WEBVTT - Founding Son: Episode 2 - Andrew Jackson Strikes Back 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:33.280 I'm Bob Crawford. This is founding son John Quincy's America. 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.400 June seventeenth, seventeen seventy five. A seven year old John 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:41.839 Quincy Adams. Here's explosions in the distance. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.479 His mother, Abigail, took him up to a nearby hill 0:00:47.559 --> 0:00:50.039 when they heard the sounds of canons. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.440 Presidential historian Lindsay Stravinsky says that when John Quincy and 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.880 his mother got to the top of the hill, they 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.440 saw all the British and the Continental armies locked in 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:00.360 a heated battle. 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:06.080 And he actually observed and witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill, 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.800 which is one of those incidents that you read about 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:11.840 and you just think like, surely this cannot be true, 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.679 surely this is made up. And yet he was there 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:15.440 and he saw it. 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.600 Fifty years before John Quincy Adams was president. He saw 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:27.200 the American Revolutionary War up close, first as a spectator 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:32.120 from his home in nearby Braintree, Massachusetts, but eventually as 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.040 an unofficial ambassador. The son of one of America's most 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.880 important diplomats, John Adams, he. 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.280 Was this remarkable child. He was eleven years old and 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.960 his father brought him to Europe to serve as his 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:46.120 private secretary. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.720 He ate new cuisines, spent evenings at the opera, learned 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:52.920 at some of the world's finest schools. 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.040 He was picking up new languages, and so it totally 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.680 changed who he would become because he had such a 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:05.120 worldly perspective and ultimately ended up having so many decas 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.600 aids of experience at the foreign policy level that he 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:10.359 was just an unparalleled mind. 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.720 John Quincy Adams was born in seventeen sixty seven, the 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.760 same year as his future political rival Andrew Jackson. But 0:02:19.920 --> 0:02:23.200 even though the two men were the same age, Jackson 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.360 lived through a very different revolutionary war. 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.520 He was a boy soldier, not a soldier exactly, but 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.520 he was a boy participant in the American Revolution. 0:02:32.920 --> 0:02:35.960 Sean Wallentz is the author of The Rise of American 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.680 Democracy Jefferson de Lincoln. He says Jackson grew up along 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.280 the border of North and South Carolina, in a region 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:44.880 known as the Waxaws. 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.720 That part of South Carolina, the part of the Carolinas, 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.760 was dark and bloody ground during the Revolution, and at 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.440 one point he was captured by the British and was 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.280 asked to shine a an officer's shoes or. 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.720 Boots Jackson refused. 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.840 Upon which the outraged officer lifted his sword and cracked 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.000 him over the head and hit him so hard that 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:10.760 he bore that scar for the rest of his life. 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.160 And I actually think that that's an important moment in 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.600 understanding Jackson, because his hatred of the British Empire was 0:03:17.640 --> 0:03:19.160 from that moment on undying. 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.480 To say Jackson held a grudge is an understatement. He 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.280 didn't just have bad blood with the British, but anyone 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:32.240 who wronged him, and in eighteen twenty four, John Quincy 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:37.400 had done just that. In Jackson's mind, John Quincy and 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:41.280 Henry Clay had broken a backroom deal to steal the 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.400 presidency from him. From that moment on, Jackson and his 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.800 supporters were hell bent on getting even. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.520 It appears we live in evil times when those exalted 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:57.440 to high, dignified and honorable stations have abandoned the course 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:02.240 dictated by truth and honor and move on to self aggrandizement, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.560 regardless of the use of the means by wi may 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:06.320 be acquired. 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.120 How far would Jackson's followers go to make John Quincy 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:15.840 Adams a one term president and who would win the 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:26.200 rematch between the two Chapter two Andrew Jackson strikes back. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.560 It's late morning on March fourth, eighteen twenty five, cavalry 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.880 arrived at John Quincy adams f Street home in Washington, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:47.400 d C. Trumpets blared, cannons boomed as Adams prepared to 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.880 leave for the inauguration. He put on his plain black coat. 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.760 It would be his last moments as a private citizen 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:59.520 before being sworn in as the nation's sixth president. His wife, Louisa, 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.480 lay sick in her bed the night before. She had 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.680 a violent fever and the doctor attempted to bleed the 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:06.560 sickness from her. 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.279 Body, and afterwards, to what should be the surprise of 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:11.240 no one, she fainted. 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.480 This is Louisa Thomas, staff writer at The New Yorker 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.440 and author of Louisa, The Extraordinary Life of Missus Adams. 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.120 She says Luisa had long suffered from physical and mental illnesses. 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:27.120 Many were misdiagnosed and mistreated, which was not uncommon at 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.240 the time, especially if you were a woman. 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:34.880 She was given leeches laudanum, which is basically opium mercury. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.000 I mean, he's just basically poisoned. Every turn. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.800 With his wife bedridden, John Quincy headed to his inauguration alone. 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.200 She did rouse herself out of bed and got dressed 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.839 and came down afterward, and then when the family went 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.120 on to celebrate the inauguration, she went to bed. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.160 After taking the oath of office, President John Quincy Adams 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:04.039 plunged into his extremely ambitious agenda. He detailed plans to 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.560 transform the nation through what he called improvements. 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.800 For Adams, improvements meant physical things, what we would today 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:18.440 call infrastructure, the building of roads and canals. It meant institutions, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.840 the creation of a naval academy. He dreamed of building 0:06:22.840 --> 0:06:25.880 a network of what he called lighthouses of the skies, 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.480 which meant telescopes, because he he loved telescopes. 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.840 James Traub is author of John Quincy adams Militant Spirit. 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.880 He says, shortly after taking office, Adams planned to tell 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.400 the nation about his improvements during his first message to Congress. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.000 But when Adams rehearsed the speech to his cabinet, they 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.160 were like, m, we have a few notes. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.240 When he read his the equivalent of the State of 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.600 the Union speech, his first annual speech, they all blanched 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:04.040 because of how ambitious the demands were, and even the language. 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.560 The idea of a strong federal government stoked fears of tyranny. 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:13.400 In eighteen twenty five, freedom meant freedom from government, and 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.880 many lawmakers believe the Constitution wouldn't allow the government to 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.200 fund John Quincy's infrastructure projects. Adams ignored the advice of 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.840 his cabinet and threw all of his energy and political 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.720 capital into the American system. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:31.640 Anyway, thereby infuriating a large fraction of the Congress and 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.160 maybe the public you know who thought otherwise. 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.920 Adams's determination to plow forward required trust in the government, 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.360 flying in the face of Thomas Jefferson's idea that government 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.520 is best which governs least, still a widely popular sentiment. 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:52.160 On top of that, many Americans considered Adams an illegitimate president. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.040 Congress elected him, not the people. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:08:00.040 There were so many reasons why Adams failed as president 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:06.320 that you almost could remove the legitimacy question and say 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:07.840 he still would have failed. 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:15.760 John Quincy refused to compromise his beliefs and his political ambitions, 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:18.680 and he balked at the idea of working with his 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:23.240 political opponents. He had a critical handicap as commander in chief. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.000 His worldly experience and privileged upbringing made him detached from 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.800 the typical American he was quick to show off as 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:36.319 Harvard education, quoting Cicero and Tacitus at will, Adams thundered 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.479 in his first annual message in December of eighteen twenty. 