New England at 400 by Eric D. Lehman

Author:Eric D. Lehman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2019-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

My Soul to Take

1820s

AT SEVEN YEARS OLD, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS HAD WATCHED THE BATTLE of Bunker Hill. Forty-nine years later he became president of the United States in an uncertain tripartite election, only winning after a second vote in the House of Representatives. However, he was well-prepared to do his duty—over the previous decades he had served as senator, secretary of state, and ambassador to six countries, engaging in diplomacy under the most grueling conditions. He had been nominated to and approved for the Supreme Court, though he declined the honor. Now in the White House, he woke before dawn as his father had, and lit his own fire with a tinderbox. Despite his age, before his daily duties he often swam across the Potomac River. Even in the winter. In the dark.

His sharp-nosed good looks had hardened into bald severity, he refused to wear the queue of long hair or knee breeches of previous presidents, and he pledged his oath of office on a book of constitutional law. He kept a disciplined diary every day. From his parents he had inherited a sense of public service and a love of his country for which he often sacrificed his relationships, his free time, and his meager wealth. His long-suffering, British-born wife, Louisa, protested every time “Quincy” took another government job, wishing that he could have just settled into private law practice and made a little money instead.

Adams had voted against his fellow New England Federalists many times, had served under his father’s “enemy,” Thomas Jefferson, and had countered public opinion whenever he thought it right to do so. And yet he had already accomplished great things, from the treaty ending the War of 1812 to the one allowing for the purchase of Florida. As secretary of state he had negotiated with England for a border at the 49th parallel, helping to establish the less contentious and eventually friendly relationship between the countries. He had also outlined a policy to keep European powers out of the Western Hemisphere, which became known as the Monroe Doctrine for the president he served.

But now, because he had no mandate, it seemed the whole country was against him. He ignored this fact, and immediately called for huge federal infrastructure projects needed to unite the physically and culturally fractured nation. After all, his predecessor had recently built the “national road” over the Appalachian Mountains, and “canal fever” was sweeping the country.

The frenzy had been recently sparked by the success of the Erie Canal, built by the “father of American civil engineering,” Benjamin Wright of Wethersfield, Connecticut. But it went back even further to 1803, when the “Incredible Ditch” from Lowell to Boston had helped foster Massachusetts’s industrial revolution, while other small canals helped power factories and transport goods. Now dozens more were being built; one from Casco Bay to Sebago Lake raised boats 267 feet above sea level, and another stretched all the way from New Haven, Connecticut, to Northampton, Massachusetts. Wright himself designed the Blackstone Canal, which connected Worcester and Providence.

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