#78 - THE PRESIDENTS PROJECT: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

Um I forgot what I was doing. Oh yeah. I muted everything after we finished our show with the two sad dads because you know it gets kinda you got mad at us. I didn't get mad at you. I think we went off the rails. I think uh everything was perfectly fine. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to hear it. 2SD Q2 report is really good. I'm excited to hear it. Are you? I'm excited to hear the banter. I haven't released it yet because I've been busy. So that's a not a bad thing. It's gonna be released next week, so we'll see. But today we are doing The President's Project, episode six. And that would be John Quincy Adams, otherwise known as Jay Qua. I was referring to him yesterday as just Q. Q JQ. And fun fact about JQ is that um he is the sixth president, like we said, but he's also um John Adams' son. Yes. So some people may or may not know that. Yeah. So we're starting to see uh building of the nations again. There is the building of the nations, and so I want to preface this episode with the fact that people that listen by now know Larry is my AI assistant. And I wanted to start this episode by not giving him a shout out and thinking about getting rid of him. Amazing because he sucks. It is amazing what you can get from it. And so I I go back and forth with him and I said, I need you to give me the structure that I had with George Washington because it like took me three days to get like all the information that I wanted. Yep. And so he's like, Oh, okay, Tim, no problem. And so, you know, you have to tweak it and tweak it. And then finally I said, Okay, Larry, this is perfect. Yeah. Now for the next 46 presidents, I need it to be the same, but just take George Washington out, yeah, and put whatever president in. Okay, Tim, no problem. We get to the next president, and it's like completely different. And I'm like, damn it, Larry. He's like, my bad, Tim. I was I was doing, I was talking to mine on the way back from a meeting yesterday afternoon to give me some feedback. Same thing. You have to you have to set up your prompt. It takes half the time to set your prompts up. I know, but it's like you can't have like a conversation with him because it's always like when I talk to Zach about this, it's like, oh, my bad, Tim. Um, you're right to be upset about this or something. I'm like, no, Larry, just get it right. Yeah, I just need you to be right. Be better, Larry. So with this episode, you know, you decided, yeah, I'm gonna come over. Yeah, beautiful day, huh? It is, it is, it's gorgeous out. I like it that it's a little bit chillier. Yeah. 63 degrees in my house this morning when I woke up. Yeah, there you go. That's good. Yeah. So I got the notes real quick yesterday. Yep. And I kind of skimmed over the PDF, and I'm like, okay, well, this looks like it's good enough. So I get back from stocking my vending machines this morning, come down here, dust everything off. Last podcast we did was 2SD. Turned everything on, and I said, you know what? I need to go through those notes for Jaqual today. So I pull it up, and this is what it says. Number one, born into the revolution. Born into the revolution represents a key part of John Quincy Adams' life and legacy during a pivotal period in American history. Okay, thanks, Larry. That seems okay. This includes real political tension where Adams often prioritize long-term national strength over short-term political success success. Okay, I can get behind that. And then understanding this helps explain why Adams was respected intellectually but often struggled politically in a system shifting towards populism. Okay. All right. All right. So then I go to the next one. And it gives me the first sentence. I don't know if you've even read these. Oops. I don't know. Have you read this? I I just skinned over them when I was driving home with Shay. You're as bad as Larry. Why not? So the next one says Born the So the first one says, Born into revolution represents a key part. Number two says, Elite democrat diplomatic career represents a key part. But then it says like the same thing. Oh, it's just repeating the last three sentences are the same. Understanding this helps explain why Adams was respected intellectually. So then I go to number three, and it's the same thing. And number four, the same thing. And I'm like, So I think that Larry. Larry might be out of a job. He at least is gonna be out of a job at the Fairview Social Podcast presidents program. He's on a performance, he's on a pip. Yeah, he's on a performance plan. Uh so yeah, he's uh well, it's funny about it. I don't know if anybody else has had this experience, but it's like after I repeatedly you know pester him to get it right, sure, then it's like, Tim, no bullshit. This is gonna take me a little while. And so it's like, give me a little while and I'll have this here when it's ready. I'm