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:44.960 Five, while foreign nations are advancing with gigantic strides and 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.559 public improvement, were we to slumber and indolence and proclaim 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.760 to the world that we are paulsied by the will 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.439 of our constituents, would it not be to doom ourselves 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.320 to perpetual inferiority. 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.440 You may not understand exactly what paulsied by the will 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.920 of our constituents means, but Adams might as well have 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.400 called a vast swapt of Americans a basket of deplorables. 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.280 In the early eighteen hundreds, America was still mostly an 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.800 agrarian society. Many of its citizens were planners, farmers, and 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.040 mechanics with no formal education, and Adams essentially said that 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.640 they were the reason America couldn't compete with Europe. Not 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.120 to be outdone, Jackson replied. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.760 When I view the declaration, that it would be criminal 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.360 for the agents of our government to be poalsied by 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.520 the will of their constituents. I shudder for the consequence. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.640 The voice of the people must be heard. 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.880 Jackson got it, Adams did not. And it wasn't just 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.640 voters who hated the direction Adams and Henry Clay wanted 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:54.720 to take America. Southern politicians had their own specific misgivings 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.080 about the policies. They despised the goals of Clay and 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.240 Adams's so called American system. 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.679 The American system posed a threat to slavery in a 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:08.520 number of ways. If you have more and better forms 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:13.040 of travel and communication, it's easier for enslaved individuals to 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.360 self emancipate and to run away. It's easier for the 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.640 federal government to encroach on what they call the Southern 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.079 way of life. So they really saw any measure of 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.720 federal intervention as a threat to slavery. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.319 While Andrew Jackson represented the antithesis of everything Adams believed, 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.959 he was mostly the figurehead operating by proxy. Jackson's loyal 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.120 network of supporters and followers did his bidding in Congress, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.640 and the man leading Jackson's rabid sympathizers was a senator 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:47.320 from New York. 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.800 Martin Van Buren was an operator. You know, he'd be 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:56.680 like Carl Rove or something. 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:03.679 Van Buren was a Northerner who liked many didn't necessarily 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.480 like Jackson. But where others saw widening political division, he 0:11:08.560 --> 0:11:10.400 saw opportunity. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:16.680 He saw that there was a chance to combine the 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.760 West and the South, the old planter class and this 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.439 new class, as well as some Northerners who could live 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:25.280 with slavery. 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:30.760 Since the original parties had dissolved, politics divided along regional boundaries, 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.000 really North versus South. Van Buren wanted to bring back 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:40.400 a Jeffersonian way of dividing political allegiancies by ideology, and 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.160 for him, the winning strategy was Jacksonian populism. 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.640 And so Van Buren is thinking, we have to found 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:54.560 a new popular party which poses itself against these old 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:59.480 populations and old parties and saying, let's create this new thing. 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.960 That new thing is the Democratic Party, and that system 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:10.280 has evolved into the two party system that largely exists today. 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.079 The new party was still just an idea in Van 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.280 Buren's head when the midterm elections of eighteen twenty six 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:22.240 rolled around, but the divisions were real. Jacksonian candidates swept 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.479 the election, winning a vast majority in both chambers of Congress. 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.640 The drubbing that he takes in Eateen twenty six is 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.160 an indication that most of Congress, even people who would 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.720 normally think of themselves as belonging to the president's party, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.000 would see that John Quincy Adams was perhaps more of 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:43.559 a nationalist than what they were. Perhaps, if you're in 0:12:43.560 --> 0:12:47.520 the House of Representatives, their constituency wants to see in 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:48.240 a president. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.559 David S. Brown is a professor of history at Elizabethtown 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:53.880 College in Pennsylvania. