Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
Encyclopedia
Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (August 18, 1807 – November 21, 1886) was an American
lawyer, politician, diplomat and writer. He was the grandson of President John Adams
and Abigail Adams
and the son of President John Quincy Adams
and Louisa Adams
.
He was born in Boston
, and attended Boston Latin School
and Harvard College
, where he graduated in 1825. He then studied law with Daniel Webster
, and practiced in Boston. He wrote numerous reviews of works about American and British history for the North American Review
.
Adams was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives
in 1841, served in the state senate
1844–1845, founded and edited the journal Boston Whig in 1846, and was the unsuccessful nominee of the Free Soil Party
for Vice President of the United States
in 1848. In 1872, he was again nominated for Vice President, this time by the so-called "Straight-Out Democrats," who were Democrats alienated by the Presidential candidacy of Horace Greeley
.
Beginning in the 1840s, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. became one of the finest historical editors of his era. He developed this expertise in part because of the example of his father, who in 1829 had turned from politics (after his defeated bid for a second presidential term in 1828) to history and biography. The senior Adams began a life of his father, John Adams, but only wrote a few chapters before he resumed his political career in 1830 with his election to the U.S. House of Representatives. The younger Adams, fresh from his edition of the letters of his grandmother, Abigail Adams
, took up the project that his father had left uncompleted, and between 1850 and 1856 turned out not just the two volumes of the biography but eight further volumes presenting editions of John Adams's Diary and Autobiography, his major political writings, and a selection of letters and speeches. This edition, titled The Works of John Adams, Esq., Second President of the United States, was the only edition of John Adams's writings until the family donated the cache of Adams papers to the Massachusetts Historical Society
in 1954 and authorized the creation of the Adams Papers project; the modern project had published accurate scholarly editions of John Adams's diary and autobiography, several volumes of Adams family correspondence, two volumes on the portraits of John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, and the early years of the diary of Charles Francis Adams. Charles Francis Adams published a revised edition of the biography in 1871. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857.
As a Republican
, Adams was elected to the United States House of Representatives
in 1858, where he chaired the Committee on Manufactures. He resigned to become Lincoln's minister (ambassador) to the Court of St. James (Britain)
from 1861 to 1868. Powerful Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner
had wanted the position, and became alienated from Adams. Britain had already recognized Confederate belligerency, but Adams was instrumental in maintaining British neutrality
and preventing British diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy during the American Civil War
. Part of those duties included correspondence with British civilians including Karl Marx and the International Workingmen's Association. Adams and his son, Henry Adams, who acted as his private secretary, also were kept busy monitoring Confederate diplomatic intrigues and the construction of rebel commerce raiders by British shipyards ( like the hull N°290 , launched as "Enrica" by John Laird & Sons , and which was soon transformed near the Azores Islands into sloop-of-war CSS Alabama
) .
Back in Boston, Adams declined the presidency of Harvard University
, but became one of its overseers in 1869. In 1870 Charles Francis Adams built the first presidential library
in the United States, to honor his father John Quincy Adams. The Stone Library includes over 14,000 books written in twelve languages. The library is located on the property of the "Old House" (also known as "Peacefield") at Adams National Historical Park
in Quincy, Massachusetts
.
During the 1876 electoral college controversy
, Adams sided with Democrat
Samuel J. Tilden
over Republican
Rutherford B. Hayes
for the presidency
.
Charles Francis Adams died in Boston on November 21, 1886, and was interred in Mount Wollaston Cemetery
, Quincy.
His children with Abigail Brown Brooks included:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lawyer, politician, diplomat and writer. He was the grandson of President John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
and Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
and the son of President John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
and Louisa Adams
Louisa Adams
Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, born Louisa Catherine Johnson , wife of John Quincy Adams, was First Lady of the United States from 1825 to 1829.-Early life:...
.
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and attended Boston Latin School
Boston Latin School
The Boston Latin School is a public exam school founded on April 23, 1635, in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States....
and Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
, where he graduated in 1825. He then studied law with Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
, and practiced in Boston. He wrote numerous reviews of works about American and British history for the North American Review
North American Review
The North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese...
.
Adams was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives
Massachusetts House of Representatives
The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from single-member electoral districts across the Commonwealth. Representatives serve two-year terms...
in 1841, served in the state senate
Massachusetts Senate
The Massachusetts Senate is the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court, the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Senate comprises 40 elected members from 40 single-member senatorial districts in the state...
1844–1845, founded and edited the journal Boston Whig in 1846, and was the unsuccessful nominee of the Free Soil Party
Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...
for Vice President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
in 1848. In 1872, he was again nominated for Vice President, this time by the so-called "Straight-Out Democrats," who were Democrats alienated by the Presidential candidacy of Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
.
Beginning in the 1840s, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. became one of the finest historical editors of his era. He developed this expertise in part because of the example of his father, who in 1829 had turned from politics (after his defeated bid for a second presidential term in 1828) to history and biography. The senior Adams began a life of his father, John Adams, but only wrote a few chapters before he resumed his political career in 1830 with his election to the U.S. House of Representatives. The younger Adams, fresh from his edition of the letters of his grandmother, Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams
Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth...
