Five-minute digest

Inaugural Address (John Quincy Adams)

John Quincy Adams

Summary

John Quincy Adams took the oath on 4 March 1825 in the House chamber, before the body that had chosen him. No candidate won an electoral majority in 1824; Andrew Jackson led in both popular and electoral votes, and when the House met in February, Henry Clay's support helped carry Adams on the first ballot. Clay's appointment as Secretary of State soon brought the cry of a "corrupt bargain." Adams knew he came to office with less public confidence "than any of my predecessors." His answer is to lead with the Constitution rather than with himself. That "revered instrument" and its Preamble are his "first resort"; one generation has passed since its adoption, and he receives it as "a precious inheritance" to hand on "unimpaired." A review of thirty-six years follows: population tripled, territory extended from sea to sea, commerce that has "whitened every ocean." Evils are admitted, chiefly disease, foreign wrongs, and dissension, but the old parties are said to have done their work. Adams asks for "one effort of magnanimity": discarding "every remnant of rancor" and trusting men for talent and virtue rather than party badge. Quarrels of opinion pass, he warns, but divisions rooted in geography and modes of life are more lasting and more dangerous. He then adopts Monroe's program as his own, above all internal improvements, comparing American roads and canals with the roads and aqueducts of Rome and defending them against constitutional doubts by the record of the national road. The close is candid about the disputed election and commits his own fate and the country's to Providence with Psalm 127: "except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain."

