Some idea of the extent of his early studies may be gained from his father's letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, written from Auteuil, France, in 1785. John Quincy Adams being then only in his eighteenth year, the elder Adams said of him:—
"If you were to examine him in English and French poetry, I know not where you would find anybody his superior; in Roman and English history few persons of his age. It is rare to find a youth possessed of such knowledge. He has translated Virgil's 'Aeneid,' 'Suetonius,' the whole of 'Sallust'; 'Tacitus,' 'Agricola'; his 'Germany' and several other books of his 'Annals,' a great part of Horace, some of Ovid, and some of Caesar's 'Commentaries,' in writing, besides a number of Tully's orations. … In Greek his progress has not been equal, yet he has studied morsels in Aristotle's 'Poetics,' in Plutarch's 'Lives,' and Lucian's 'Dialogues,' 'The Choice of Hercules,' in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through several books of Homer's 'Iliad.'"
The elder Adams concludes the list of his son's accomplishments with a catalogue of his labors in mathematics hardly inferior in length to that cited in the classics. Even if it were true, as has been urged by the political opponents of the Adams family, that no one of its members has ever shown more than respectable natural talent, it would add overwhelming weight to the argument in favor of the laborious habits of study which have characterized them to the third and fourth generations, and, from the time of John Adams until our own, have made them men of mark and far-reaching national influence.
In national politics, John Quincy Adams, the last of the line of colonial gentlemen who achieved the presidency, stood for education, for rigid ideas of moral duty, for dignity, for patriotism, for all the virtues which are best cultivated through processes of segregation. He ended an epoch in which it was possible for a man who, as he did, wrote 'Poems on Religion and Society' and paraphrased the Psalms into English verse to be elected President. It has hardly been possible since his day.
Chosen as a Democrat in 1825, Mr. Adams was really the first Whig President. His speeches are important, historically, because they define political tendencies as a result of which the Whig party took the place of the Federalist.
ORATION AT PLYMOUTH
(Delivered at Plymouth on the Twenty-Second Day of December, 1802, in Commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims)
Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity.
They form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individual is interwoven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries. By the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other. Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their welfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No, he was made for his country, by the obligations of the social compact; he was made for his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity; he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles,
"Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign."