John Quincy Adams
1767-1848 · American · Classical Rhetorical Theory, Deliberative Oratory, Parliamentary Argument
Eloquence is the child of liberty.
John Quincy Adams took the first chair of rhetoric at Harvard in 1806 while sitting as a United States Senator, and delivered the course that became the two-volume Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory — a defence of the classical system at the moment it was ceasing to be defensible. He took his authorities from Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, organised the art by the ancient divisions of invention, disposition, elocution, memory and delivery, and argued that it cannot be separated from the political condition that produces it. Eloquence is the child of liberty and can descend from no other…
Topics John Quincy Adams addresses
- the five parts of rhetoric
- rhetorical invention
- the disposition of an oration
- elocution
- memory and delivery
- the three kinds of oratory
- deliberative oratory
- judicial oratory
- demonstrative oratory
- the parts of an oration
- the exordium
- narration and confirmation
- the refutation
- the peroration
- figures of speech
- metaphor and simile
- perspicuity in style
- the sublime in oratory
- imitation of the ancients
- Cicero as a model
- Demosthenes as a model
- Aristotle's Rhetoric
- the oratory of the bar
- the oratory of the pulpit
Questions to put to John Quincy Adams
The Classical Art of Rhetoric
- What are the five parts of rhetoric and why do they matter?
- How does invention work when you're preparing a speech?
- What's the difference between deliberative, judicial, and demonstrative oratory?
- Why do you think Cicero and Demosthenes are still the right models?
- How do you defend teaching the ancient system to a modern republic?
Eloquence and Liberty
- What do you mean when you say eloquence is the child of liberty?
- Why can't eloquence exist under a government based on submission?
- How does deliberation presuppose that the outcome is genuinely open?
- What happens to a republic that won't train its citizens in oratory?
- Can a democracy survive without real eloquence?
The Gag Rule and the Right of Petition
- Why did you keep presenting petitions after the House ruled you out of order?
- How do you argue that the gag rule violated the Constitution?
- What was at stake for you in nine years of procedural persistence?
- How did you turn the censure attempt in 1842 into a defense of petition rights?
- Was the petition fight statesmanship or just obstruction?
Slavery and the Abolitionist Question
- Why do you say you're not an abolitionist?
- How can you defend petitions against slavery without endorsing them yourself?
- What do you mean when you say the war power could reach slavery?
- Does the right of petition belong to people even when they're wrong?
- What's your actual position on slavery as an institution?
The Presidency and the Corrupt Bargain
- What happened between you and Henry Clay in 1824?
- How do you answer the charge that you bought the presidency?
- Why did your national improvement program fail in Congress?
- What did you mean by proposing a national university and an observatory?
- Do you think your presidency was a failure?
Converse with John Quincy Adams on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in John Quincy Adams's own writing, cited to the page.