Top Lessons

Inheritance and trusteeship
Adams calls the Constitution "a precious inheritance" that his generation is "doubly bound" to transmit unimpaired. A President of contested legitimacy borrows authority from the founders and from posterity rather than from his own victory.
Related across the library
- The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, III
  opportunity of conference which the Prince having long considered him as one whose intellects were exhausted was not very willing to afford Why said he does this man thus intrude upon me Shall I never be suffered to forget these lectures which pleased only while they were new and to become new again must be forgotten He then walked into the wood and composed himself to his usual meditations when before his thoughts had taken any settled form he perceived his pursuer at his side and was at first prompted by his i...
- Beauty and the Beast, Full Text
  liked to have turned the heads of the two eldest daughters who immediately flattered themselves with the hopes of returning to town for they were quite weary of a country life and when they saw their father ready to set out they begged of him to buy them new gowns caps rings and all manner of trifles but Beauty asked for nothing for she thought to herself that all the money her father was going to receive would scarce be sufficient to purchase every thing her sisters wanted What will you have Beauty said her fat...
- The Advancement of Learning, Full Text
  and the final edition of the Essays in which their number was increased from thirty-eight to fifty-eight appeared only in and Bacon died on the th of April The edition of the Essays published in under Elizabeth marked only the beginning of a course of thought that afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in philosophy In February there was the rebellion of Essex Francis Bacon had separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that was disregarded Bacon now Queen s Counsel not only appeared a...
- Inaugural Address (John Adams), Lesson: The long sentence of "if" clauses
  The long sentence of "if" clauses. Adams's self-description runs as one sentence of conditional clauses, each naming a qualification he hopes to possess. It ends with "a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians." The form lets him state principles while leaving judgment to his hearers.
- Henry VIII, Lesson: The king's conscience and the audience's judgement
  The king's conscience and the audience's judgement. The word 'conscience' recurs throughout the play. Henry explains at Blackfriars that the French ambassador's doubt about Mary's legitimacy and the deaths of his infant sons made him fear heaven's judgement. Yet Suffolk has already quipped that the king's conscience 'has crept too near another lady', and Henry's own aside about leaving 'so sweet a bedfellow' lets the audience see both motives at once. The play never settles the matter. Students can practise hold...
Magnanimity after faction
Adams asks for "one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion": citizens should give their confidence to "talents and virtue alone" and not to the badge of party. The appeal is striking from a man about to face organized opposition from Jackson's supporters.
Related across the library
- The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Chapter I.
  To-morrow I will tell you And I asked and this was what was shown me I saw a golden ladder of marvellous height reaching up even to heaven and very narrow so that persons could only ascend it one by one and on the sides of the ladder was fixed every kind of iron weapon There were there swords lances hooks daggers so that if any one went up carelessly or not looking upwards he would be torn to pieces and his flesh would cleave to the iron weapons And under the ladder itself was crouching a dragon of wonderful siz...
- The Life of Mr Jonathan Wild the Great, Source
  a year from his marriage did the real Jonathan separate from his spouse after which time he lived like Fielding's not always mindful of his vows of faithfulness Like Fielding's too he was called upon to suppress rebellions in his gangs and once he came very near being killed in a court of justice by one Blake alias Blueskin Apart from these misadventures the experiences of Fielding's Wild seem to be purely imaginary My narrative is rather of such actions which he might have performed the author himself says Foot...
- The Acquisitive Society, Full Text
  Produced by Al Haines THE ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY BY R H TAWNEY FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE OXFORD LATE MEMBER OF THE COAL INDUSTRY COMMISSION NEW YORK HARCOURT BRACE AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT BY HARCOURT BRACE AND HOWE INC PRINTED IN THE U S A BY THE QUINN BODEN COMPANY RAHWAY N J CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY II RIGHTS AND FUNCTIONS III THE ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY IV THE NEMESIS OF INDUSTRIALISM V PROPERTY AND CREATIVE WORK VI THE FUNCTIONAL SOCIETY VII INDUSTRY AS A PROFESSION VIII THE VICIOUS CIRCLE IX THE CONDITION OF...
- The Twelve Caesars, Footnotes Index
  hour of the day being seventy-six years of age wanting only thirty-five days His remains were carried by the magistrates of the municipal towns and colonies from Nola to Bovillae and in the nighttime because of the season of the year During the intervals the body lay in some basilica or great temple of each town At Bovillae it was met by the Equestrian Order who carried it to the city and deposited it in the vestibule of his own house The senate proceeded with so much zeal in the arrangement of his funeral and p...
- Politics, Chapter Vii
  but have been contented to set out with establishing such rules as are absolutely necessary There are some persons who think that the first object of government should be to regulate well everything relating to private property for they say that a neglect herein is the source of all seditions whatsoever For this reason Phaleas the Chalcedonian first proposed that the fortunes of the citizens should be equal which he thought was not difficult to accomplish when a community was first settled but that it was a work...
Public works and constitutional doubt
Adams praises the roads and aqueducts of Rome and argues that the national road has benefited thousands and injured no one. He hopes "friendly, patient, and persevering deliberation" will remove constitutional objections, leaving students to weigh benefit against the limits of enumerated powers.
Related across the library
- The Institutes of Justinian, Book IV: Title I. of Obligations Arising From Delict
  A usufructuary or usuary slave acquires under the same conditions for him who has the usufruct or use It is settled law that a slave jointly owned acquires for all his owners in the proportion of their property in him unless he names one exclusively in a stipulation or in the delivery of property to himself in which case he acquires for him alone as in the stipulation do you promise to convey to Titius my master If it was by the direction of one of his joint owners only that he entered into a stipulation the eff...
- A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Lesson: Giving ambition a place where it can be watched
  Giving ambition a place where it can be watched. Adams believed that the rich, the well-born and the able will always gain influence over a popular assembly. Instead of pretending otherwise, he would separate them into a senate where their talents serve the public and their influence is checked by the other branches. He calls this an ostracism that honours rather than banishes.
- The Institutes of Justinian, Summary
  The Institutes of Justinian is a short official textbook of Roman law, issued at Constantinople on 21 November 533 and given the force of law, together with the Digest, from 30 December of that year. It was written for first-year law students: the preface, addressed to the youth desirous of studying the law, explains that the emperor, having reconquered Africa and set in order both the imperial constitutions and the writings of the old jurists, has commissioned Tribonian, Theophilus and Dorotheus to compose an e...
- The Grapes of Wrath, Summary
  The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, is John Steinbeck's novel of a family of Oklahoma tenant farmers driven west during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. It won the Pulitzer Prize and stirred national debate about the treatment of migrant workers. Tom Joad, paroled from prison after serving four years for killing a man in a fight, walks home and meets Jim Casy, a former preacher who has lost his old faith. They find the Joad farm deserted: the banks and landowners, using tractors, have evicted the tena...
- Dracula, Ch. 2 (Jonathan Harker's journal)
  I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul Harker begins to recognise that he is a prisoner and that his host is uncanny.