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.600 He could not position himself in such a way that 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.200 even some of his advocates in his own party could 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:04.600 really campaign on his record, and so they run against him. 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:09.560 Voters in Congress soundly rejected the American system. John Quincy, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.960 like his father, believed to his core that it was 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.880 the president's duty to doggedly pursue what was best for 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:21.760 the nation and to rise above party politics. The midterm 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:26.640 election of eighteen twenty six proved that this belief, while laudable, 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:32.400 was not a strategy for political success. New York City 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.520 Mayor Philip Hohne later said of Adams, his desire to 0:13:36.560 --> 0:13:40.280 avoid party influence lost him all the favor of all 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:45.400 the parties. Eighteen twenty six was a tough year all 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.640 around for John Quincy. His agenda had stalled in Congress, 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.199 blocked by obstructionists, his opposition had swept the midterm elections. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.000 In that summer, he learned that two founding fathers had died. 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:02.880 In the early afternoon of July fourth, eighteen twenty six, 0:14:03.560 --> 0:14:07.680 President Adams was informed that Thomas Jefferson had died. The 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.760 irony of the moment was not lost on anyone, the 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:16.280 fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but the news 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.960 got even worse. John Quincy learned that on the very 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:26.800 same day, July fourth, his father, his mentor, his hero, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.680 John Adams, had also died. 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:32.360 And it was taken as a great omen by a 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.280 lot of people, but it was a special omen for 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.400 John Quincy Adams in the middle of his what would 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.000 be his only term as president, in the. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.520 Wake of his father's funeral and his trouncing in the midterms, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.040 John Quincy was in deep despair. Putting his father's affairs 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.440 in order, John Quincy contemplated what was to come. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:59.480 For an active and much agitated life to pass suddenly 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:05.000 forever to a condition of total retirement and almost solitude 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.960 trial to which I cannot look without some concern. 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:12.880 He was heading into what many said would be the 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.880 biggest political route in American history. The election of eighteen 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.680 twenty eight. The populist wave had become a tsunami powerful 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.400 enough to sweep Adams from office, and at the head 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.840 of this movement was his former and now current opponent, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:36.160 General Andrew Jackson. Coming up. Jackson and Adams square off 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:40.480 for the presidency again, and this time it's personal, like 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:59.520 real personal. We'll have more after the break. The election 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.280 of eighteen twenty eight was a rematch of eighteen twenty 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:07.960 four John Quincy Adams, once again facing Southerner Andrew Jackson, 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:09.800 and he was prepared to win. 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.120 So when people say today that elections and politics are 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.560 nastier than they've ever been, that usually indicates that they 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.440 haven't actually looked into elections in the past, because the 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.240 eighteen twenty eight election was incredibly nasty. 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:30.040 Newspapers at the time were used by politicians as instruments 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:31.200 of personal destruction. 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.960 Most newspapers didn't even pretend to be objective. The storylines 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.200 they might be fabricated, they might have a bit of 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.480 truth in them, but really this was not objective reporting. 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.600 Newspapers on both sides were brutal and unforgiving in their attacks. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:52.400 On Jackson's side, it was the NonStop corrupt bargain which 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.880 they turned into the greatest scandal in the nation's history. 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:01.040 Publications on Adam's side got personal, some downright cruel. 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:07.320 One of the more scurreless newspapers in Cincinnati runs some 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:12.239 giant headline about Jackson's mother was a prostitute. 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.759 Jackson fumed at the attacks on his mother, Elizabeth. His 0:17:16.879 --> 0:17:20.359 father died before he was born, so he felt fiercely 0:17:20.399 --> 0:17:23.879 protective of the only parent he knew, a woman who 0:17:23.879 --> 0:17:28.359 had given literally everything to her children and her country. 