, took up the project that his father had left uncompleted, and between 1850 and 1856 turned out not just the two volumes of the biography but eight further volumes presenting editions of John Adams's Diary and Autobiography, his major political writings, and a selection of letters and speeches. This edition, titled The Works of John Adams, Esq., Second President of the United States, was the only edition of John Adams's writings until the family donated the cache of Adams papers to the Massachusetts Historical Society
Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts Historical Society is a major historical archive specializing in early American, Massachusetts, and New England history...
in 1954 and authorized the creation of the Adams Papers project; the modern project had published accurate scholarly editions of John Adams's diary and autobiography, several volumes of Adams family correspondence, two volumes on the portraits of John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, and the early years of the diary of Charles Francis Adams. Charles Francis Adams published a revised edition of the biography in 1871. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1857.
As a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, Adams was elected to the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
in 1858, where he chaired the Committee on Manufactures. He resigned to become Lincoln's minister (ambassador) to the Court of St. James (Britain)
United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom
The office of United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom was traditionally, and still is very much so today due to the Special Relationship, the most prestigious position in the United States Foreign Service...
from 1861 to 1868. Powerful Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...
had wanted the position, and became alienated from Adams. Britain had already recognized Confederate belligerency, but Adams was instrumental in maintaining British neutrality
Neutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
and preventing British diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Part of those duties included correspondence with British civilians including Karl Marx and the International Workingmen's Association. Adams and his son, Henry Adams, who acted as his private secretary, also were kept busy monitoring Confederate diplomatic intrigues and the construction of rebel commerce raiders by British shipyards ( like the hull N°290 , launched as "Enrica" by John Laird & Sons , and which was soon transformed near the Azores Islands into sloop-of-war CSS Alabama
CSS Alabama
CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built for the Confederate States Navy at Birkenhead, United Kingdom, in 1862 by John Laird Sons and Company. Alabama served as a commerce raider, attacking Union merchant and naval ships over the course of her two-year career, during which she never anchored in...
) .
Back in Boston, Adams declined the presidency of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, but became one of its overseers in 1869. In 1870 Charles Francis Adams built the first presidential library
Presidential library
In the United States, the Presidential library system is a nationwide network of 13 libraries administered by the Office of Presidential Libraries, which is part of the National Archives and Records Administration...
in the United States, to honor his father John Quincy Adams. The Stone Library includes over 14,000 books written in twelve languages. The library is located on the property of the "Old House" (also known as "Peacefield") at Adams National Historical Park
Adams National Historical Park
Adams National Historical Park, formerly Adams National Historic Site, in Quincy, Massachusetts, preserves the home of Presidents of the United States John Adams and John Quincy Adams, of U.S...
in Quincy, Massachusetts
Quincy, Massachusetts
Quincy is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Its nicknames are "City of Presidents", "City of Legends", and "Birthplace of the American Dream". As a major part of Metropolitan Boston, Quincy is a member of Boston's Inner Core Committee for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council...
.
During the 1876 electoral college controversy
United States presidential election, 1876
The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed and controversial presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165, with 20 votes uncounted...
, Adams sided with Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Samuel J. Tilden
Samuel J. Tilden
Samuel Jones Tilden was the Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in the disputed election of 1876, one of the most controversial American elections of the 19th century. He was the 25th Governor of New York...
over Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th President of the United States . As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution...
for the presidency
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
Charles Francis Adams died in Boston on November 21, 1886, and was interred in Mount Wollaston Cemetery
Mount Wollaston Cemetery
Mount Wollaston Cemetery is a historic cemetery at 20 Sea Street in the Merrymount neighborhhod of Quincy, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1855 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.-History:...
, Quincy.
His children with Abigail Brown Brooks included:
- Louisa Catherine Adams (1831–1870) married Charles Kuhn
- John Quincy Adams IIJohn Quincy Adams IIJohn Quincy Adams II was an American lawyer and politician.-Biography:Adams was the son of Charles Francis Adams, the grandson and namesake of president John Quincy Adams and the great-grandson of President John Adams...
(September 22, 1833 – August 14, 1894) - Charles Francis Adams Jr. (May 27, 1835 - May 20, 1915)
- Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 - March 27, 1918)
- Arthur Adams (1841–1846)
- Mary Gardiner Adams (1845–1928) married Dr. Henry Parker Quincy
- Peter Chardon Brooks AdamsBrooks AdamsPeter Chardon Brooks Adams , was an American historian and a critic of capitalism. He graduated from Harvard University in 1870 and studied at Harvard Law School in 1870 and 1871....
(June 24, 1848 - February 13, 1927)
Further reading
- Butterfield, L. H. et al., eds., The Adams Papers (1961- ). Multivolume letterpress edition of all letters to and from major members of the Adams family, plus their diaries; still incomplete.http://www.masshist.org/adams_editorial/volumes_published.cfm
- Duberman, Martin. Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886 Stanford UP 1968
- Donald, Aida Dipace and David Herbert, eds. Diary of Charles Francis Adams. Harvard University Press
External links
Retrieved on 2009-03-31- Appleton's Biography edited by Stanley L. Klos
- Nagel, Paul. Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.
- Texas and the Massachusetts Resolutions, by Charles Francis Adams, published 1844, hosted by the Portal to Texas History