President John Quincy Adams “Inaugural Address” (March 4, 1825)
Our political creed is, without a dissenting voice that can be heard, that the will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth; that the best security for the beneficence and the best guaranty against the abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections; that the General Government of the Union and the separate governments of the States are all sovereignties of limited powers, fellow-servants of the same masters, uncontrolled within their respective spheres, uncontrollable by encroachments upon each other; that the firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war; that a rigorous economy and accountability of public expenditures should guard against the aggravation and alleviate when possible the burden of taxation; that the military should be kept in strict subordination to the civil power; that the freedom of the press and of religious opinion should be inviolate; that the policy of our country is peace and the ark of our salvation union are articles of faith upon which we are all now agreed. If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled; if there have been projects of partial confederacies to be erected upon the ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds; if there have been dangerous attachments to one foreign nation and antipathies against another, they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political contention and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion.
(Source: Miller Center-University of Virginia)
The 6th President, John Quincy Adams, was born on July 11, 1767. He was the son of the 2nd President, John Adams, and Abigail Adams.
Adams served as Secretary of State for eight years under James Monroe, a period known as the “Era of Good Will.” But the election of 1824 was bitterly contested, and ended up in the House of Representatives, which selected Adams over Andrew Jackson in what was called the “corrupt bargain” by Jackson and his supporters.
Find out more about John Quincy Adams, his administration and subsequent loss to Jackson, followed by his election to the House of Representatives in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents. (Adams is the only former President to serve in the House after his term.)
Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents
(September 18, 2012-Hyperion Books)
