Debate: John Quincy Adams’ Foreign Policy Legacy

America's sixth president is widely seen as one of the country's greatest diplomats. Phrases like "[America] goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" remain in our lexicon. Territorial acquisitions he negotiated from Spain include the state of Florida and access to the West Coast. His deft diplomacy helped secure American interests during the massive wars after the French Revolution, the independence of Spain's Latin American colonies, and the rise of the Holy Alliance. The Monroe Doctrine he was central in crafting defined U.S. relations with the Western Hemisphere for the remainder of the nineteenth century. Many in today's foreign policy debate seek to take up Adams' legacy. Organizations like the John Quincy Adams Society and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft have taken him as their eponym, arguing that he counseled a position of restraint in U.S. foreign policy - a general avoidance of involving America in disputes abroad - and that he would oppose today's more expansive conception of U.S. foreign policy needs. Critics hold that this misreads Adams' legacy: that Adams displayed a comfort with the use of American power globally and in harmony with American ideals that is in conflict with the restrainers' vision. Who is right? Join the Society and its Westminster College chapter for a debate on JQA, his foreign policy, and its implications for today. John Allen Gay of the John Quincy Adams Society will hold that organizations like his own are indeed the rightful heirs of Adams' legacy. Mike Watson of the Hudson Institute will counter. Tobias Gibson of Westminster College moderates. Links: Mike Watson, “The Quincy Institute vs. John Quincy Adams” https://www.commentary.org/articles/mike-watson/quincy-institute-vs-john-quincy-adams/ Adams’ message to Congress on the proposed U.S. delegation to the Panama Congress, March 1826 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-104 Adams’ 1793 Marcellus letter https://www.google.com/books/edition/Writings_of_John_Quincy_Adams_1779_1796/yVkSAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=marcellus Adams’ July 4, 1821 “Monsters to Destroy” speech https://archive.org/details/addressdelivered00adamiala Adams on the Greek revolution https://www.google.com/books/edition/Memoirs_of_John_Quincy_Adams/dk4DAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=greece%20and%20spain