Presidential History Video Series: John Quincy Adams (Mei 2024)
Familie Adams, familie Massachusetts met diepe wortels in de Amerikaanse geschiedenis, waarvan de leden meer dan 150 jaar lang een belangrijke bijdrage hebben geleverd aan het politieke en intellectuele leven van de natie.
Quiz
Amerikaanse geschiedenis en politiek
Wat is de bijnaam voor de oude voorschriften die rassenscheiding vereisen?
Opgericht in Amerika door Henry Adams, die rond 1636 vanuit Engeland naar Massachusetts Bay Colony emigreerde, maakte de familie tot de tijd van John Adams (1735–1826) geen bijzonder stempel. Misschien wel de meest diepgaande politieke filosoof van de revolutionaire en vroege nationale periodes van de Amerikaanse geschiedenis, was Adams ook de tweede president van het land (1797–1801). Zijn vrouw, Abigail Adams (1744–1818), liet een omvangrijke correspondentie achter die getuigde van haar humor, literaire capaciteiten en politiek inzicht. John's neef Samuel Adams (1722–1803) was het brandmerk van Revolutionair Boston, organiseerde voortdurend protesten tegen het Britse beleid en richtte de publieke opinie slim op het doel van onafhankelijkheid.
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), son of John and Abigail, like his father served four unhappy years as president of the United States (1825–29). More than for his presidency, perhaps, he is best remembered for his diplomatic skills, which resulted in the acquisition of Florida and in the Monroe Doctrine, and for his heroic championing of antislavery petitions while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. His son, Charles Francis Adams (1807–86), continued the battle against slavery as a congressman and as a leader of the Free-Soil Party. During the Civil War he demonstrated his own diplomatic genius while U.S. minister to Great Britain, preventing British recognition of and possible alliance with the Confederacy.
Except for a grandson of Charles Francis Adams—Charles Francis Adams III (1866–1954), who served as secretary of the navy during the presidential administration of Herbert Hoover—subsequent generations of the Adams family refrained from participation in public life. Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835–1915), was a historian, civic leader, and railroad expert who for a time was president of the Union Pacific Railroad and who later retired to write a biography of his father and books on other historical subjects. His two brothers, Henry (Brooks) Adams (1838–1918) and Brooks Adams (1848–1927), were also historians, as well as profound social critics. Henry Adams, in particular, ranks as one of the great post-Civil War American writers. Other Adamses have been prominent lawyers, financiers, and corporation executives.
