A Rare Signed Engraving of John Quincy Adams, the Earliest Signed Image of Any President

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John Quincy Adams was a true philosopher who had a view of America’s future that was generations before his time. Very early on, he was spotted by George Washington as an up and coming man, and was given important diplomatic appointments in his administration. He was not a party man, and was...

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A Rare Signed Engraving of John Quincy Adams, the Earliest Signed Image of Any President

John Quincy Adams was a true philosopher who had a view of America’s future that was generations before his time. Very early on, he was spotted by George Washington as an up and coming man, and was given important diplomatic appointments in his administration. He was not a party man, and was disaffected from his father’s Federalist comrades, so that the Jeffersonian administrations that followed did not hesitate to utilize his considerable talents. James Madison had him negotiate the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. James Monroe made him Secretary of State, and in that capacity he played a key role in formulating the Monroe Doctrine and helped settle border disputes with Great Britain.

There were four serious candidates for president in 1824: Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and William Crawford. Jackson received the most popular and electoral votes, but did not command a majority, so under the Constitution the choice fell to the House of Representatives. There Clay threw his votes to Adams, who was elected. Adams then appointed Clay Secretary of State, a very logical appointment to make, but coming under these circumstances gave the angry Jackson forces, who felt with some justice that they had been robbed, the chance to claim that a corrupt bargain had been made. Thus Adams came into office under a cloud, and the powerful Jacksonians did all they could to stymie his programs throughout his presidency, as they laid the groundwork for the 1828 campaign.

Meanwhile Adams acted as if he had a mandate, and developed an extremely forward-looking agenda based on internal improvements and executive activism. In one crucial sense he was his father’s son: he believed in an executive exerting leadership under the implied powers of the U. S. Constitution. This was a surprising and risky position to take after three Jeffersonian presidents and the disappearance of the Federalist Party. In his Inaugural Address, Adams said of improvements, “It is that from which I am convinced that the unborn millions of our posterity who are in future ages to people this continent will derive their most fervant gratitude…that in which the beneficient action of its government will be most deeply felt and acknowledged.” In his first message to Congress, Adams called for canals and roads linking the states and regions of the country, and expounded a broad program for education that called for such visionary projects as a Federally-funded group of astronomical observatories, and educational and research facilities. This meant incurring debt and centralizing control, and the program, which many would find appropriate nowadays, was out of sync with the times. Adams was unwilling or unable to roll up his sleeves and delve into party politics to build support. The fact that his internal improvements would have been useful is underlined by the success of the Erie Canal, which opened during his term.

Just two years after he failed to be reelected, Adams was sent to Washington as a representative to Congress, the only former president to return to the seats of power as a participant. There he was the conscience of America, constantly opposing slavery with everything he had, and finally overturning the infamous gag rule which kept discussion of petitions protesting it from the halls of the House. He was the scourge of the slave drivers, and influenced a generation of rising men who heard him with serving in the same chamber (one of whom was Abraham Lincoln). He also persuaded Congress to accept the bequest to found the Smithsonian Institution, something nearly turned down by those who felt it lacked the power to take and use the money. This period of his life was so fruitful and indeed important to his country that his must be considered the most successful post-presidential career of any man to hold the office.

Nathaniel Dearborn was a noted Boston engraver whose career spanned four decades. After Adams, a fellow Massachusetts man, assumed the presidency, Dearborn did an engraving of him based on the portrait of Adams by artist Thomas Sully. Although undated, sources considerate it to have been engraved in 1826.

In the early 1840s, in large part due to his anti-slavery stand, Adams received many requests for autographs. What led him to decide to sign an image is unknown; certainly no previous president had done so. What is known is that circa 1842, just before the era of photography, Adams ordered some of Dearborn's images of him, and signed them. There couldn't have been many, and clearly he did so over a very brief time, as over the span of three decades we have only seen about half dozen, and all with dates are 1842 and 1843. They are the earliest signed images of any president, and the era of signed photographs was still quite some years away.

Engraved Portrait Signed, a 2 by 3 inch image on a 3 by 4 1/2 inch sheet, similar in size to a CDV, dated January 23, 1843. It is matted and framed, and the first Adams signed engraving we have ever carried. It somehow seems to be an extraordinary anachronism, a signed image of a man who served as a diplomat under George Washington. It is from the collection of the late Jerome Shochet, a client of ours for decades.
 

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