John Quincy Adams: Life and Presidency

John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts (Peil), to the second President of the United States who served on the first Continental Congress and helped draft the Constitution ("John Adams the Diplomatic President"), John Adams and his wife Abagail (Peil). During the first years of the Revolution, John Quincy received his education principally by instruction from his father and mother. At ten years of age he accompanied his father on several diplomatic missions to Europe. While in Paris, attending a private school, he learned to speak French fluently and then studied at the University of Leiden. By the time Adams returned to the states in 1785, he was well versed in classical languages, history, and mathematics. Adams finished his education at Harvard in 1787, and then began to practice law in Boston (Bemis), without much success ("John Adams the Diplomatic President"). At age twenty-six he was appointed Minister of the Netherlands by George Washington, and later promoted to the Berlin Legation. …