Birth of John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was born on 11 July 1767 in Braintree. The sixth President of the United States, Adams was the son of the second president, John Adams, and had an exceptional diplomatic career before taking office, serving in Europe and later as secretary of state under James Monroe. In that role he helped shape the Monroe Doctrine and negotiated the treaty that acquired Florida. He was chosen president by the House of Representatives after the contested 1824 election, and his single term was hampered by political opposition. Unusually, he then returned to Congress for many years, where he was a leading opponent of slavery's expansion and of the gag rule on anti-slavery petitions, and in 1841 he argued for the captives in the Amistad case.

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