A Classical American Dynasty: John Adams,  John Quincy Adams and Family

John Quincy Adams, eldest son of John Adams, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts on July 11, 1767, and it seemed that he spent a lifetime trying to live outside of his legendary father’s shadow. From childhood, both of John Quincy’s distinguished parents prepared him for "the part which may be allotted you to act on the stage of life," intending for their son to enter politics at the heels of his father. Because John Adams was so often occupied with the business of forming a new nation and therefore was frequently away from home, John Quincy’s childhood and education were anything but ordinary. Despite his absences, John frequently wrote letters to his young son in Braintree with specific instructions regarding the boys education. At the age of nine, John Quincy wrote of his lack of concentration in his studies, in a letter that echoes John Adams’ diary entry quoted earlier:

On February 13, 1778, before his eleventh birthday, John Quincy accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission to Paris, beginning years of study abroad under the neo-classical influence of eighteenth century Western Europe. Because the nature of John Adams’ work led to a great deal of travel, John Quincy’s education was quite unorthodox, as he spent little time in school and was taught mostly by tutors, the greatest of these being his father. Miserable at the Latin School in Amsterdam, John Quincy studied at the University of Leyden under Benjamin Waterhouse and later under Charles Dumas in The Hague. The letters between John Quincy and his father during this time period express the extent to which John Adams directed his son’s education, and show the importance that he placed on learning the classics. On May 14, 1783, John Adams wrote, "Your Exercises in Latin and Greek must not be omitted a single day, and you should turn your Mind, a little to Mathematicks." John Quincy responded by writing, "I have begun to read Virgil, and Mr. Dumas has advis’d me to begin with the 4^th Eneid. He reads it with me, and explains me every thing which regards the ancient rites; and ceremonies." Upon learning that his son was studying Virgil, John Adams replied, "Let no Word escape you, without being understood." Indeed, every one of the letters between father and son concerns John Quincy’s education, one that was completely directed by his father in the study of the classics.

Despite his father’s influence, John Quincy was not totally confident in his classical background, and his lack of a strict Latin school education became something of a problem when it came time to take the Harvard entrance exam. His father wrote to Harvard President Joseph Willard that although John Quincy was a brilliant young man, he would do best if the exam "could be in French, with which language he is more familiar than his own." The exam, however, would be conducted in the typical classical style, and John Quincy arrived home to prepare. On August 31, 1785, John Quincy met with Willard, who "pronounced Johnny deficient in Greek and Latin and advised that he study privately during the approaching fall and winter." Humiliated but determined, John Quincy returned to take the admissions test in March 1786, which he recounts in his diary with an unsatisfied tone. He struggled through the Latin, Greek, and logic questions, "very few of which I was able to answer," yet he passed and was finally admitted to Harvard.

Throughout his diary, John Quincy Adams makes reference to antiquity and his study of it, yet the enthusiasm with which his father wrote about the classics is conspicuously absent. One interesting entry occurred on October 4, 1785:

Perhaps John Quincy’s slight disdain for classical studies can be attributed to his depression, which he wrote about often as "a depression of spirits" or feeling "dull, low spirited, in a manner out of tune." If this is so, it is interesting to note that the classics had a great deal to do with lifting his depression, when in 1805 he was appointed Professorial Chair of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. According to biographer Paul C. Nagel, "the appointment brought him what his depressed state required: a demand from outside of himself for intellectual exertion." John Quincy’s only frustrations at this point in his career came when his duties in the United States Senate interrupted his time at Harvard. His disappointments over his own study of antiquity continued, as he wrote to John Adams in 1806 that the matters of the nation have "forcibly driven my classical studies from my head. I do indeed still appropriate about an hour a day to that object, but it is little better than a lost hour." He threw himself into his role as professor, however, often preparing his lectures in his father’s library, which contained many works on classical oratory. Though his inaugural lecture received praise in the local newspapers, some members of Harvard’s faculty criticized John Quincy because he delivered his address in English, rather than the traditional Latin. On this somewhat controversial decision, John Quincy stood firm—"Since his remarks were intended to sketch the nature, history, and practice of oratory, he insisted they ought to be understood by the entire audience, so he spoke in English." This decision further proves the deterioration of the classics in America, since in John Adams’ day an audience at Harvard would have understood an address in Latin.

In this first lecture, John Quincy noted that "it still remains an inquiry among men, as in the age of Plato, and in that of Cicero, whether eloquence is an art, worthy of the cultivation of a wise and virtuous man." His efforts as a Harvard professor of rhetoric attempted to prove that "eloquence" in oratory was an art that needed to be mastered. John Quincy’s lectures on rhetoric dealt with its classical origins, as "the science began with Cicero" and "ended with Quintillian," and moved on to separate the various rhetorical topics, such as demonstrative and judicial. Unfortunately, the pressures of politics drew John Quincy away from Harvard after a few years, despite the fact that he often wrote to friends and family members of his desire to leave the Senate. Perhaps this speaks to the constant pressure he felt to live up to his father’s public accomplishments; whether he felt that pressure from himself or his family is not certain. After his tenure as Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard, John Quincy’s lectures were published in full, providing an excellent path for aspiring classical orators to follow. As a classics professor, John Quincy found both intellectual fulfillment and frustration, and his unconventional approach to lecturing exemplifies the beginning of the end of America’s immersion in antiquity.

