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John
Quincy Adams
No single individual is more closely identified with the Old House
Chamber than is John Quincy Adams. In this room, in 1825 Adams was
elected and inaugurated the sixth President of the United States.
The only President to later serve in the House, Adams represented
Massachusetts in this chamber from 1831 until his death 17 years
later.
The First
Election Cartoon
The engraving (left) depicts the hotly contested election of 1824.
Only twice, in 1800 and 1824, has no candidate received a majority
of the Electoral College vote. As stated in the Constitution, the
House of Representatives must choose the President from the top
three candidates, each state having one vote. The candidates were
all men of national reputation and experience. William H. Crawford
of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, was the choice of the Congressional
Caucus and considered the front-runner; John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts,
Secretary of State, had served in the U.S. Senate and as a diplomat;
and Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, hero of the Battle of New Orleans
in 1815 and a U.S. Senator, had won the popular vote in the election;
and Henry Clay of Kentucky was Speaker of the House.
The galleries
of the Old House Chamber were crowded with spectators when both
Houses convened there on February 9, 1825, to count the Electoral
College vote. Since there was no winner, the state delegations of
the House then cast secret ballots. Adams won 13 of the 24 states
on the first ballot.
Adams's retirement following his defeat by Andrew Jackson in the
presidential election of 1828 was short-lived. Local politicians
persuaded him to run for the House in 1830. After winning, he wrote
in his diary, "My election as President of the United States
was not half so gratifying to my inmost soul. No election or appointment
conferred upon me ever gave me so much pleasure." An active,
often controversial Member, he became known as "Old Man Eloquent."
John Quincy
Adams suffered a fatal stroke during a House debate on February
21, 1848, and died 2 days later in the Speaker's Room adjacent to
Statuary Hall. His funeral, held here on February 26, 1848, was
an occasion of national mourning.
On February
24, 1848, a broadside (below) announced the order of the funeral
procession. The Committee of Arrangements comprised a Representative
from each state or territory, including a freshman Congressman Abraham
Lincoln, from Illinois.
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Order
of the Procession for Funeral of John Quincy Adams, February 24, 1848.
