Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), 5^th President of the United States

“May I never cease to be grateful for the numberless blessings received through life at His hands, never repine at what He has denied, never murmur at the dispensations of Providence, and implore His forgiveness for all the errors and delinquencies of my life! … I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service, and knowing that “except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain,” with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence, I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.”

- From his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1825

John Quincy Adams was born to John and Abigail Adams in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1767. Much of his youth was spent accompanying his father overseas, when John Adams was serving as America’s envoy to France and the Netherlands. He acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. He spent time in St. Petersburg, Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. During his travels he mastered French, Dutch and German.

He later graduated from Harvard University and apprenticed with a lawyer in Newburyport, Massachusetts, ultimately being accepted to the bar, after which he entered the private practice of law in Boston.

President George Washington named Adams as minister to the Netherlands and then to Portugal. When the elder Adams became president, he appointed his son as minister to Prussia. On his return to the U.S., he was appointed a commissioner of bankruptcy in Boston, tried his hand as a lawyer, and ultimately entered the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts. While a senator, Adams also served as a professor of rhetoric at Harvard University.

President James Madison appointed Adams as the first ever U.S. Minister to Russia in 1809, but when Napoleon invaded Russia, Adams was recalled to the U.S., and then sent to be minister to the Court of St. James (Great Britain).

When James Monroe became president, Adams served as Secretary of State, as was instrumental in the writing of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1824, he ran for and ultimately secured the office of President, although Andrew Jackson had won a plurality of both popular and electoral votes, throwing the matter to the U. S. House of Representatives under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment, who voted Adams to victory.

He served as the sixth President of the United States from March 1825 to March 1829. He lost a bid for reelection to Andrew Jackson. He did not retire after leaving office, but instead ran for and was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving for 17 years until his death. Although there is no indication that the two were close, Adams met Abraham Lincoln during the latter’s sole term as a member of the House. It has been suggested that Adams was the only major figure in American history who knew both the Founding Fathers and Lincoln.

He died after collapsing on the floor of the House from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in the Hancock Cemetery across from the First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts.

John Adams and John Quincy Adams were the first father and son to each serve as president (the others being George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush).

Adams was married to Louisa Catherine Johnson, the only first lady not to have been born in America. They had three sons and a daughter. The Adams were Unitarians.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

James Madison (1751-1836), 4^th President of the United States

The source to which I look for the aids which alone can supply my deficiencies is the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my fellow citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispersed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hope for the future.

- Composed for his inaugural ceremonies, March 4, 1809

James Madison, Jr. was born in March 1751 at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway, Virginia. He grew up as the eldest of twelve children. The family were tobacco planters. He received his early education at the nearby Innes plantation, learning mathematics, geography and modern as well as ancient languages. He became especially proficient in Latin. At age 16, he began a two-year course of study in private tutoring preparing him for college. He enrolled at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), and after graduating there he remained on to study Hebrew, political philosophy and law. He gained admission to the bar.

As a young lawyer, Madison defended Baptist preachers arrested for preaching without a license from the established Anglican Church. He persuaded Virginia to give up claims to northwestern territories, including modern-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and part of Minnesota, to the Continental Congress which then created the Northwest Territory.

Madison was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and then was a delegate to the Continental Congress. Together with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay he wrote the Federalist Papers. Madison is often acknowledged to be the “Architect of the Constitution.” He and Patrick Henry are often credited for a large part of the Bill of Rights amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

During the Jefferson Administration, Madison was the U.S. Secretary of State. In 1808, he was elected the 4^th President of the United States. The War of 1812 and the Second Barbary War both occurred during his presidency. Both Louisiana and Indiana were added as States during his terms in office.

When Madison left office, he retired to Montpelier, his tobacco plantation in Virginia, not far from Jefferson’s Monticello. He died there a few years later, the last remaining Founding Father, and is buried in the Madison Family Cemetery at Montpelier.

Madison was married to Dolley Todd who had one son, John, from a prior marriage. James Madison was known to regularly lead his household in the observance of family devotions. He was an adamant defender of religious liberty. He was most probably a Presbyterian.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3^rd President of the United States

May that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. I shall need, too, the favor of the Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship and approbation of all nations. … We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1805, from A National Prayer for Peace.

