John Quincy Adams was the last surviving statesman of the American Revolution and the first national leader to dramatize the moral issue that precipitated the Civil War. He was the son of Abigail and John Adams and from age 11 was involved in affairs of the nation. At that tender age he accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission to France, acting as his secretary.

Two years later in 1780, he again went to France with his father, this time as an official secretary. By the time he entered Harvard, he knew at least five languages, as well as Latin and Greek. Not particularly enthusiastic about going into the practice of law, he eagerly accepted President George Washington's appointment as minister to Holland in 1794. Back in the United States in 1801, he served briefly in the Massachusetts senate and then in the U.S. Senate from 1803-1808.

He was a Federalist who did not support the policies of his party; rather, he supported Jefferson. His opposition to the Federalists led to his resignation from the U.S. Senate. James Madison named him minister to Russia, where Adams lived for four years. He was a principal negotiator for the end of the War of 1812, and signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814. Madison then appointed him minister to Britain.

Adams was secretary of state in the Monroe administration and took a leading role in all of its deliberations. Among his success in negotiation were demilitarizing the U.S.-Canada border, the purchase of Florida, demarking the boundary with Spanish Mexico that for the first time recognized American claims extending to the Pacific Ocean, and the principles leading to the Monroe Doctrine. He won the presidential election of 1824 in a three-way race with Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford. The election was settled by the House of Representatives. While he sought broad, sweeping programs as president, Congress appeared more interested in expansionism and frontier individualism. Adams was not re -elected. Adams thought he was retiring to his Massachusetts farm, but was elected to the House of Representatives in 1830 and kept in office for nine consecutive terms.