Home/Daniel Larison/] Restraint And The ‘Actual Legacy’ Of John Quincy Adams
DANIEL LARISON | FEBRUARY 9, 2020 (less than fiddy)

Hal Brands is eager to reclaim John Quincy Adams for the primacists:
[link to www.bloomberg.com (secure)]

Why does it matter what Adams said and did 200 years ago?
Because the common misunderstanding of his role contributes to a larger
misunderstanding of what U.S. foreign policy has been in the past and should be in the future.
Advocates of a sharply curtailed foreign policy often contend that they
are simply calling for a reversion to the time-tested American tradition
of non-intervention and limited engagement with the world.
They argue that Adams is representative of a more realistic statecraft that
has been lost amid America’s alleged obsession with
projecting its influence and values beyond its borders.

Uncovering the actual legacy of John Quincy Adams might make one think differently.

Some of what Brands says is true, but he overstates his case and tries to make Adams into a sort of neoconservative avant la lettre. He doesn’t prove that the “common misunderstanding” of Adams is a misunderstanding at all. Brands points out that Adams was a continental territorial expansionist. Like many American political leaders in his time, Adams supported expanding U.S. territory across North America. That is true as far as it goes, but Brands’ account conveniently ignores Adams’ later opposition to Texas annexation and the Mexican War when he served in Congress. Adams was in favor of expansion in general, but he opposed it in some very important, high-profile cases. He flatly rejected the Mexican War as a war of conquest, which he called “this most outrageous war.” That sounds like something advocates of restraint would like. That is his “actual legacy.” Adams’ support for expansion also seems remarkably irrelevant to the current debate over restraint vs. primacy. It’s also irrelevant to how Adams thought the U.S. should respond to foreign conflicts in other parts of the world. In his famous July 4 speech, Adams said:

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own,
were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself,
beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue,
of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which
assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.

Brands would have you think that Americans have been misunderstanding Adams’ position for almost 200 years, but that’s wrong. Adams is saying explicitly that the U.S. should not participate in the wars of other nations. That was his clear position.