For those of you who know about him, what do you think of John Quincy Adams?

18 comments

1. Top 2 President named John Adams

2. Great statesman. One of, if not the most qualified president. In reality, he was a mediocre president.

3. Based on my limited knowledge of early US presidents and given he was the 6th president and his Father was the 2nd, it screams nepotism in this day and age. But idk, it was probably slim pickings back then when it came to qualified candidates. I really have nothing of context to add to this discussion.

4. He was fine but not amazing. His father is one of my favorites (shhhhh the alien and sedition acts didn’t happen).

5. He was the man. Wasn’t his fault congress was so against him. He was the most anti-slavery president in the pre-Lincoln era.

6. Isn’t he the one who was really excited about having sex with his wife, like all the time? I could be thinking about someone else.

7. He once referred to the constitution as a [menstruous rag](https://www.masshist.org/publications/jqadiaries/document/jqadiaries-v45-1845-02-19-p032) and I cannot forget how hard I laughed when I read that.

8. Deeply qualified but fairly forgettable executive.

9. [deleted]

10. He was probably the smartest President we’ve ever had, in terms of pure intellectual capability.

    Despite that, he lacked the leadership skills to corral a hostile Congress and accomplish an agenda. He lost reelection and served only one term. He’ll go down as an example of why intelligence doesn’t correlate with strong leadership or administrative skill.

    I’ll always have a soft spot for him because he served for many, many years after that, and didn’t give up, but it seems he was more suited to Congress than the Presidency.

11. I remember doing a report on him in fifth grade. I remember no details of the report.

12. First President who was opposed to slavery on all fonts

13. Decent President. Excellent ex-President.

14. He smelled like soup

15. His election was one of our only contingent elections, and he was probably the President with the least amount of popular support, he had like 30% of the vote. So not really surprising he was a one termer and didn’t get much accomplished. But I mean, considering he was fending off the awful Andrew Jackson, probably not as bad in comparison.

16. Perhaps, the most qualified person to be the President.

17. He was a badass diplomat, starting when he was 27 in the Netherlands and continuing on to Russia, Prussia and the UK -where he helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent ending the war of 1812. He’s considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Secretary of State we’ve ever had under President James Monroe – he authored the Monroe doctrine and negotiated the Adams-Onis treaty. He was a visionary but largely ineffective president thanks to Andrew Jackson who accused him of entering into a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay to win the presidency. He won the Amistead case on behalf of the slaves that seized the ship. He harassed TF out of the slave states, seizing on any and every opportunity to work around the gag rule, which he eventually managed to get repealed in just under a decade of trying. Aaaaand he collapsed in the House, still agitating at 80, from a fatal cerebral hemorrhage.

    I think JQA is awesome!

18. I think there’s a nice town south of Boston named after him.