In 1841, John Quincy Adams took on the defense of the Amistad slaves at the United States Supreme Court, giving him another chance to flex his oratory muscles, much as his father had during the Boston Massacre trial. The U.S. Navy captured the Amistad slaves on the coast of Long Island in August 1839, after the slaves had taken control of the ship and attempted to redirect it back to Africa. Their status as property quickly became an international issue since the vessel was a Spanish ship headed for Cuba, and the slaves were imprisoned in New Haven, Connecticut to await a decision upon their fate at trial. Though the lower courts decided that the slaves were not property and their actions were undertaken justifiably to preserve their freedom, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. Nagel notes the reasons behind John Quincy’s participation in the Amistad trial:

John Quincy argued this case before the Supreme Court justices, not before a jury, and therefore his address is aimed at an audience very familiar with the many lengthy legal statutes and cases that he cited. In terms of classical rhetoric, John Quincy used deductive reasoning and began his argument with a general definition of the term "justice," and then applied it to the specific cases of the thirty-nine African defendants. To define "justice," he referred to Justinian, who wrote that justice is "the constant and perpetual will to secure to every one HIS OWN right," which John Quincy quoted in the original Latin. Because he was arguing that the Amistad slaves were human beings rather than property, it was important to establish the principle of individual rights above materialistic oppression. John Quincy continually referred to his clients as "individuals" in his address, rhetorically pounding the idea into the heads of his audience. Another rhetorical device used was the repetition of the words "justice" and "sympathy," often in the same sentence, which binds the execution of justice together with sympathy for the African defendants.

In a type of refutatio, John Quincy spoke of "another Department of the Government of the United States" which took "the ground of utter injustice," referring to the Van Buren administration’s attempts to retain the Africans as slaves to appease both southern Americans and the Spanish. By calling the Executive branch "another Department," John Quincy separated this tyrannical branch from the Judicial branch before which he was trying the case, in a disjunction similar to the Ciceronian one created by John Adams in the Boston Massacre trial. Also, John Quincy portrayed the Executive branch of the government as tyrannical, standing against the "poor, unfortunate, helpless, tongueless, defenseless Africans" who were "under the array of the whole Executive power of this nation against them." This brings to mind a classical theme often used by Greek and Roman authors, such as Plutarch in his Life of Cato the Younger, in which Cato stands as an individual against the tyrannical government of Caesar. At the end of his address, John Quincy called for "Marshall, Cushing, Chase, Washington, Johnson, Livingston, Todd," previous justices of the Supreme Court known for their honorability and fairness. This is a deviation from the orations of John Adams’ generation, when the heroes to be called upon would have been classical figures such as Cicero. Together with Roger S. Baldwin, who argued the case from its inception, John Quincy successfully defended the Africans in a victory that was hailed by abolitionists and anti-slavery supporters across the nation. In his oration in defense of the Amistad slaves, John Quincy presented an eloquent use of classical rhetoric, but his words also reflected the changing tides of early American use of antiquity.

Like John Adams, John Quincy proved to be a talented and persuasive writer, as his "Publicola" essays, published in the Columbia Centinel beginning in June of 1791, can attest to. These essays also show just how much he was in the shadow of his father. They created such a political fervor that many people, including Thomas Jefferson, believed them to be the work of Vice President John Adams. They were, however, written by John Quincy, and they eloquently defended the English and American constitutions at a time when the French Revolution was stirring controversy abroad. The "Publicola" essays championed the rights of the individual as the core of government, the necessary component that makes democracy possible. John Quincy wrote in his 2^nd essay, "the rights of a nation are in like manner the collected rights of its individuals; and it must follow from thence that the powers of a nation are more extensive that its rights, in the very same proportion with those of individuals." Though this argument extends back to antiquity, in the patriotic orations of Cicero, for example, John Quincy’s style of writing does not directly reflect classical works. When examined alongside Cato’s Letters, written by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon between 1720 and 1723, some distinct parallels come to light, suggesting that John Quincy’s "Publicola" essays emulated British essayists. In Trenchard and Gordon’s 15^th letter entitled "Of Freedom of Speech: That the same is inseparable from Publick Liberty," Gordon wrote, "The administration of government is nothing else, but the attendance of the trustees of the people upon the interest and affairs of the people." This is the same idea expressed in John Quincy’s 2^nd "Publicola" essay, that democracy requires the sovereignty of individual rights. In his 11^th essay, John Quincy writes

John Quincy Adams followed in his father’s footsteps throughout his long life, even going on to become the sixth President of the United States. In his affinity for the classics he also imitated his father, who directed John Quincy’s education and instilled within him the necessity of learning antiquity. But John Quincy Adams reflected a growing trend in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century America, one that was moving away from classical influences and toward the growing influence of emerging American history. True, John Quincy and his contemporaries still looked toward the classics for inspiration and education in many ways, but more often they were looking at antiquity through their fathers’ eyes, not their own. The emergence of distinctly American patriotic heroes—John Adams being one—made antiquity seem foreign to a fledgling country struggling to establish its own history as a democracy.