John Quincy Adams

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2004-3-24

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

(Music)

John Quincy Adams was sworn in as President of the United States
on March fourth, eighteen-twenty-five. A big crowd came to the
capitol building for the ceremony. All the leaders of government
were there: Senators; Congressmen; the Supreme Court; and James
Monroe, whose term as president was ending.

VOICE TWO:

John Quincy Adams spoke to the crowd. The main idea in his speech
was unity. Adams said the Constitution and the representative
democracy of the United States had proved a success. The nation was
free and strong. And it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean across the
continent of North America to the Pacific Ocean. During the past ten
years, he noted, political party differences had eased. So now, he
said, it was time for the people to settle their differences to make
a truly national government. Adams closed his speech by recognizing
that he was a minority president. He said he needed the help of
everyone in the years to come. Then he took the oath that made him
the sixth President of the United States.

VOICE ONE:

John Quincy Adams had been raised to serve his country. His
father was John Adams, the second President of the United States.
His mother, Abigail, made sure he received an excellent education.
There were three major periods in John Quincy Adams's public life.
The period as President was the shortest. For about twenty-five
years, Adams held mostly appointed jobs. He was the United States
ambassador to the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and Britain. He
helped lead the negotiations that ended the War of 1812 between
Britain and the United States. And he served eight years as
Secretary of State. He was President for four years after that. Then
he served about seventeen years in the House of Representatives. He
died in eighteen-forty-eight.

VOICE TWO:

As Secretary of State, Adams had two major successes. He was
mostly responsible for the policy called the Monroe Doctrine. In
that policy, President James Monroe declared that no European power
should try to establish a colony anywhere in the Americas. Any
attempt to do so would be considered a threat to the peace and
safety of the United States. Adams's other success was the
Transcontinental Treaty with Spain. In that treaty, Spain recognized
American control over Florida. Spain also agreed on the line marking
the western American frontier. The line went from the Gulf of Mexico
to the Rocky Mountains. From there, it went to the Pacific Ocean,
along what is now the border between the states of Oregon and
California.

VOICE ONE:

John Quincy Adams did not care for political battles. Instead, he
tried to bring his political opponents and the different parts of
the country together in his cabinet. His opponents, however, refused
to serve. And, although his cabinet included southerners, he did not
really have the support of the south. Others in his administration
tried to use the political power that he refused to use. One was
Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Calhoun hoped to
be president himself one day. He tried to influence Adams's choices
for cabinet positions. Adams rejected Calhoun's ideas and made his
own choices. Senator James Barbour, a former Governor of Virginia,
became Secretary of War. Richard Rush of Pennsylvania became
Secretary of the Treasury. And William Wirt of Maryland continued as
Attorney General. Adams thought he had chosen men who would
represent the different interests of the different parts of the
country.

VOICE TWO:

In his first message to Congress, President Adams described his
ideas about the national government. The chief purpose of the
government, he said, was to improve the lives of the people it
governed. To do this, he offered a national program of building
roads and canals. He also proposed a national university and a
national scientific center. Adams said Congress should not be
limited only to making laws to improve the nation's economic life.
He said it should make laws to improve the arts and sciences, too.
Many people of the west and south did not believe that the
Constitution gave the national government the power to do all these
things. They believed that these powers belonged to the states.
Their representatives in Congress rejected Adams's proposals.

VOICE ONE:

The political picture in the United States began to change during
the administration of John Quincy Adams. His opponents won control
of both houses of Congress in the elections of eighteen-twenty-six.
These men called themselves Democrats. They supported General Andrew
Jackson for president in the next presidential election in
eighteen-twenty-eight.

VOICE Two:

A major piece of legislation during President Adams's term
involved import taxes. A number of western states wanted taxes on
industrial goods imported from other countries. The purpose was to
protect their own industries. Southern states opposed import taxes.
They produced no industrial goods that needed protection. And they
said the Constitution did not give the national government the right
to approve such taxes. Democrats needed the support of both the west
and south to get Andrew Jackson elected president. So they proposed
a bill that appeared to help the west, but was sure to be defeated.
They thought the west would be happy that Democrats had tried to
help. And the south would be happy that there would be no import
taxes.

VOICE ONE:

To the Democrats' surprise, many congressmen from the northeast
joined with congressmen from the west to vote for the bill. They did
so even though the bill would harm industries in the northeast.
Their goal was to keep alive the idea of protective trade taxes. The
bill passed in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
This left President Adams with a difficult decision. Should he sign
it into law. Or should he veto it. If he signed the bill, it would
show he believed that the Constitution permitted protective trade
taxes. That would create even more opposition to him in the south.
If he vetoed it, then he would lose support in the west and
northeast. Adams signed the bill. But he made clear that Congress
was fully responsible for it.

VOICE TWO:

There were other attempts by Democrats in Congress to weaken
support for President Adams. For example, they claimed that Adams
was mis-using government money. They tried to show that he, and his
father before him, had become rich from government service. Others
accused him of giving government jobs to his supporters. This charge
was false. Top administration officials had urged Adams to give
government jobs only to men who were loyal to him. Adams refused. He
felt that as long as a government worker had done nothing wrong, he
should continue in his job. During his four years as president, he
removed only twelve people from government jobs. In each case, the
person had failed to do his work or had done something criminal.
Adams often gave jobs to people who did not support him politically.
He believed it was completely wrong to give a person a job for
political reasons. Many of Adams's supporters, who had worked hard
to get him elected, could not understand this. Their support for him
cooled.

VOICE ONE:

The political battle between Adams's Republican Party and
Jackson's Democratic Party was bitter. Perhaps the worst fighting
took place in the press. Each side had its own newspaper. The "Daily
National Journal" supported the administration. The "United States
Telegraph" supported Andrew Jackson. At first, the administration's
newspaper called for national unity and an end to personal politics.
Then it changed its policy. The paper had to defend charges of
political wrong-doing within the Republican Party. It needed to turn
readers away from these problems. So it printed a pamphlet that had
been used against Andrew Jackson during an election campaign. The
pamphlet accused Jackson of many bad things. The most damaging part
said he had taken another man's wife. That will be our story on the
next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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VOICE TWO:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE
MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Steve Ember and Shirley
Griffith. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.