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John Quincy Adams and the politics of slavery : selections from the diary PDF

337 Pages·2016·1.66 MB·English
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J Q A OHN UINCY DAMS  P AND THE OLITICS  S OF LAVERY • JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND THE POLITICS OF SLAVERY • Selections from the Diary • DAVID WALDSTREICHER & MATTHEW MASON 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Adams, John Quincy, 1767–1848. | Waldstreicher, David, editor. | Mason, Matthew, 1968- editor. Title: John Quincy Adams and the politics of slavery : selections from the diary / David Waldstreicher, Matthew Mason [editors]. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016028236| ISBN 9780199947959 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190624613 (ebook epub) Subjects: LCSH: Adams, John Quincy, 1767–1848—Diaries. | Adams, John Quincy, 1767–1848—Political and social views. | Slavery—Political aspects—United States—History—19th century. | United States—Politics and government—1783–1865. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / 19th Century. | HISTORY / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775–1800). Classification: LCC E377 .A3 2017 | DDC 973.5/5092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016028236 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Edwards Brothers Malloy, United States of America To our advisors David Brion Davis and Ira Berlin Contents • Introduction: The Diary, the Life, and the Politics of Slavery ix A Note on the Text and Editorial Method xxiii 1. Rising Son of the Young Republic (1785–1 809) 1 2. American Diplomat (1809– 17) 24 3. Secretary of State (1817– 24) 45 4. The Making and Unmaking of a President (1824–2 9) 114 5. The Making of an Antislavery Congressman (1829– 36) 145 6. Antislavery Whig Congressman (1836– 46) 198 Acknowledgments 299 Index 301 vii IntroduCtIon • The Diary, the Life, and the Politics of Slavery John Quincy Adams kept diaries for most of his long adult life. Thanks to two printed editions (edited in twelve volumes by Charles Francis Adams in 1874– 77 and condensed to one volume by Allan Nevins in 1928), the diary has long been one the most quoted sources for the political history of the early American republic.1 Now that the entire fifty- one manuscript volumes totaling fourteen thousand pages are online courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society, however, it is more widely appreciated that the very length of the diaries has made both systematic analysis and leisurely reading something of a challenge. 1. Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS), The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection, http:// www.masshist.org/ jqadiaries/ php/; Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 1795 to 1848, 12 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1874–7 7); Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of John Quincy Adams, 1794-1 845 (1928. Repr. New York: Scribner’s, 1951). For the publication history, see “Introduction,” in David Grayson Allen et al., eds., Diary of John Quincy Adams. Vol. 1: November 1779-M arch 1786 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), xxii–x xxv. The second volume of the Harvard University Press edition contains the diary from 1786 through 1788; these portions were not included at all by Charles Francis Adams, whose edition begins in 1794, after a gap of several years in the diary. For examples of recent histories that rely extensively on the diary, see Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2006); Daniel Walker Howe, What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815- 1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Howe’s volume is dedicated to Adams, as if in a riposte to Wilentz, who much prefers Andrew Jackson and often uses the diary to mock Adams and his politics, except where it concerns Adams’s antislavery, which earns his grudging admiration. ix

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In the final years of his political career, President John Quincy Adams was well known for his objections to slavery, with rival Henry Wise going so far as to label him "the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of southern slavery that ever existed." As a young statesman, however, he supported s
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