Children of the Revolution

John Quincy Adams was seven years old when the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought. It was a day he would never forget. Already he loved his country with a fierce pride. When he was eleven years old, his father was sent to France as an American diplomat, and he went with him. When he was fourteen he went to Russia to serve as secretary for the American minister. The following year he worked as secretary for his father, who at the time was helping write the peace treaty that ended the American Revolution. When the fighting ended, he went to Harvard and graduated in 1787. Soon he was sent by President Washington to represent the United States in one European country after another.

When Thomas Jefferson became President he returned to the United States and a year later was elected to the Senate by the Federalists. Like his father and George Washington, he didn't believe in political parties. He voted for what he thought was right, whether the party liked it or not. Soon he began to agree with the Republicans more often then with the Federalists. As a result he lost his office after one term. President Madison, a Republican, sent him to Europe in 1814, There he helped write the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812. When Monroe became President in 1817, he appointed John Q. Adams secretary of State.

In the presidential election of 1824, there were four important candidates in the electoral college. Andrew Jackson got the most votes, Adams was second, but no one got a majority. This meant the final choice had to be made in the House of Representatives. Adams was chosen. It was an honest election, but Jackson and his followers were angry. They accused Adams of making crooked deals to win the election. Many people admired Adams' intelligence, but almost no one liked him. His sharp tongue made enemies. Yet as President, Adams chose not to defend himself. He said it was beneath the dignity of a President to answer the lies told about him.

Adams wanted the Unites States to become a center of learning. He asked Congress to build a national university. He asked for roads and canals and a naval academy. Later most of those things would be done, but Adams could never get along with Congress. As a result they refused to do what he asked. In the election of 1828 he was defeated and Andrew Jackson was elected. Deeply hurt by his defeat, Adams went back to his home in Massachusetts. But then the people of his area elected him to Congress. Some people said he would be disgraced by serving in Congress after being President. Adams' answer was typical of him. He said that no man was disgraced by serving his country.

"Do you think that I am such a darned fool as to think myself fit for the presidency? No Sir...I can command a body of men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be President." In the [1824] election, Andrew Jackson was defeated by John Quincy Adams. His friends told him he had been cheated. This was not true, but Jackson believed his friends. From that day he set out to defeat Adams as he might have set out to win a battle. By the next election in 1828 the Federalist party was all but dead. The Republican party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, was also breaking into groups. Of these, the more democratic group was led by Jackson. It was called the Democratic Republican party but dropped the word "Republican" and became the Democratic party. The more conservative group was led by John Quincy Adams. It was called the National Republican party, then later changed its name to the Whig party.

Jackson believed in states' rights, but only so far. He said no state had the right to decide which national laws it would obey and which it would not. If this were so, the Union itself would fall apart. Jackson would enforce the laws even if it meant war. Fortunately it did not come to that during his presidency, but he had showed, as Abraham Lincoln would later, what a strong could do to save the Union.

Martin Van Buren made a point of getting to know Jackson personally. Even though Van Buren disliked horseback riding, he rode with Jackson to win his favor. When Jackson ran for a second term, he asked that Van Buren be made Vice President. It was largely because of Jackson's help that Van Buren was elected President in 1836.

At this point one of the worst economic depressions in history hit the country. One business after another failed. Banks had to close their doors. All over the country men and women walked the streets hungry and without jobs. There were many causes for this depression. It was caused in part by the former policies of Andrew Jackson. Chiefly, however, the depression was caused by a wild spirit of gambling that had swept the country. Everywhere people had been buying land with borrowed money, hoping the price of land would go up. People had borrowed money to start new businesses, then needed more money to keep them going. So it was the people themselves who were largely to blame. Nobody, however, likes to blame himself. so the people turned on Van Buren.

Van Buren was trying hard to be a good President, yet he was easy to blame. He was a dapper dresser and he liked to eat well. His enemies said he drank foreign wines and used gold forks and silver plates. This was the same kind of gossip that Van Buren had once spread to help Andrew Jackson defeat John Quincy Adams. Now it was enough to make hungry people without jobs vote against Van Buren. In the election of 1840 he was defeated by William Henry Harrison.