Thomas Jefferson was born in April 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, of Welsh, English and Scottish descent. In his early years, he studied at a school run by a local Scottish Presbyterian minister. He studied Latin, Greek and French, and learned the appreciation of nature, while mastering equestrian skills. His father died when he was 14 years old, and he inherited about 5,000 acres of land and dozens of slaves. He built his home there, which eventually became known as Monticello. After his father’s death, he was taught at the school of another minister, receiving a classical education in studies of history and science.

At the age of 16, Jefferson attended the College of William & Mary, studying mathematics, physics and philosophy. Ever learning, he studied John Locke, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, perfected his French, read Tacitus and Homer, and played the violin. After graduating with highest honors, he read law at William & Mary and was admitted to the Virginia bar at age 24. He practiced law, handling more than a hundred cases a year in colonial Virginia.

Besides his law practice, Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses where he offered the radical notion that colonists had the natural right to govern themselves. He was not elected to serve in the Virginia delegation of the First Continental Congress, because his views were too radical.

Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. When Congress began considering a resolution of independence in 1776, Jefferson was appointed to a five-man committee to prepare a declaration.

Jefferson served as governor of Virginia for two years, overseeing the transfer of the state capital from Williamsburg to a more central Richmond. Virginia was invaded twice by the British during Jefferson’s term as governor – first by Benedict Arnold and then by Lord Cornwallis. He and Patrick Henry narrowly escaped capture by a British colonel. He later became a delegate from Virginia to the Congress of the Confederation.

In 1785, he was named United States Ambassador to France. Under the presidency of George Washington, Jefferson served as the first United States Secretary of State. When John Adams was elected President, Jefferson became the second Vice President of the United States. He became President in 1801 and served until 1809.

He was married to Martha Wayles Skelton. They had six children, including those who were stillborn or died within a few years of birth. Martha died after the birth of her sixth child, and Jefferson never remarried. He had a long-term relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, and they had six children.

The religious views of Thomas Jefferson diverged from the orthodox Christianity of his day. He is most closely connected with the Episcopal Church, Unitarianism, and the religious philosophy of Deism. He believed the moral teachings of Christ, but not His miracles. He was quick to acknowledge God as the Bestower of all freedoms upon mankind.

Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. He is buried on his Monticello estate.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

John Adams (1735-1826), 2^nd President of the United States

May that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence.

I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise en ever rule under this roof.

- From his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797, and a prayer from a letter to his wife, November 2, 1800

John Adams, Jr., the eldest of three sons, was born in October 1735 in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts. He was born into a modest Puritan family, who came to the American wilderness in the 1630s, establishing a colonial presence in America. At age 16, he went to Harvard College. His father expected him to become a minister, but Adams decided to become a lawyer, and studied under a prominent lawyer in Worcester. He was admitted to the bar at an early age.

Adams rose to prominence as an opponent of the Stamp Act of 1765. He delivered a speech before the governor and council denouncing the Act as invalid on the ground that Massachusetts, without representation in Parliament, had not assented to it. Adams became a delegate to the first and second Continental Congress representing Massachusetts.

On June 7, 1776, Adams seconded the resolution of independence, which was adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776. He was appointed to a committee with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman to draft a Declaration of Independence. Jefferson hailed Adams as “the pillar of the Declaration’s support.” When George Washington was elected president, John Adams came in second at the electoral college, and was named Vice President, although he would have preferred to become the nation’s first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was elected President in 1796. He served a single term.

In his post-presidential years, Adams retired into private life.

Adams was married to Abigail Smith, and they had five children. His faith is listed as Unitarianism, having left the Congregationalist church, rejecting some orthodox doctrines in favor of “rationalism,” but always retaining a strong conviction in life after death.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

George Washington (1732-1799), 1^st President of the United States

“O eternal and everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept of my humble and hearty thanks, that it hath pleased they great goodness to keep and preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet and pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed and comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech thee to defend me from all perils of body and soul.

Direct my thoughts, words and work, and wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb, and purge my heart by thy holy spirit from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may with more freedom of mind and liberty of will serve thee, the everlasting God, in righteousness and holiness this day and all the days of my life.”

