Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1992

Thesis Director

Anita Shelton

Abstract

To John Quincy Adams, the early nineteenth century proved itself to be not only a struggle for American independence from Europe, but a struggle for the eighteenth century ideal of the recently formed American philosophy of government. This unique philosophy inspired by key figures of the American Enlightenment, such as Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, incorporated the vision of America leading the way of enlightened world governments.

Son of the proud American revolutionary, John Adams, John Quincy Adams continued to follow the basic axioms of his father's generation and implement their basic ideals within his own various careers in governmental service. Adams would continue to promote the American ideal of natural law, practical government by the people and citizen equality throughout his entire life and regardless of his distance from the United States.

Adams' diplomatic mission to the Court of Tsar Alexander I in St. Petersburg from 1809-1814, provided the ultimate challenge to Adams' philosophy. While struggling to turn American ideals into realities, Adams confronted the rising wave of a counter movement which eventually overtook the Enlightenment. This movement was Romanticism, which elevated exactly what Adams attempted all his life to suppress; passionate instincts, intimate feeling, and inner reality. His years in St. Petersburg, played out against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Era, only led him further toward a rigid resolve against such irrational behaviors in favor of reason and order. While the nations of Europe and America succumbed to this new wave of understanding, Adams stood proudly, if fruitlessly, against the temperaments of a new age.

Adams experience in Russia, his last public service outside of the United States, solidified his firm stance regarding America's place among world nations. After 1814, Adams embraced what he considered to be the true American cause for liberty and republicanism. Through his own implementations of isolationist policies as Secretary of State, Adams sought to preserve the American ideals from the Romantic Movement, so characteristic of Europe in the early nineteenth century.

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