a question of far deeper root" than any other?

He saw it as a scheme to extend slavery, and later opposed the Mexican–American War on the same grounds.

Where did Adams collapse from a stroke in February 1848?

He had just shouted "No!" to honouring officers of the Mexican War; he died two days later in the Speaker's Room.

What were Adams's reported final words?

"Thomas Jefferson survives" was his father's deathbed line on July 4, 1826.

Which of Adams's sons became US minister to Britain during the Civil War?

Charles was also the Free Soil vice-presidential candidate in 1848 and built the first presidential library.

Adams's first son was named after which president, to his mother's annoyance?

George Washington Adams struggled with alcoholism and died going overboard from a steamboat in 1829.

How many foreign languages did Adams reportedly speak?

Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian and Spanish — more than any other president.

Adams was the first president to abandon knee breeches in favour of what?

He also dropped the powdered wig for a short haircut while minister to Russia.

In what year did Adams begin the diary he kept until just before his death?

He was twelve; the diary ran nearly seventy years.

Some sources say Adams sat for the earliest surviving photograph of a president, in which year?

Others argue William Henry Harrison posed first in 1841; the daguerreotype is at the National Portrait Gallery.

What IQ did psychologist Dean Simonton estimate for Adams, the highest of any president?

He read Thucydides and Grotius as a boy at his father's urging and translated Virgil and Aristotle.

How many electoral votes did Jackson win in defeating Adams in 1828?

Jackson took 72.6% of the vote in slave states but only just over half in the free states.

Where are Adams and Louisa buried?

Their crypt lies beside John and Abigail's; his first temporary interment was in Washington's public vault.