From his prayer journal, undated, Mount Vernon.

George Washington was born in January 1732 on his family’s Pope Creek estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Washington’s ancestors were from Sulgrave, England, his grandfather having emigrated in 1657. His father was a slave-owning tobacco planter.

He attended school in Fredricksburg until age 15. He was later somewhat self-conscious that he was less educated than those of his contemporaries who had attended college. He became the official surveyor for Culpeper County. His half-brother, Lawrence, was involved with the Ohio territories, and George was sent there to aid in mapping the region. During the French and Indian War, he went back to Ohio to help protect a fort at present-day Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was captured by the French at Fort Necessity, but allowed to return with his troops to Virginia.

He became the senior American aide to British General Edward Braddock on the ill-fated Monongahela expedition, during which Braddock was mortally wounded in an ambush. Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie gave Washington a commission as “Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and Commander in Chief of all forces of His Majesty’s Colony” and charged him with defending Virginia’s frontier.

Between that war and the Revolutionary War, Washington married the wealthy widow Martha Dandrige Custis. Together they raised her two children from her previous marriage. They established their household at Mount Vernon, and Washington lived an aristocratic lifestyle – fox hunting being a favored leisure activity. He diversified his farm from its primary tobacco crop, to include wheat and horse breeding.

Although he expressed opposition to the Stamp Act, it was the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 that caused him to attend the First Virginia Convention, at which he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. After the battles of Lexington and Concord, Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war with the British. He was quickly made Major General and Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

His war accomplishments were difficult, many, and in some cases miraculous. His return to Mount Vernon was short-lived. He attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he was elected president of the convention. After the ratification of the Constitution, the Electoral College elected Washington unanimously as the new-born nation’s first president. He remains the only president to have received 100 percent of the electoral votes.

He served eight years, and retired once again to Mount Vernon, relieved to be at the place he loved. In less than three years, he had died of a throat infection. The Nation spent months in mourning him. He is interred at Mount Vernon. Throughout his life, Washington was an Anglican (Episcopalian).

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Declaration of Independence Signer

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Charles Carroll (1737-1832), Maryland

Charles Carroll was born in September 1737 in Annapolis, Maryland. His rather remarkable formal education began at the age of 8 when he was packed off to France to attend a Jesuit College at St. Omer. He graduated from the College of Louis the Grande at age 17 and continued practical studies in Europe until, at the age of 28, he returned to his home, into the radical climate produced by the Stamp Act.

Carroll is said to have identified with the radical cause at once, and he proceeded to work in the circles of American patriots. He anonymously engaged the secretary of the colony of Maryland in a series of newspaper articles protesting the right of the British government to tax the colonies without representation.

Carroll was an early advocate for armed resistance with the object of separation from Great Britain. However, his native colony was less certain in this matter and did not even send a representative to the First Continental Congress. Carroll served on the first Committee of Safety at Annapolis, and also in the Provincial Congress. He visited the Continental Congress in 1776 and was enlisted in a diplomatic mission to Canada, along with Franklin and Chase. Shortly after his return, the Maryland Convention decided to join in support for the Revolution. Carroll was elected to represent Maryland on the 4^th of July and, though he was too late to vote for the Declaration, he did sign it.

He served in the Continental Congress, on the Board of War, through much of the War of Independence, and simultaneously participated in the framing of a constitution for Maryland. He was elected to the Maryland Senate, and to the Federal Congress.

He was married to Mary Darnall, known as Molly. They had seven children, but only three survived infancy. The Carrolls of Carrollton were devoutly Roman Catholic. Charles Carroll was the last surviving member of those who signed the Declaration. He died in 1832 at the age of 95.

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Declaration of Independence Signer

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

William Williams (1731-1811), Connecticut

William Williams was born in April 1731 in Lebanon, Connecticut. The son of a minister, he studied theology and graduated from Harvard. He continued preparation for the ministry for a year, but then joined the militia to fight in the French and Indian War. After the war, he opened a store in Lebanon.

He was elected to the Continental Congress to replace Oliver Wolcott. Though he arrived at Congress too late to vote for the Declaration of Independence, he did sign the formal copy as a representative of Connecticut.

