Betsy Morin

Hist 6393

Professor Buzzanco

2 February 2000

Samuel Flagg Bemis. John Quincy Adams and The Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1949. 572 pp. plus Appendix and Index.

In John Quincy Adams and The Foundations of American Foreign Policy Samuel Bemis covers an extensive timeframe (1767 - 1829) filled with a massive amount of policy-shaping events. Bemis writes a detailed biography regarding the career of John Quincy Adams from his birth to when he becomes Secretary of State. Adams’s diary and personal correspondences furnish the majority of the author’s information along with the able help of great-grandson Henry Adams (an author in his own right). The text is well written and of historical value in describing the inner workings of American foreign policy.

It is no surprise that Samuel Bemis accords the name of John Quincy Adams as synonymous with American foreign policy. Adams’s exposure to diplomatic service at first occurred through his esteemed father, John Adams, and then later through his own appointments. Diplomatic service at the Hague, London, Prussia, Russia, and finally minister to Great Britain all prepared John Quincy for his accession to the highest office in the United States. And that of course occurred after his years as Secretary of State under President Monroe.

As mentioned above before becoming Secretary of State for the United States John Quincy Adams spent his early political career on the European continent. This foreign service duty kept Adams abreast of the revolving dramas unfolding in the area and influenced his political views for the remainder of his career and life. Throughout his political career Adams encountered similar problems which his father experienced when he dealt with the Plan of 1776, Treaty of Peace and Independence, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780. Eventually John Quincy consolidated his doctrine to include the following: 1. Sovereign independence guaranteeing Englishmen freedom, 2. Freedom of the seas, commerce, and navigation, 3. Staying away from the European theatre of wars, 4. The no transfer principle, 5. Continental expansion, 6. Self-determination, 7. His own Monroe Doctrine theory which also included no further European colonization along with non intervention, 8. Pan-Americanism, 9. International arbitration, 10. eventual support of abolitionists, and 11. Anti-imperialism. Bemis writes that anti-imperialism “may be added as a cardinal principle of American foreign policy.” (570) Of course Bemis views the expansion in North America as part of the Manifest Design theory (as did John Quincy Adams), and the events in Latin America and elsewhere he attributes to a temporary world craziness which eventually brought about power hungry Germany and Japan. (Keep in mind that this text was published in 1949).

John Quincy Adams might have initiated a brand of American foreign policy, but many other influential individuals played a role as well. Adams not only remained abreast of foreign affairs, but he would write his parents frequently expressing his thoughts and viewpoints. Both parents often responded in kind. In addition, John Adams would forward his sons letters to the President of the United States. Adams rarely neglected to follow his president’s wishes in negotiations even though he remained outspoken and determined on certain issues close to his heart. One of Adams most fervent beliefs included the United States’s territorial right to the North American continent.

Richard Van Alstyn’s “Empire in Mid-Passage 1845-1865” mentions John Quincy Adam’s law of natural belief when he discusses the Oregon territorial issues. Unfortunately Bemis’s book only included the first part of Adams’s life in Washington and stopped at 1829. However, based on what Bemis wrote and excerpts from Adams’s diary and correspondences an opinion may be formed. Adams surely would have been just as adamant in regards to his belief in the United States’s natural right to the existing territory on the North American continent (excluding some of Canada, but he might have had eyes on all of that too) in 1845 and beyond as he was in the past.

The events in Manifest Design also encapsulate a time frame which Bemis’s John Quincy Adams and The Foundation of American Foreign Policy does not include, but assumptions may be inferred due to Adams own nature. The only difference between Adams and presidents Tyler and Polk is the methodology of acquiring the land. Adams believed natural events would ultimately culminate in the land passing into the United States’s hands. According to Thomas R. Hietala in Manifest Design the aggrandizement in the 1840’s deliberately occurred by plotting Democrats. Hietala mentions this as an 1840s’ development of a foreign relations policy. By now Adams probably was bitterly disappointed with expansionist tactics and no doubt made his voice heard in the Senate. Hietala even describes a fellow congressman’s comments on John Quincy Adams as being cantankerous.

All three of these readings - Van Alstyne’s “Empire in Mid-Passage 1845-1865”, Samuel Bemis’s John Quincy Adams and The Foundation of American Foreign Policy, and Thomas Hietala’s Manifest Design deal with American foreign policy and the various methodologies which men and parties used to justify property acquisition. Hietala’s version of design and not destiny plays with words, but he ironically displays various tactics employed by groups in order to sway American popular opinion. Ultimately the newspaper propaganda and filibuster sessions convinced enough people to pass along this malevolent legacy of peaceful takeovers.