John Quincy Adams: More Accomplished than George W. Bush, Less Successful?

A sad bird, amirite?

John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, was the son of fancy-pants second president John Adams and his fancy letter-writing and lady-advocating wife Abigail, who were each other's third cousins. That is why John Quincy Adams looks like a sad bird, he was inbred. Maybe also because he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from near his house at age seven. He kept a diary (gay!) from the age of twelve until his death. His padre was a famous ambassador before his presidentialin' days and little JQ tagged along all over Europe, learning French and Dutch and German and the whatnot. He graduated from Harvard, passed the bar in 1791 and started practicing law in Boston. He then served as minister to the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, and later Russia. He married a woman named Louise in England, with whom he had three sons and a daughter. The daughter died as a child while JQ was diploming in Russia. Also, one of their sons later committed suicide. Ouch. He served in the Mass. State Senate, lost an 1802 bid for the House of Representatives, but was then appointed to the U.S. Senate by the Massachusetts Federalists. JQ split with the Feds in 1808, and worked as a professor of rhetoric at Harvard. He helped formulate the Treaty of Ghent. John Q served as Secretary of State under overachiever James Monroe and pretty much wrote the Monroe Doctrine. He was totes all about neutrality in international matters. In 1824, JQ Adams was elected totes fair-and-square with no controversy. Unfortch, Adams' administration was filled with a bunch of Andrew Jackson cronies and he lost Congress in the midterm elections. But he was still all about working on the American System infrastructural improvements, etc. If socialism had existed at this time, I bet Andrew Jackson would have called it that. JQ refused to be the perpetrator of Indian genocide (wimp). He supported a very unpopular tariff. It was as abominable as a yeti. Nobody liked him and also his VP was John C. Calhoun, who we all know sucks. Also, Andrew Jackson left Congress just to campaign continuously from 1824 until 1828, so he kind of won a lot. John Quincy Adams said "boohoo" in all the languages he speaks and then refused to go to Jackson's inauguration. In 1830, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, where he would serve for, like, a long time. He was an anti-slavery voice until the gag rule shut him up good. He tried to run for Governor of Massachusetts with the Anti-Masonic Party in 1834 but LOST. Heh. Later he helped get the Africans from La Amistad off. In 1848, while the House was in session, JQ collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage in the Capitol and died two days later. John Quincy Adams was good at a lot of things, but not at being popular. Or being able to prevent a cerebral hemorrhage. PS- Why must relatives of presidents insist upon running for president themselves? SRSLY, let's shake things up a bit, people.