gave a “Farewell Address” urging “entangling alliances with none,” and quickly retired to the peaceful world of Mount Vernon.
The French, sensing America’s weakness, upped the ante and became even more aggressive than the British. In short order, France seized some three hundred American ships, sent a general on a reconnaissance mission down the Ohio and the Mississippi, hired the head of the Creek Indians to become a general in the French army, encouraged Quebec to become a French colony, and began discussions with Spain to take over Louisiana and Florida. When the U.S. sent a new minister to France, the French made their contempt known: they refused to receive him. President Adams then sent a delegation to Paris to seek rapprochement. For several months the delegation members cooled their heels, unable to get a meeting. Finally the French minister, Talleyrand, condescended to receive the delegation, subject to payment of £50,000 and a loan of $10 million for American “insults.”
People in America howled with rage. Anti-French war hysteria swept the nation. Congress, acting on its own and sometimes without even consulting the president, voided all treaties with France, raised taxes for a massive naval buildup, and even voted on a resolution to declare war (it fell short by only a few votes). The U.S. Navy—authorized by Congress over the president’s strong objections—began an unofficial war with France that lasted more than two years and resulted in the capture of more than eighty French ships.
Trying times. During all this, President Adams refused to yield to “the mob.” He trusted his own judgment: “I know more of diplomatic forms than all of you,” he told his fellow Federalists—a bluntness that obviously did not enhance his popularity. Adams further angered his party colleagues by continuing to support his secretary of state (and chief political rival), the pro-French Thomas Jefferson. Unable to unify his party, he lost the 1800 election to Jefferson, who continued hispolicy, which has lasted now for more than two hundred years.
As for the bellicose Federalist Party, it quickly vanished. America, thanks to Adams and Jefferson, survived. Adams’s gravestone had the last word.
The Next George Washington?
1822 He was so highly regarded he was compared to George Washington. In an age of legislative giants—Clay, Webster, Calhoun—he was ranked the best. “The wisest man in Congress,” said Henry Clay. “The most influential member of the House of Representatives,” said John Quincy Adams. Offered the position of secretary of war by two presidents, Madison and Monroe, he turned it down for a life in the legislature, where he dominated debates on banking and internal improvements. Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at age thirty-two, he was destined to become the youngest-ever president at age forty-two.
Admitted his chief antagonist in Congress: “The highest and best hopes of the country look to William Lowndes for their fulfillment.” But William Lowndes never became president. Today he is totally unknown.
How easy it is to forget: to become president of the United States you’ve got to be alive (!!). * William Lowndes died at age forty, two years before the 1824 election. On top of that, all his memoirs and biographical data were destroyed in a fire. A modest man, he declined to have his features immortalized in marble. When Samuel F. B. Morse was preparing his famous painting of the Sixteenth Congress, Lowndes declined to participate. There is no portrait of him anywhere; the only memory of what he looked like is a caricature done after he refused to sit for a painting. En route to England, he died and was buried at sea, leaving “neither headstone nor common grave to mark his passing.”
William Lowndes
Observed one historian of presidents, federal judge Leslie Southwick, “It is as if there existed a conspiracy of obscurity against this statesman. William
The French, sensing America’s weakness, upped the ante and became even more aggressive than the British. In short order, France seized some three hundred American ships, sent a general on a reconnaissance mission down the Ohio and the Mississippi, hired the head of the Creek Indians to become a general in the French army, encouraged Quebec to become a French colony, and began discussions with Spain to take over Louisiana and Florida. When the U.S. sent a new minister to France, the French made their contempt known: they refused to receive him. President Adams then sent a delegation to Paris to seek rapprochement. For several months the delegation members cooled their heels, unable to get a meeting. Finally the French minister, Talleyrand, condescended to receive the delegation, subject to payment of £50,000 and a loan of $10 million for American “insults.”
People in America howled with rage. Anti-French war hysteria swept the nation. Congress, acting on its own and sometimes without even consulting the president, voided all treaties with France, raised taxes for a massive naval buildup, and even voted on a resolution to declare war (it fell short by only a few votes). The U.S. Navy—authorized by Congress over the president’s strong objections—began an unofficial war with France that lasted more than two years and resulted in the capture of more than eighty French ships.
Trying times. During all this, President Adams refused to yield to “the mob.” He trusted his own judgment: “I know more of diplomatic forms than all of you,” he told his fellow Federalists—a bluntness that obviously did not enhance his popularity. Adams further angered his party colleagues by continuing to support his secretary of state (and chief political rival), the pro-French Thomas Jefferson. Unable to unify his party, he lost the 1800 election to Jefferson, who continued hispolicy, which has lasted now for more than two hundred years.
As for the bellicose Federalist Party, it quickly vanished. America, thanks to Adams and Jefferson, survived. Adams’s gravestone had the last word.
The Next George Washington?
1822 He was so highly regarded he was compared to George Washington. In an age of legislative giants—Clay, Webster, Calhoun—he was ranked the best. “The wisest man in Congress,” said Henry Clay. “The most influential member of the House of Representatives,” said John Quincy Adams. Offered the position of secretary of war by two presidents, Madison and Monroe, he turned it down for a life in the legislature, where he dominated debates on banking and internal improvements. Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at age thirty-two, he was destined to become the youngest-ever president at age forty-two.
Admitted his chief antagonist in Congress: “The highest and best hopes of the country look to William Lowndes for their fulfillment.” But William Lowndes never became president. Today he is totally unknown.
How easy it is to forget: to become president of the United States you’ve got to be alive (!!). * William Lowndes died at age forty, two years before the 1824 election. On top of that, all his memoirs and biographical data were destroyed in a fire. A modest man, he declined to have his features immortalized in marble. When Samuel F. B. Morse was preparing his famous painting of the Sixteenth Congress, Lowndes declined to participate. There is no portrait of him anywhere; the only memory of what he looked like is a caricature done after he refused to sit for a painting. En route to England, he died and was buried at sea, leaving “neither headstone nor common grave to mark his passing.”
William Lowndes
Observed one historian of presidents, federal judge Leslie Southwick, “It is as if there existed a conspiracy of obscurity against this statesman. William
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