Background and Experience

• born 1767 in Quincy, Mass., to John and Abigail Adams
• would become the only son of a president to be elected president until "Dubya"
• travel 1778 with father to Europe, educated in Europe 1779-85
• began diary 1785 that he would keep for 63 years, published in 12 volumes as his Memoirs 1874-77
• described himself as "a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners; my political adversaries say, a gloomy misanthropist, and my personal enemies, an unsocial savage. With a knowledge of the actual defect in my character, I have not the pliability to reform it."
• admitted to the junior class of Harvard 1786 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa 1787
• studied law for 3 years and started a practice in Boston 1790 but failed
• appointed minister to Netherlands 1794, then Berlin, Russia, Britain
• married Louisa Johnson in Britain 1797 and would have 3 children: George, John, Charles
• adopted Mary Catherine in 1817, the orphaned daughter of Louisa's sister
• importance of family - "we are all each others shadows" - strict discipline and "study your every move" - avoid "boastfulness" and ambition
• classic republicanism - disinterested virtue, public service, honor
• appointed Secretary of State by James Monroe 1817
• elected 6th President of the U.S. by the House in 1825 after the "corrupt bargain"
• would serve in the House of Representatives 1830 and dies 1848 in the Speaker's Room