like, okay, Larry. And then I say, I'll check back in 10 minutes. Well, Tim, it might be a little bit longer than 10 minutes. Man, Larry is a little lazy. So I'm like, okay, 15 minutes. He's like, Yeah, I can do 15 minutes. So then I check back because I forget about it. I go back to it like three hours later, and of course, there's nothing in there. And I'm like, Larry, what the hell is going on? Look, I'm gonna be honest, Tim. I can't do this. Man, I'm like, how hard is it to scour? Yeah, how how hard is it to scour the internet and find all the things about John Quincy Adams? I thought that's what AI was for. That's exactly what I thought it was. My lady, which I need to name. Uh, I mean, she's pretty quick. Maybe I can take on pulling the the research. Yeah, maybe because Larry may be out of Larry may just be officially fired. Yeah. Larry might be because he's starting to piss me off with everything else I ask him. Because, like the camper that I just bought, I said, Hey Larry, I bought this camper, this exact model and everything. Please give me all of the you know how to use everything in it. Sure. And so it pops up and it's like got a few pictures of like your control panel may look like this. I'm like, no, Larry, I want to see the control panel of this exact model. So it's like it's pretty bad. So anyway, we we're not gonna use the well. If we're gonna let Larry go, we need to have two people in the room, so uh he can't take us or can't sue us. Well, I know. He's we definitely gonna have to have witnesses on this one. Oh boy, yeah. I I can I don't mind taking over because I mean I'm maybe risking using our work AI, but well, I don't think it'll be fine. Okay. I'll any any notes you can bring is fine. Next for uh for our big um for um what's his name? Um Andrew Jackson Jackson. Um just like two sad dads. I mean, my memory is just it's bad. You know, you're getting old. It's really bad. Mine's getting bad too. I mean, I am it everything just slips in my mind. And I thought I was having a good day. For Andrew Jackson, I will pull I'll pull the notes for us just to see, just to compare. So just so everybody knows, we're gonna have a big blowout for Andrew Jackson. Excited for that one. We're gonna go to the Hermitage and we're gonna we're gonna take the tour. Yeah, and then we're gonna go over to the little today. Would have been a perfect day for that. Could you imagine? Go to the put sunscreen on grass, it's probably green as can be. Nice. Yeah, you know, it'd probably be super busy today. Yeah, you're probably right. But anyway, we'd go over to the pavilion over there, do a pod, talk about what we saw. We're gonna it we're gonna have some guests too. I mean, yeah, we're gonna have some. There's a lot of people that claim they're interested in it. We'll see. See who shows up. Yeah, we can have as many people as we want, so we'll see how that goes. I love it. I love it. All right, so for today, John Quincy Adams. Yes, yes. He was born in 1767, died in 1848. He was the sixth president of the United States. He was a fierce anti-slavery advocate, a brilliant diplomat, fluent in seven languages, who served in Congress for 17 years after leaving the White House. Yeah. So we'll pause right there and be like, well, how do we know of any other presidents? Of course, we don't know because we're dumb. I do want to save that question. You did see the that we have the president. I love that. That's helpful. You can't see it on camera, but it's off camera. There's all 47 of them there. But I don't know of any other president at this point that served after they were president. No, I don't I don't either. It's interesting to hear that. It's interesting to also see that he was kind of groomed for this position, you know, with his father. Yeah. 17 years after being the president. Yeah. What else do you do after that, though? I mean, you can't go back to your farm and well, I mean, if you think about it, after Clinton was president, he was still pretty young afterwards and Obama. I mean, they're just they all just kind of hang out now. Well, now they go and do speaking tours and make boatloads of money. That and charity things and uh like Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity and just have like some kind of organization. But if you grew up in it, that's all it this uh all couldn't JQ knew. So they could get money to build their libraries, is basically what all the modern presses. I can't wait to hear when it came became a library that we wanted to build. Yeah, there's a lot of things I'm looking forward to as we get in get down this road. To me, this is a a um a lifelong politician, groomed, educated, groomed, yeah, from the second multiple roles, right, studied over uh abroad, you know, seven languages is a lot of languages to know. Yeah. Uh multiple positions within the government. It's all he knew. What do you do after you continue on trying to make policies and rules and laws? Excuse