John Quincy Adams, ‘Acutist Enemy’ of Slavery

Today (July 11) is the anniversary of the 1767 birth of the great John Quincy Adams, son of Founder John Adams and Abigail. The sixth U.S. president and a fierce opponent of slavery, Adams is one of the heroes of American history who is often not accorded the full honor he deserves.

John Adams the father founded this nation, and John Q. Adams the son fought the two great evils that threatened to destroy this nation: slavery and the Democrat Party. What more need be said in his praise than that?

John Quincy Adams was grossly and falsely maligned by his Democrat opponent Andrew Jackson, who wanted the Constitution ignored and himself declared winner of the 1824 election. Jackson ended up managing to oust Adams from the White House in the next election with despicable lies.

In addition to being an occupant of the White House, Adams was also secretary of state, a U.S. senator and a member of both the Massachusetts General Assembly and the House of Representatives. But Quincy Adams was much more than a politician and a diplomat. "He was the best traveled American of his era," [Prof. Randall] Woods added. "He spoke or wrote six languages and was the father of the Smithsonian. During his stint in the House, J.Q.A. became the best known and most effective critic of slavery in the nation.”

Slaveowner, Democrat senator, and future Confederate Henry Wise of Virginia described Quincy Adams as “the acutest, the astutist, the archest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed.” Wise no doubt did not mean it so, but it is a magnificent tribute to Adams, his vision, and his character.

One event which illustrates both Adams’ great integrity and courageous opposition to slavery is the Amistad Event. In 1839, on a Spanish ship, the Amistad, the cargo of Mendi African slaves managed to break free of their shackles and take over the ship. Unfortunately for them, they decided not to kill all the Spaniards, who betrayed them and sailed to New York.

The Spanish government wanted both ship and slaves returned, and Democrat U.S. President Martin Van Buren thought that sounded just fine. The first two legal rulings in America were in the slaves’ favor, but the U.S. government appealed, and in 1841 abolitionist Lewis Tappan was begging a former president, Rep. John Quincy Adams, who was in the midst of opposing a Congressional “gag rule” against petitions to end slavery, to represent the slaves.

[Adams] agreed to represent the Africans to achieve justice and preserve their natural rights, including liberty…

The prosecution and defense presented their cases on February 22 and 23, 1841. On the following day, Adams entered the Supreme Court chambers in the U.S. Capitol to deliver the closing remarks for the defense. He spoke for four and a half hours, discoursing at length on the humanity and natural rights of the slaves. He also criticized the Van Buren administration for supporting the “lawless and tyrannical” Spanish, who were engaging in the human trafficking of enslaved persons.

After a recess caused by a justice’s unexpected death, Adams returned to give the Court another four hours of his closing argument. John Quincy referred to the document his father had worked so hard to formulate and pass: the Declaration of Independence.

Several times [Quincy Adams] pointed to the copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging in the chambers and asserted that the Africans were entitled to all the rights and freedoms embodied in the “Law of Nature and of Nature’s God on which our fathers placed our national existence.” He finished by appealing to the justices to follow the example set by their predecessors on the Court, such as Chief Justice John Marshall, in dispensing justice. He asked for a “fervent petition to heaven, that every member of it may go to his final ascent with as little of earthly frailty to answer for as those illustrious dead.”

The Supreme Court was so moved that Adams and the slaves received a 7-1 ruling in their favor. The slaves were free and able to return to Africa as they wished. Adams, to crown it all, never sent a bill for his legal services—his victory in the Court thus brought him no money at all.

The former slaves, now free men going home, sent Adams the following letter, a fitting way to end this tribute to Adams’ life and work:

To The Honorable John Quincy Adams.

Most Respected Sir,

The Mendi People give you thanks for all your kindness to them.  They will never forget your defence of their rights before the Great Court at Washington.  They feel that they owe to you, in a large measure, their deliverance from the Spaniards, and from Slavery or Death.  They will pray for you, Mr. Adams, as long as they live.  May God bless and reward you!

We are about to go home to Africa.  We go to Sierra Leone first, and there we reach Mendi very quick.  Good missionary men will go with us.  It has been a precious book to us in prison, and we love to read it now we are free.  Mr. Adams, we want to make you a present of a beautiful Bible.  Will you please accept it, and when you look at it or read it, remember your poor and grateful clients!  We read in this holy book, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us….Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us a prey to their teeth.  Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.  Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  Psalm CXXIV

For the Mendi People,

Cinque
Kinna
Kale

Boston, Nov. 6th. 1841

Happy birthday to John Quincy Adams!