John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was born on 11 July 1767 in Braintree, Massachusetts, the son of John and Abigail Adams. As a boy he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill with his mother, and at fourteen served as secretary to an American diplomat in Russia. After Harvard and the law, he served as minister to the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia and Britain. As Secretary of State under James Monroe he negotiated the treaty by which Spain ceded Florida and shaped the Monroe Doctrine. He was elected President in 1824 and served one term. In 1830 his neighbours elected him to the House of Representatives, where he served for seventeen years. There he fought the 'gag rule' that blocked petitions against slavery from being heard, until it was repealed in 1844. In 1841, aged seventy-three, he argued before the Supreme Court for the Africans who had seized the schooner Amistad, and the Court declared them free. A daily reader of the Bible, he believed slavery violated both the Declaration of Independence and the law of God. He collapsed at his desk in the House on 21 February 1848 and died two days later.

Faith: Faith not well documented in detail; he was buried beside the Unitarian United First Parish Church in Quincy. Source: Wikipedia

See also: John Adams · Joseph Story · Abraham Lincoln