me. He's known as old man eloquent. He was a this is funny, he was an avid daily skinny dipper in the Potomac River, and famously kept a pet alligator in the White House bathtub. How about that? Gift. Who gave him the alligator? A gift from gosh. It's uh so this it says the pet alligator Adams reportedly kept an alligator in the White House bathtub, a gift from Marquis de Lafayette. That's it. That's it. Who's that? A French diplomat? Yeah, he sounds French. Sounds very French. So what are they doing? Just bringing an alligator over on a boat? I guess. I mean, I thought, well, I get there's freshwater alligators, but I mean it's I I imagine it was a big tub. I would guess so. I mean, what's an alligator doing in a tub? Can you, when he's skinny dipping, can you say, hey, we're gonna take a little take the uh alligator on a little stroll and throw him in the water too and swim with him? Can you imagine skinny dipping at the White House? Well, there's not a pool at the White House at this point. At this point, no. Is it was it there? Yeah, there was a pool in the JFK days. Yes, and I I think one of the uh facts that I read here is he was Quincy Adams was the first president to put a billiard table in the into the uh did we lose? Oh, I thought we lost it. No, put it a bull billiards table for some entertainment into the White House. Yeah. Well, I'm an idiot because I just said he's skinny he was skinny dipping in the Potomac River. Yeah. Every morning around 5 a.m. he did that. That's a big deal. Yeah, I mean do they have Secret Service there? Is he just getting up, walking out the front door? I don't know that Secret Service was invented at this point. It's probably just security. Do you think he has security? I'm pretty sure there's probably some sort of security. And is there somebody just walk walking down there, hands his robe to him, and jumps right in? Probably. I mean, the Potomac, you've seen the Potomac. I've seen the Potomac. I mean, it's gotta be cold, man. It's gotta be very cold at certain times. And in I mean, must have been a great swimmer. Well, maybe he was the OG um uh ice bath. Oh, interesting. Maybe he's the one that got that popular. Wow. Maybe if we make a uh ice bath company, we name it Jayqua. Filled with Potomac River water. Yeah. Nowadays it's awful. It's like dead bodies and shit. It's not back then, it's probably clear as can be back then. Yeah, you're probably right. Well, he had an unusual oath of office. Yes. In 1825, he was the only president to take the oath of office on a book of U.S. laws rather than the Bible, which that kind of is like goes back to he was groomed from the very beginning. Right, right. To be a child of child United States. That's it. That's it. I mean, it that whole his whole um the time up to the presidency was was interesting. I mean, was you're starting to see a little bit of uh of drama and and conflict between parties. Um he was accused of um using uh Henry Clay, I think was one of the four that were running, and when they the popular vote didn't match up, they had to go to a runoff, and Clay uh dropped out and supported, and that his support pushed him over Andrew Jackson. So that's where the the the rift between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams uh started as well. Well, John Quincy Adams ha won that election, but he was only president for four years. And so he's a one-term president. Yeah. Could you imagine? Just picture that you're groomed from the birth to be a president. Yeah. And then you only get it one term. Well, probably why we were talking about, I mean, the ego part of it probably wanted him to stay into politics just to fight. Yeah. You know, he was uh wasn't a fan of slavery. You know, my silly mind, this is this this'll tell you how not smart I am. Doing a little research, we knew he died in 1848. One of the questions I asked my chat GPT would, hey, would did John Quincy Adams know Abe Lincoln? Yeah, and my lady came back and said, Well, they really never cross paths, but does is his stance on slavery, and it'll be really interesting to see when we get to Abe Lincoln, is there's some philosophies that Abe Lincoln pulled from John Quincy Adams for abolishing slavery. Yeah, that's cool. It's really cool to kind of see how we're we're tying them all in. Yeah. You know, and we're and you and I are getting a little smarter, and us our listeners are getting a little smarter now. A little. A real tiny bit. We're just learning things, but then like I don't know that we're giving it to the listener. No, I can't wait for the day when somebody puts in the comments that you guys are really dumb. Yeah. I haven't checked the very social TikTok in a while, and I opened it up like an hour before you got here, and I was like, Oh, what's going on over here? Yeah. And I opened it up and it was running all those um all the um uh James Monroe clips. And there's like tons of comments on it, and no one said we were