0:17:30.639 --> 0:17:33.719 When Jackson and his guerrilla fighting brothers were captured by 0:17:33.719 --> 0:17:36.479 the British in the Revolutionary War, they were sent to 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:37.560 a prison camp. 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.480 And the conditions were so terrible that when they were released, 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.239 his brother died two days later, and then his mom. 0:17:44.719 --> 0:17:47.399 Because she was so moved by this experience, served as 0:17:47.399 --> 0:17:50.239 a nurse for other prisoners of war that were held 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.040 on British ships, on which the conditions were absolutely ghastly. 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.840 While working as a nurse on the ship, she came 0:17:57.879 --> 0:18:02.040 down with cholera and died, leaving Jackson an orphan when 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.320 he was just fourteen years old. It's of John Quincy 0:18:06.399 --> 0:18:10.679 to drag Jackson's mother through the mud, calling her a prostitute. 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.000 This cut Jackson to the core, but what really set 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.920 him off were the attacks on his wife, Rachel. 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:24.760 Rachel was previously married and she then sought a divorce, 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:31.160 but it certainly appears that she married Jackson before her 0:18:31.239 --> 0:18:36.119 divorce was finalized, so that then gave rise to the 0:18:36.159 --> 0:18:39.279 notion that Jackson had married a harlot. 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.359 But like I said, the attacks were vicious on both sides. 0:18:43.919 --> 0:18:47.439 The newspapers that were sympathetic to Jackson were plenty cruel 0:18:47.439 --> 0:18:47.879 as well. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.560 John Quincy Adams held several diplomatic posts in Europe and 0:18:52.719 --> 0:18:56.519 one was in Russia, and the opposition press in eighteen 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:01.879 twenty four and to claim that Quincy Adams, while ambassador, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:09.040 had pemped out one of his female servants to the Czar. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.320 This, of course is false, and the press targeted John 0:19:13.399 --> 0:19:15.240 Quincy's wife, Louisa too. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.800 The claim about his wife being British is of course true, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.840 and up until Melania Trump, his wife was the only 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.399 first lady to have been born elsewhere. 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:33.719 Louisa Catherine Johnson was born in London in seventeen seventy five. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:35.599 The same year as Jane Austen. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.439 To give you some contexts also, you know, on the 0:19:38.439 --> 0:19:43.080 eve of the Revolutionary War. Her father was an American, 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.439 her mother was a Londoner, and she had a sense 0:19:48.439 --> 0:19:51.600 of herself as always an outsider looking in. 0:19:52.919 --> 0:19:56.960 When the Revolutionary War began, Louisa's father, a patriot from 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.280 Maryland living in London, fled with his family to France. 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.279 When the war was over, she returned with her family 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.320 to London. It was there seventeen ninety five that Louisa 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.159 met John Quincy Adams at a party at their home, 0:20:10.719 --> 0:20:14.359 a young diplomat of the fledgling United States, dressed in 0:20:14.399 --> 0:20:15.199 a boxy coat. 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.679 Oh, she thought he looked ridiculous. He wasn't dressed fashionable. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.480 Louisa came from a large family and had a lot 0:20:24.479 --> 0:20:30.000 of sisters. They were all educated, fashionable, social, very pretty 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:31.119 and played music. 0:20:31.399 --> 0:20:34.000 I think he somewhat fell in love with the scene 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.199 at first. He was wrote in his diary about the 0:20:37.239 --> 0:20:40.280 beautiful music and the good food, and the good conversation 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.479 and the daughters, and he sort of mentioned, you know, 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:45.279 which one was good at the harbor, which one was 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.879 good at piano? And Louisa sings. I think that was 0:20:47.919 --> 0:20:49.080 his first mention of her. 0:20:52.479 --> 0:20:55.199 John Quincy found himself falling in love with one of 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.239 Louisa's sisters. Eventually, though it seems like he sort of 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.440 listened to his heart and chose Louisa. 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.399 His account of getting engaged, in fact, was he was 0:21:04.439 --> 0:21:07.159 like passive. This isn't the exact line, but it was 0:21:07.159 --> 0:21:09.600 something like the ring jumped from my finger or something. 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:11.800 I mean, it was a very odd way of phrasing. 0:21:12.159 --> 0:21:18.239 In seventeen ninety seven, John and Luisa got married. Fast 0:21:18.239 --> 0:21:22.040 forward thirty years later. Now her name was smeared across 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.119 the front pages of newspapers across America. She was criticized 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:31.559 for being European upper class. Her sympathies lied with the monarchs, 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:32.800 not with their subjects. 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:38.399 She felt vilified and she was. They poked every single 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:45.399 sore spot for her, and it was an extraordinarily painful experience. 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.959 At this time in American history, it was still only 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.439 white men who could vote, but in the election of 0:21:51.479 --> 0:21:55.560 eighteen twenty eight, more men than ever cast ballots, many 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.319 for the first time, and candidates were fiercely competing for 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:00.399 these new voters. 