Jefferson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

Large Stories (1804–1809)

[36] kkk [Large Stories] (1804–1809) John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth president of the United States, was the son of the second president, a member of the diplomatic corps of the first and fourth presidents, good friends with the third, and secretary of state to the fifth. As a boy he accompanied his father John Adams on his diplomatic missions to Europe. Living at Auteuil with his family in 1784, he frequently went into Paris and visited Jefferson. In 1785, he returned to Boston to further his education, graduating from Harvard College in 1787. (Jefferson had recommended he attend William and Mary instead.) John Quincy Adams subsequently read law with Theophilus Parsons. He embarked on a diplomatic career of his own when President Washington appointed him minister to the Netherlands. In London on 26 July 1797, he married Louisa Catherine Johnson, daughter of the U.S. Consul. That same year his father appointed him minister plenipotentiary to Berlin but recalled him after being defeated in the presidential election of 1800. Back home, John Quincy Adams became active in local politics and, in April 1803, was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. His support of Jefferson’s policies antagonized the Federalist Party that had supported his appointment to the Senate. One of the greatest diarists in the history of American literature, John Quincy Adams began keeping a diary in 1779, when he was twelve, and continued it for the next sixty-eight years, until just a few months before he died. What follows is a selection from his diary dating from his time in the Senate, when he often dined at the White House. Adams recognized Jefferson as a teller of tall tales and even attributed a motive to his hyperbolic humor: to excite wonder. In one conversation, he asked Jefferson about a geographical point he had made in Notes on the State of Virginia. Adams knew the work well, having read it at least twice before. Adams’s diary also adds another volume to Jefferson’s White House library: François Le Vaillant’s Histoire naturelle des perroquets (1804–1805; not in Sowerby). In his diary, Adams provides a brief account of James Madison’s inauguration and the first-ever inaugural ball that followed. He expanded his account of these events in a letter to his wife, which records that he and Jefferson found time to discuss classical verse at the event, the first and perhaps the last time an ex-president and a future one discussed Greek and Latin poetry at an inaugural ball. [37] The Diary of John Quincy Adams [23 November 1804] Dined with the President. Mrs. Adams did not go. The company were Mr. R[obert] Smith, Secretary of the Navy, and his lady, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, Miss Jenifer and Miss Mouchette, Mr. [Daniel] Brent, and the President’s two sons-in-law [Thomas Mann Randolph and John W. Eppes], with Mr. [William] Burwell, his private secretary. I had a good deal of conversation with the President. The French Minister just arrived had been this day first presented to him, and appears to have displeased him by the profusion of gold lace on his clothes. He says they must get him down to a plain frock coat, or the boys in the streets will run after him as a sight. I asked if he had brought his Imperial credentials, and was answered he had. Mr. Jefferson then turned the conversation towards the French Revolution, and remarked how contrary to all expectation this great bouleversement had turned out. It seemed as if every thing in that country for the last twelve or fifteen years had been A Dream; and who could have imagined that such an ébranlement would have come to this? He thought it very much to be wished that they could now return to the Constitution of 1789, and call back the Old Family. For although by that Constitution the Government was much too weak, and although it was defective in having a Legislature in only one branch, yet even thus it was better than the present form, where it was impossible to perceive any limits. I have used as near as possible his very words; for this is one of the most unexpected phases in the waxing and waning opinions of this gentleman concerning the French Revolution. He also mentioned to me the extreme difficulty he had in finding fit characters for appointments...