John Quincy Adams: 4th of July Address (1821)

Introduction

John Quincy Adams has sometimes been called “the last founder” because he was the son of President John Adams and began playing a direct role in American policy as early as 1994 when Washington appointed him as U.S. Minister to the Netherlands at the age of 27. In 1814, he was the United States’ lead negotiator in working out the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812. After a single term as president, he returned to the House of Representatives and became a leading voice in the cause of the abolition of slavery. He died on the floor of the House in 1848. Many of Adams’s greatest accomplishments were as a diplomat. Before his presidency, as Secretary of State during the whole of President James Monroe’s two terms, Adams helped to develop the “Monroe Doctrine.” It is as Secretary of State that he gave this July 4 address to Congress in 1821, offering a theoretical justification for the policy that came to be known as ‘isolationism.’

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

• How does Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’ view of the nature and duty of independence differ from that of those who thought it was our duty to take sides in every war in the name of liberty and equality? Why?
• What does Adams see as the relationship between maintaining a high moral standard of self-rule for the country and staying out of foreign wars?
• What are the risks to liberty? Where is that risk located, in geopolitics or in moral fashion?
• How does Adams’ view of ‘Isolationism’ compare to other versions of this view you are aware of?

An Address Delivered at the Request of a Committee of the Citizens of Washington for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July, 1821 – John Quincy Adams (excerpt)

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And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to inquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force … She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

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[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield; but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

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Source: Adams, J. Q. (1821). An address, delivered at the request of the committee of arrangements for celebrating the Declaration of Independence, at the city of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Printed at the University Press by Hilliard and Metcalf, 1821. https://archive.org/details/addressdelivered1821adam/page/n9/mode/2up