Editing John Quincy Adams (section)

=== U.S. senator from Massachusetts ===
On his return to the United States, Adams re-established a legal practice in [[Boston]], and in April 1802 he was elected to the [[Massachusetts Senate]].<ref>{{harvnb|Cooper|2017|pages=64–66}}</ref> In November of that year, he ran unsuccessfully for the [[United States House of Representatives]].<ref>{{harvnb|McCullough|2001|pages=575–76}}</ref> In February 1803, the Massachusetts legislature elected Adams to the [[United States Senate]]. Though somewhat reluctant to affiliate with any political party, Adams joined the Federalist minority in Congress.<ref>{{harvnb|Cooper|2017|pages=67–68}}</ref> Like his Federalist colleagues, he opposed [[Impeachment of Samuel Chase|the impeachment]] of Associate Justice [[Samuel Chase]], an outspoken supporter of the Federalist Party.<ref>{{harvnb|Cooper|2017|pages=70–71}}</ref>

Adams had strongly opposed Jefferson's 1800 presidential candidacy, but he gradually became alienated from the Federalist Party. His disaffection was driven by the party's declining popularity, disagreements over foreign policy, and Adams's hostility to [[Timothy Pickering]], a Federalist Party leader whom Adams viewed as overly favorable to Britain. Unlike other New England Federalists, Adams supported the Jefferson administration's [[Louisiana Purchase]] and expansionist policies.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-08/john-quincy-adams-isn-t-who-you-think-he-is |title=John Quincy Adams Isn't Who You Think He Is |first=Hal |last=Brands |author-link=Hal Brands |date=February 8, 2020 |work=Bloomberg.com |access-date=March 14, 2020}}</ref> Adams was the lone Federalist in Congress to vote for the [[Non-importation Act]] of 1806 that punished Britain for its attacks on American shipping during the ongoing [[Napoleonic Wars]]. Adams became increasingly frustrated with the unwillingness of other Federalists to condemn British actions, including [[impressment]], and he moved closer to the Jefferson administration. After Adams supported the [[Embargo Act of 1807]], the Federalist-controlled Massachusetts legislature elected Adams's successor several months before the end of his term, and Adams resigned from the Senate shortly thereafter.<ref>{{harvnb|Thompson|1991|pages=165–181}}</ref>

While a member of the Senate, Adams served as a professor of logic at [[Brown University]]<ref>{{harvnb|McCullough|2001|page=587}}</ref> and as the [[Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory|Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory]] at [[Harvard University]]. Adams's devotion to classical rhetoric shaped his response to public issues, and he would remain inspired by those rhetorical ideals long after the neo-classicalism and deferential politics of the founding generation were eclipsed by the commercial ethos and mass democracy of the [[Jacksonian democracy|Jacksonian Era]]. Many of Adams's idiosyncratic positions were rooted in his abiding devotion to the [[Cicero]]nian ideal of the citizen-orator "speaking well" to promote the welfare of the polis.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Lyon|last=Rathbun|title=The Ciceronian Rhetoric of John Quincy Adams|journal=Rhetorica|year=2000|volume=18|issue=2|pages=175–215|doi=10.1525/rh.2000.18.2.175|s2cid=144055057 |url=https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=wls_fac |issn=0734-8584 }}</ref> He was also influenced by the classical republican ideal of civic eloquence espoused by British philosopher [[David Hume]].<ref>{{cite book|first=David|last=Hume|title=Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects|publisher=T. Cadell|location=London|year=1742|pages=99–110}}</ref> Adams adapted these classical republican ideals of public oratory to the American debate, viewing its multilevel political structure as ripe for "the renaissance of Demosthenic eloquence". His ''Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory'' (1810) looks at the fate of ancient oratory, the necessity of liberty for it to flourish, and its importance as a unifying element for a new nation of diverse cultures and beliefs. Just as civic eloquence failed to gain popularity in Britain, in the United States interest faded in the second decade of the 19th century, as the "public spheres of heated oratory" disappeared in favor of the private sphere.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Adam S.|last=Potkay|title=Theorizing Civic Eloquence in the Early Republic: the Road from David Hume to John Quincy Adams|journal=Early American Literature|year=1999 |volume=34|issue=2|pages=147–70}}</ref>