0:22:02.239 --> 0:22:08.560 This is a demographic revolution happening. Between eighteen three and 0:22:08.679 --> 0:22:13.119 eighteen twenty one, eight states entered the Union. All of 0:22:13.159 --> 0:22:15.800 them were in the South and the west, excepting for one, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:16.960 the state of Maine. 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.799 The nation was growing, spreading south and west, racing towards 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:22.840 the Pacific. 0:22:22.439 --> 0:22:26.760 Ocean sunbult politics isn't just a twentieth century or twenty 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:30.560 first century phenomena. It was growing in the early nineteenth century, 0:22:30.879 --> 0:22:32.519 and Jackson embodies it. 0:22:32.959 --> 0:22:38.000 For these new voters. Intellectuals and establishment politicians like John 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.239 Quincy were what was wrong with the nation. But an 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:44.399 adventurer from the West who rose from humble beginnings to 0:22:44.399 --> 0:22:47.399 become a war hero, that was someone the people could 0:22:47.479 --> 0:22:47.999 relate to. 0:22:48.679 --> 0:22:52.639 Jackson is going to be really the only candidate who 0:22:52.679 --> 0:22:53.919 could win the selection. I think. 0:22:54.399 --> 0:22:56.600 When all the votes were counted in the late fall, 0:22:57.159 --> 0:23:00.840 Jackson was the clear winner of the popular vote again, 0:23:01.639 --> 0:23:05.279 but he had also won a decisive one hundred in 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.280 seventy eight electoral votes. It was a landslide that completely 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:16.040 wiped out John Quincy. Unlike the eighteen twenty four vote, 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.359 there could be no doubt that the people had rejected 0:23:19.399 --> 0:23:23.600 Adams and the ideals he stood for. Jackson's limited government 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:28.119 and states rights agenda prevailed, but Jackson's victory came at 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:32.479 a great cost. Just weeks later, his wife, Rachel died. 0:23:34.479 --> 0:23:38.560 She had suffered from debilitating health issues for years. President 0:23:38.639 --> 0:23:42.280 elect Andrew Jackson blamed her death on the brutal attacks 0:23:42.639 --> 0:23:45.520 that Adams and his allies broadcast during the campaign. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:53.199 Rachel was prostrated by this public humiliation and died after 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:58.679 Jackson was elected and before he was inaugurated. And so 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:05.759 you can't imagine how bitter Jackson felt towards it, Adams 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:08.879 towards everyone on the other side, and indeed, more broadly, 0:24:08.919 --> 0:24:12.280 how Jacksonians felt about them. 0:24:12.719 --> 0:24:14.679 Jackson later said about his wife. 0:24:15.479 --> 0:24:18.999 Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:20.399 not meet my wife there. 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:24.999 The election came in a great cost for John Quincy 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:27.999 as well. He had spent his life coping with depression, 0:24:28.439 --> 0:24:31.760 and after losing the White House, he was consumed by despair. 0:24:32.239 --> 0:24:34.639 What we think of now is clinical depression. He had it. 0:24:34.639 --> 0:24:38.000 There's no question, you read it. He has a serotonin deficiency. 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.679 It's a problem. So when he left office he was depressed. 0:24:42.679 --> 0:24:44.399 He thought he had let the country down. He had 0:24:44.479 --> 0:24:49.039 let his father's memory down, his parents' memory down, so 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:49.959 he's pretty low. 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:58.000 After Jackson's inauguration, John Quincy and Louisa lingered in Washington, 0:24:58.639 --> 0:25:01.679 waiting for their eldest son, George, to help them make 0:25:01.719 --> 0:25:07.039 the trip back to Quincy. Louisa was devastated from the 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:10.440 stress of the campaign and a combination of physical afflictions. 0:25:11.479 --> 0:25:13.999 She looked forward to seeing her oldest son, George. 0:25:14.639 --> 0:25:17.479 She was very close to her children and to George 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:18.600 in particular. 0:25:18.840 --> 0:25:22.359 But George had taken a bad turn. Shortly after the election, 0:25:22.919 --> 0:25:26.439 Louisa received a letter from her other son, Charles Francis, 0:25:27.040 --> 0:25:29.159 telling her that George was not doing well. 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:33.080 I write this without any intention of unnecessarily alarming you. 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:37.479 He is well enough in all bodily respects, but he 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:40.280 pines for want of some kind of excitement to action 0:25:40.639 --> 0:25:42.159 which does not exist. 0:25:43.040 --> 0:25:46.799 George Washington Adams was never adept at handling the pressure 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.560 of being born into one of the most influential families 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.479 in New England. He was an alcoholic and womanizer. Now 0:25:53.639 --> 0:25:58.520 his behavior was getting worse. Louisa and John Quincy had 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:03.479 watched their son slowly unravel, feeling helpless, hoping a trip 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:06.800 to Washington would do him good. John Quincy was still 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:09.560 waiting for George to arrive when his brother in law 0:26:09.639 --> 0:26:14.800 showed up instead. He broke the news George Washington Adams 0:26:15.239 --> 0:26:17.240 had gone overboard and drowned. 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:19.679 It may have been an accident, It may have been 0:26:19.719 --> 0:26:22.840 a mental health crisis. He may have been hearing voices 0:26:22.879 --> 0:26:24.800 of some kind. He may have been drunk, he may 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:25.560 have jumped. 0:26:31.399 --> 0:26:35.199 In his diary, John Quincy wrote that upon learning the 0:26:35.239 --> 0:26:40.240 news about George's death, Louisa's condition is not to be described. 0:26:40.679 --> 0:26:44.439