dumb. There you go. Hey, I only read, I was just kind of skimming through them, but they were like it was people adding to the story. I'm like, I was waiting for someone to say, you guys are a bunch of idiots. Yeah, I you know, I need to get on. I see it on uh YouTube. I need to get on TikTok and follow it on TikTok. I don't do that. Yeah, there's probably more of a a presence of community there that will comment on things, but it's still just you know, out in the algorithm. It's not like people that are meh, it might be followers, sure saying stuff on the phone. I'll do that this afternoon, jump on so I can see what people are saying because it is interesting, but it but at least they they I was just happy they weren't like you guys are a bunch of idiots. They're just being really nice, probably. We've got the nicest fans. No, I was gonna say they're not just being nice because they're they'll be quick to tell me I'm an idiot. That's usually how it goes on social media, though. All right, so funny. So he was a theater fan. He was heavily criticized for placing a billiards table, a billiard table in the White House and love to dance and attend the theater. Yeah. So, like you mentioned the the pool table. You think he was good at pool? I think if you're putting a pool table in there, you're pretty good. Yeah. Because I I'm not good at pool, and I don't think of a pool table. I mean, you gotta be you gotta be pretty decent. It's a great entertainment. I mean, it's a great way to just unwind, have some you know, high-level talks around it, just like playing golf or yeah, you know, stuff like that. What do you think it's like with him dancing? Oh gosh. Now now my mind kind of goes two ways. The first way it goes is like how you see people modernly dance where it's like sexual and thrusting and all that kind of stuff. And then I'm like, no, it wasn't that. No electric slide back in the day. But like back then, was he just like it was probably very I mean, I you know, in all seriousness, it was very formal. You think so? It has to be formal because you're still, I mean, you'd think the British were there's still some ties to what Britain was trying to to manipulate this the our country on, and I mean, very, very formal. I guess I'm thinking like it could have even mean like he's dancing with his wife or whatever, like doing a waltz or something, but like I'm just picturing him standing alone, just like dancing, broken arm. He's just dancing a jig, maybe Jake. You starting the he's starting a lawnmower after he's the original after he after he after he gets out of the Potomac River after he's skinny different. He's just like that swim, yeah, flinging around, raise the roof. So he liked to dance and he liked to attend theater and liked science as well, too. He did, and what this is funny, I don't know why this is in here, but first to wear trousers, he was the first president to wear full-length trousers instead of traditional knee breeches to his inauguration. I'm not mad at it. So, I mean, are trousers just pants? Just pants, fancy wear, fancy way same pants. So, why do you think that they would wear the the knee the knee breeches? Br Britain. Yeah, you know what? That's good. He was like, No, I ain't doing that. I'm gonna wear some pants. Yeah, this is our country. What if he just wore some shorts? There is underwear. He didn't like underwear, he liked the skinny dip. Yeah, I know. I mean you can't swim in britches, wool britches. I can't yeah, you can't be swimming in that stuff. Yeah, you gotta have a little freedom when you're out there doing that kind of stuff. I wonder what stroke do you, you know, freestyle? Backstroke? Maybe. I guess it would just be freestyle back then. Or maybe doggy battle, I don't know. J Qua. It says ask anything, let's ask it. Yeah. How or um we'll say what type of swim stroke stroke. There's no way he knows it. And it's like a breaststroke, okay, which was the most common and standard swimming style for Westerners during his lifetime. That's cool. Tough stroke. But he says by 1824, he could swim continuously for up to 50 minutes. Hell, I can't even swim to the into my pool and back. Hell, I won't even get in the pool and there's no water in there and I won't go there. 50 minutes is a long time. Yeah. That's pretty. I mean, you you're pretty fit if you're swimming for 50 minutes straight. It says he frequently swam across the entire width of the Potomac River. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. With the current, I mean, that's pretty impressive. That's very impressive. And he did it late into his 70s. Yeah. You know what? What is this joke? Gemini? This is a hell of a lot better than Larry. Larry might be getting canceled soon. See you later, Larry. Yeah. All right. He died at his desk. He suffered a stroke on the floor of the House of Representatives and died in the speaker's room in the Capitol. Yeah. I think he's I read that he was there for two days and then passed. Fitting. Yeah. You know, was born into it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's pretty crazy. Yeah. Now the drama part of his presidency, the legacy he left, um, important in again, expansion of the states. Yeah. Uh important with um helping with the Monroe Doctrine. Oh, yeah, that's right. That was amazing. You know, so I mean it it it is really cool to see uh an individual who thrusted into it but embraced what um he saw from his father, what he studied. I it it's fascinating. These guys study abroad, and I think I meant I think I read that he also went to Harvard as well for a while. And is that one of the photos? These are these are all pretty good. John Quincy Adams had strong feelings about kissing, not necessarily positive. As 20-year-old Harvard graduate, so you're right there. Look at us studying law at New Berryport, uh Massachusetts. He attended a New Year's party. He did not have fun. Some people started singing and they wouldn't stop, though they weren't very good. Interesting. When that stupid ceremony ended, he wrote in his diary an equally stupid kissing game started. It's interesting. It sounds like um old Jay Qua was just kind of like a party pooper. Yeah, serious. But he liked to dance, and he had was married and had kids. Yeah. He and the next he liked to dance, perhaps because his father was such a bad dancer. So one of the most innocent and rational amusements that was ever invented. So maybe he was getting down dirty. Interesting. He just liked to get busy, he didn't want all the uh He did. I like this one. He wore pants and his own hair to the presidential inauguration. So, like we were talking about with the trousers, I guess he he veered away from the powder wig. No more wigs, no more wigs getting away from the bloomers or whatever they would call those pants. He dro nearly drowned as president. Yeah. In the summer of 1825, he and his manservant tried to paddle a canoe across the Tiber Creek, which once flowed through Washington, D.C. near the National Archives. Adams thought he'd taken off, he'd take off his clothes on shore and swim back. His son John, who joined them, warned about the dangerous dangerous, dangerous boat. He was right, the canoe sprung a leak and the wind kicked up. Wow. Adams and the servant jumped overboard and swam to the opposite shore. Adams took off his waterlogged clothes and lay gasping on the bank of the river until he was rescued. So he just wanted to be naked again. He liked to be nude. But if he's if he was in such great shape to swim 50 minutes continuously, why did he struggle? I don't know. That's interesting too. Maybe Gemini's a liar too. He was the first president to be interviewed by a female reporter. I did see that. The color of his head gave the index of his feelings. After he lost presidency, John Quincy Adams returned to Washington as a congressman. He fought slavery with blunt and vehement or oratory. He could barely speak after suffering a stroke that partially paralyzed him at 78. Another congressman wrote, It was understood in the galleries as well, blah. The color of his head was the index of his feelings. He got mad. It often becoming as red under the violent declamations of southern men. So I guess like when his head was red, you knew you knew that he was mad. He was upset. So it has a stroke at 78, passes at 80. So he spends another two years. Yeah. Really unable to speak. I guess writing law and that's crazy, man. Using his manservant. I didn't need to get me a manservant. I mean, manservant these days means probably something a lot different. A lot different than than whatever when it meant back then. So what other things do did you find out about James? He was the science part of him led to the national observatories pushing for the National Observ Observatory Observatory. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, he was a a lifelong politician. Yeah. A lifelong politician that as we know it today with politics, the Republicans and the Democrats are constantly fighting with each other, accusing each other of this. We see this back then with Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson's uh accusing Quincy of um cheating his way, manipulating his way into the presidency, which, like you said, it lasted four years. Yeah. And then Andrew Jackson, who I think won the popular vote. Well, it says that he he in 24 Adams became president through a House of Representatives vote despite losing the popular vote. Right. A tricky election. Right. And that's where Henry K Clay came in and was when he knew he wasn't going to become president, switched his backing to John Quincy Adams. Yeah. So the popular vote, it's important, right? All all Andrew Jackson had to do was wait four years and he and he got his um his shot at presidency. Let me ask you this, because so he was president twenty f 1825 through 1829, and then Jackson was president 29 through 