Exclusive: Americans have a low opinion of Congress, but that’s not news. It has just 13% support in Congress, and polls put it on par with a colonoscopy and only slightly better than thermonuclear war.
But if Americans are frustrated with a Congress that seems ineffective, imagine if Congress forbade them from even talking about our nation’s toughest problems.
That happened in 1830 when John Quincy Adams, who was elected president and elected to Congress, tried to debate the issue of slavery.
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There was a so-called “gag rule” in the House of Commons that prohibited members from even raising the topic. But when Mr. Adams brought it up and his colleagues tried to silence him by kicking him out of the House, the former president fired back. He refused to be canceled, and a culture of censorship prevented him from saying what he knew to be true.
When John Quincy Adams left office after one term, he was the least popular commander in chief since his father.
After being beaten by Andrew Jackson in 1828, former President Adams thought his political career was over.
This article is a specially adapted excerpt from Life After Power by Jared Cohen, available here. Cohen reveals how others tried to unseat John Quincy Adams from the House of Representatives after he was defeated as America’s sixth commander-in-chief. . his candidacy for presidential re-election; (Fox News Digital; Jared Cohen/Simon & Schuster)
The 61-year-old founding son, who has served as ambassador, senator, secretary of state, and president, couldn’t have climbed any higher.
For 18 months, he lounged around his home in Quincy, Massachusetts, reading books and trying his hand at growing trees, until he realized he didn’t have a green thumb.
He may have remained in Quincy for the rest of his days. When a friend suggested to Adams’ wife Louisa that her husband consider a return to politics, she replied, “There is a very foolish plan going on here, and only God knows how it will turn out.” I know, but I’m afraid it won’t suit my tastes at all.” ”
Adams found a much higher calling in a much lower position.
But he won a landslide victory when the party convention nominated him to represent Plymouth in the 22nd Congress, making President John Quincy Adams the only former commander-in-chief in the House of Representatives. Became a member of parliament.
After his victory, he wrote, “My election as President of the United States has not been half satisfying to my deepest soul.”
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Although Adams was not a slave owner and knew that slavery was evil, he did not participate in Congress as an abolitionist.
In fact, when he arrived at the Capitol, he had no idea what he wanted to do. When Kentucky Sen. Henry Clay met his old friend back in Washington, he jokingly asked Adams how he felt “being a boy again in the House of Representatives.”
But Adams found a much higher calling in a much lower position.
Best-selling author Mr. Cohen (left) said that during his post-presidential term as a congressman, Mr. Adams (right) asked him a single question: “Am I gagged or not?” He writes: — Adams “misnamed the new statute, the gag rule, forbidding discussion of slavery.” But Adams vehemently resisted. (Fox News Digital; DeAgostini/Getty Images)
With the threat of civil war looming over the nation’s capital, Congress had a tradition of avoiding the issue of slavery altogether—lawmakers feared what would happen if they brought it up. But that didn’t mean Americans on both sides didn’t speak out.
Adams’ anti-slavery sympathies were well known, with more than 40,000 people signing more than 300 petitions addressed directly to him on the issue.
The right to petition is protected by the First Amendment, and Congressman Adams read opinions from petitioners, many of them women’s and Christian groups, before introducing the petition on the House floor. But the slaveholders in Congress were very disappointed. . His colleagues were furious.
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Horrified by Adams’ defense and his raising of the country’s most explosive issue, slaveholders fought back and passed a resolution banning any discussion of slavery. Shocked, Adams exclaimed, “Am I gagged or not?!”
That question led him to inadvertently name a new statute banning discussion of slavery, the “Gag Rule.”
The rules didn’t hold Adams back. He raised the issue in every possible way and as often as possible, defending his First Amendment right to petition and hardening his abolitionism over time.
John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, served nine terms in the House of Representatives from 1831 until his death in 1848. He is the only president to be elected to Congress after leaving office. (AP Photo/Carolyn Custer)
During a time of political violence, including even a duel on the House floor, and a threat from a Southern congressman to cut Adams “from ear to ear,” the former president took great risks to defy his opponents.
After reading about his accomplishments, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in praise of Adams: “He was not a literary gentleman, but a villain…” [H]His tea must have sulfuric acid in it. ”
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Just because the House passed the gag rule didn’t mean Adams was powerless.
He called the pro-slavery attempt to annex Texas a “war of conquest” and resisted it in his own way.
Just because the House passed the gag rule doesn’t mean Adams is powerless.
He denounced the reintroduction of slavery into areas where it had previously been abolished, and delayed recognition of another slave state could upset the balance of power in the Senate.
At Amistad In this case, he represented enslaved men and women who had escaped from captivity before the Supreme Court and won them their freedom.
His argument relied on the court’s appeal to the memory of the Founding Fathers, pointing to a copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on the courtroom wall and pleading with the justices: The winner will either take the enemy’s life in war, or save their life and enslave it. ”
An illustration depicting the birth of the Monroe Doctrine. James Monroe is shown standing next to a globe. John Quincy Adams is seated on the left. From a painting by Clyde O. DeLand. (Getty Images)
Congressman Adams left his mark in other ways as well.
He led a 13-member select committee to investigate whether President John Tyler should be impeached. It was the first such commission in American history.
Adams also helped found the Smithsonian Institution.
By the time Adams abolished the cancellation rule in 1844, he had accomplished more than making history as the only former president to be elected to the House of Representatives. He became the leading abolitionist in Congress during his early 19th century.
Lawmakers elected today can make a difference by reminding Americans of our nation’s best traditions.
He connected the cause of abolition to the purpose of America’s founding, and used his authority as the son of the Founding Fathers and his knowledge and experience in government to become an elder statesman, even as a junior lawmaker.
When he died in the halls of Parliament in 1848 at the age of 80, he was described as a “living link”. [connection] between present and past. ”
After Adams’ death, he passed the torch of abolition to a young Congressman, Abraham Lincoln. He was with Lincoln for one term and served on the committee that arranged Adams’ funeral.
Before being elected president, Abraham Lincoln was still a young congressman, but he served on the committee that arranged the funeral of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States and a long-time congressman. . (Illustration: JLG Ferris)
Adams did not allow his frustration with the defeat of 1828 to continue, nor did he allow his more powerful colleagues to silence him or call him off.
Despite far more severe odds than Congress faces today, Adams moved the needle toward America’s founding principles.
Although he was respected, he was not always popular. His disaffected opponents once described him as “the sharpest, most insightful, greatest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed…John Quincy Adams, the eloquent old man.” he said.
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Today, members of Congress can make a name for themselves on television or social media, use their position as a platform, and become a voice rather than an MP.
Or we can make a difference by adhering to first principles and reminding Americans of our country’s best traditions.
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If they do so, perhaps it will restore Americans’ faith in their institutions and they will follow in the footsteps of the great politicians who came before them.
Excerpt from “Life After Power: Seven Presidents and the Quest for Purpose Beyond the White House.” © copyright Jared Cohen (Simon & Schuster, February 2024), by special arrangement. All rights reserved.
See additional excerpts from the new book on Fox News Digital. “Life After Power”.
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