In an early biography Williams was said to have made a profession of religion at an early age, and through the long course of his life, he was distinguished for a humble and consistent conduct and conventions. While yet almost a youth, he was educated to the office of deacon, an office which he retained during the remainder of his life. His later days were chiefly devoted to reading, meditation and prayer.

Williams was also pastor of the First Congregational Church in Lebanon, Connecticut, and a county court judge. He was 80 years old when he died.

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Declaration of Independence Signer

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

John Witherspoon (1723-1794), New Jersey

John Witherspoon was born in January 1723 in Gifford, Scotland. He received the finest education available to a bright young gentleman of that era attending the preparatory school in Haddington, Scotland. He proceeded to Edinburgh where he attained a Master of Arts, then to four years of divinity school. He became a Presbyterian minister, with a parish in Beith, where he married and authored three works on theology. It was his scholastic work that later gave him the recognition of Doctor of Divinity from the University of St. Andrews.

The College of New Jersey in the colonies was in need of a first-rate scholar to serve as its first president, and, through a protracted effort on the part of several eminent Americans, Witherspoon ultimately accepted the offer.

Dr. Witherspoon enjoyed great success at the College of New Jersey. While at first he abstained from political concerns, he came to support the revolutionary cause. In 1776 he as elected to the Continental Congress, arriving in time to vote for the resolution for independence. Shortly after, he voted to accept the Declaration. He was a very active member of congress, serving on more than a hundred committees throughout his tenure, and debating frequently on the floor.

In November 1776, the British occupied the College of New Jersey and did much damage, nearly destroying it. Witherspoon spent much of his later years devoted to rebuilding the College.

In the last years of his life, he suffered injuries, first to one eye and then to the other, becoming totally blind two years before his death. He died on his farm just outside of Princeton in 1794.

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Declaration of Independence Signer

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Arthur Middleton (1742-1787), South Carolina

Arthur Middleton was born in March 1742 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was educated in Britain at Harrow School, Westminster School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He studied law at the Middle Temple and traveled extensively in Europe where his taste in literature, music and art was developed and refined.

He married Mary Izzard and settled in South Carolina, becoming keenly interested in local politics as had been his father before him. He was actually elected to succeed his father in the Continental Congress and subsequently was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He and William Drayton designed the Great Seal of South Carolina.

Despite the time he spent in England, his attitude toward the Loyalists was said to be ruthless. During the Revolutionary War, he served in the defense of Charleston. After the city’s fall to the British, he was sent as a prisoner of war to St. Augustine Florida, until exchanged in July the following year. Most of his personal fortunes were destroyed during the Revolution.

Middleton died in January 1787 and was buried in the family tomb in the Gardens at Middleton Place, South Carolina.

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Declaration of Independence Signer

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Joseph Hewes (1730-1779), North Carolina

Joseph Hewes was born in January 1730 in Princeton, New Jersey. His parents were part of the Quaker Society of Friends. Hewes was formally educated at Princeton, and after college he became apprentice of a merchant. Finishing his apprenticeship, he earned himself a good name and a strong reputation which would serve him well in becoming one of the most famous signers of the Declaration of Independence for North Carolina.

After a few years as a successful merchant of some wealth, he moved to Edenton, North Carolina, and won over the people of the colony with his charm and honorable businesslike character. He was elected to the North Carolina legislature only three years after his arrival in the colony.

Hewes was a pioneer of independence who influenced North Carolina to be more rebellious during the years leading up to the revolution. After being re-elected numerous times to the legislature, Hewes was elected to the Continental Congress.

Traditionally the Quakers are pacifists. Ironically, Hewes was not only one of the few people in favor of a war against Britain, but was one of the few Quakers in Congress. Ultimately, he broke ties with the Quakers because of conflicting views, thus breaking ties with the only family he had ever known.

At the beginning of 1776, Hewes was appointed as the Secretary of the Naval Affairs Committee. John Paul Jones was one of the captains for whom Hewes was instrumental in providing a command.

Hewes ultimately retired to New Jersey in failing health. He died in 1779, a bachelor without children.

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