As soon as Harrison took office, long lines of people were asking him for jobs. He was a kindly man who wanted to help and worked hard. Worn out by his campaign, his inauguration speech (which was the longest in history - one hour and forty-five minutes), and the favor-seekers, Harrison caught a cold. The cold turned into pneumonia and he died one month after his inauguration. He is remembered for having the shortest term of all the Presidents.

The Whig party nominated John Tyler for Vice President mainly because he was from the South. Harrison was a war hero from the West, and the Whigs wanted a Vice President who could help them get the southern vote. Tyler was well-liked in his home state, and the Virginia vote was important, so the Whigs nominated him. They didn't expect him to be President; nobody even bothered to think about what kind of President he might make. Until this time, no President had ever died in office. Many people thought that on Harrison's death Tyler did not really become President but only "acting President" until the next election. They thought this would be a sort of caretaker's job. Tyler kept in his Cabinet the same men Harrison had appointed. They were sure Tyler would do as they told him. It didn't take long to find out they were wrong.

Daniel Webster, the secretary of State, told Tyler that President Harrison had agreed to let a majority of his cabinet make the decisions. Tyler told Webster that he, as President, would make his own decisions. The Whigs wanted to start a national bank; Tyler didn't believe in national banks and vetoed the law. The Whigs rewrote it, and Tyler vetoed it again. The Whig leaders met and declared that Tyler was no longer a member of the Whig party. Every member of the Cabinet quit except one. Tyler appointed a new Cabinet. That is the way things went during most of the four years of Tyler's presidency. The Whigs hated him and the Democrats didn't want him. Many politicians put party loyalty ahead of everything else. To such men, Tyler was a traitor. He was known as the President without a party.

In the election of 1844, Tyler was eager to be re-elected for two reasons: he was ambitious and he wanted to make sure Texas came into the Union. Neither the Whigs nor the Democrats wanted him, and when he tried to form a third party it failed. The Democrats, however, did say they were in favor of Texas joining the Union, and they won the election. Then Congress, without waiting for the new President to take office, passed the bill admitting Texas. Taylor signed it, one of his last acts as President. When Tyler's term was over, he went back to Virginia. Later, as the Civil War was beginning, he was elected to the Confederate Congress. He died, however, before that Congress ever met.

James K. Polk was a great admirer of Andrew Jackson, and as speaker of the House of Representatives he worked to pass the laws that Jackson wanted. When he became President, Congress had already pushed through the bill admitting Texas into the Union. Still, there were four more  things Polk wanted to do as President: lower the tariff, set up a national treasury, settle the question of the Oregon Territory, and make California part of the Union. Congress quickly passed laws to set up a treasury and to lower the tariff paid on foreign goods. For a while, however, it looked as if there might actually be a war with England over the Oregon Territory. Polk did not want to fight England, and England didn't want to fight either, so it was fairly easy for the two countries to reach a compromise. However, his attempts to annex California sparked a war with Mexico.

Zachary Taylor's father had been an officer in the Revolutionary War. All his childhood, he heard stories about drilling and fighting. When he was 22 years old he joined the army as a private. Two years later he was made lieutenant. He fought in Indian campaigns and in the War of 1812. Later he fought against Chief Black Hawk and against the Seminoles in Florida. During the Seminole War, Taylor was made general.

Texas became part of the Union at 1845. At this time, most people thought the Nueces River was the southern boarder of Texas, but President Polk sent General Taylor with an army across the Nueces to the Rio Grande. This brought on the Mexican War, during which Polk seized and purchased even more land from Mexico. The Whig party wanted another war hero for its presidential candidate in 1848. They nominated Taylor and he was elected. No man ever became President knowing less about what he was supposed to do. Taylor was simply a soldier used to giving and taking orders. He was totally honest, blunt, straight-forward, and he didn't know how to work with politicians. Most people had expected him to be in favor of slavery because he was from the South. However, above all else, Taylor wanted to protect the Union. He called in the southern Congressmen who were talking about secession. He told them that if they tried to break up the Union, he would personally lead an army against them. Congress slowly worked out a compromise on the question of slavery in the new states. Taylor didn't like it and he might have vetoed it if he had lived.