37. Yeah. Like if he if John Quincy Adam was like this groom from the beginning person for pop for politics in the country and all that, why wouldn't he run for president again after June? I don't think he was oh after because he only he was only a four-term player. That's an interesting that's an interesting question. That's an interesting question. I wonder if there was we may see that he maybe he did run for president. Right. I don't well it would it would say in the notes that he ran again. Uh maybe. Maybe, but maybe he realized that um he just wanted to he he knew the people weren't gonna vote for him. I mean he knew he had to go to the House of Representatives to get the to win the election. Yeah. You know, so maybe was smart and realized well, why would we waste my time? I can stay in Congress, stay involved with politics, but not have to deal with the pressures and stress of being the president. Yeah. And Andrew Jackson is, I mean, widely known more than John Quincy Adams, at least from what in my understanding. You know. It says that he kept a detailed diary. Adams wrote in his diary every day for 60 years, filling 51 volumes. It's unbelievable. I mean, what what would we do if all these people weren't into keeping a diary for not everything? But we wouldn't be sitting here. I mean, I remember even when I was a kid, and I don't even know if they teach kids this anymore, but they always taught being a a young kid to to keep a diary or a journal. Sure. Diary for a girl, journal for a boy. Right. So no, if we didn't everything. I mean, you you even back to to George Washington, you mentioned that we have these accounts of the these of their lives because of the writings. Yeah. It's the only way. Maybe it's a requirement for people of this stature. Well, let me ask you this is to do so. Is today's diary writing basically social media? I mean, probably social media. They probably hire someone now that does daily accounts of what happened. You know, they have logs of who visits the office. They have stenographers, I think it would be to keep written accounts. So I mean, it's somebody doing that work for them nowadays. But these guys I mean it is pretty darn impressive to be that disciplined to write in a journal each every day. Yeah. And 51 volumes for 60 years. I mean, that's a lot of writings. I would love to well, actually, I say that, but like, I'm sure you can buy books of his just his writings, and it's like probably. He's like, woke up today, took my manservant down to the Potomac River, and he watched me skinny dip. The Potomac was cold. We had shrinkage. Yeah. I was naked as I usually am. So Jayqua liked to get naked, man. Like to get naked, career politician, had an alligator, liked to liked it, didn't like to dance, didn't like to kiss. No, he did like to dance, didn't like to kiss. Yeah. Was uh like the theater, science, very well-rounded individual, seven languages. I think Russian was one of them. So as we kind of you know bring J Qua to an end, I'm really not way too impressed with a man that was set set to be like a career politician. He was a career politician. Yeah. It's like it's like the stuff that happened in his in in his life were not even in the presidency. No, no. Important things. The the important things, uh, but we're s again seeing more of a foundation being built in each president that we go through. Nowadays. Yeah. Like the the anti-slavery. But it doesn't, it takes another ten presidents to get slavery abolished. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy to think that. Right. I mean, hell, just off the top of my head, we know Andrew Jackson served two terms. Right. And all of those in between. When when was slavery abolished? 1865? Mid-60s? 1860. So it's it's a while from then. So we we went through war of 1812. We'll see another war coming up soon, a civil war. So we go from fighting the British, eventually we'll see we'll see the infighting between you know states. Very cool to kind of see the the the platforms being built. Yeah, the foundations being built for we're six in, and there's already all this stuff. And we're starting to see some drama. We're starting to see, hey, we're not we're not friendly. Yeah. You know, we are fighting for what our beliefs, and Andrew Jackson was the popular person, and John Quincy Adams was the one that the career politician that had the sway vote to get him into the presidency. Yeah. Or he's not there. Poor Jayqua, man. But he did have an alligator in his tub. He did have a pet alligator. So is that what you learned about him? We didn't get the name of the alligator, did we? No. Maybe they didn't name their alligators back then. Why would you not ail? We just named a cat up the sp up upstairs there. It took us two minutes to do. Alright, number six in the book. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're gonna start seeing some more excitement. We will. Because we know the name. Alright. Goodbye.