Louisa (53 page)

She would have
:
“Diary,” DLCA 2:438, 747, 641.

Whether she would
:
Ibid., 664, 669, 670n2.

More than two hundred years
:
Rosemarie Zagarri,
Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 30–34, 154, 6.

“Kings are made”
:
For two sweeping, divergent but complementary accounts of the vast transformations of the social, economic, and political landscape, see Howe,
What Hath God Wrought,
and Wilentz
, The Rise of American Democracy.

A woman was always
:
“Diary,” DLCA 2:464, 525, 669.

The knocks on
:
DCFA 1: December 26, 1823.

It was tiresome
:
“Diary,” DLCA 2:665, 430; Bemis,
John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy
, 313–16; “Diary,” DLCA 2:411.

Jackson was a force
:
Robert Vincent Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821
(New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 378; “Diary,” DLCA 2:678.

Things were changing
:
Lynn Hudson Parsons,
Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 45; Wilentz,
Rise of American Democracy,
242, 246; DJQA, March 27, 1824. For the maneuvering
of Jackson's entry into the race, see Charles Grier Sellers Jr., “Jackson Men with Feet of Clay,”
American Historical Review
62 (1957): 357–61.

Ladies climbed on top
:
“Letters of Hon. Elijah H. Mills,”
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
29 (1881–1882): 40; DCFA 1: January 5, 6, 8, 1824; “Diary,” DLCA 2:680–88; LCA to GWA, January 1, 1824, AFP.

Now, she did not need
:
Memoirs and Letters of Dolley Madison: Wife of James Madison
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1886), 169; DCFA 1: January 8, 1824; “Poetry,”
Metropolitan,
January 13, 1824 (reprinted widely from the
Washington Republican
, January 8, 1824).

It was half past
:
DCFA 1: January 8, 1824; “Letters of Hon. Elijah H. Mills,” 40; DJQA, January 6, 8, 1824; “Diary,” DLCA 2:688.

6

Often, there were
:
JA to JQA, May 20, 1818, AFP; DCFA 1: September 23, 8, May 10, 1824; LCA to JA2, May 6, 1822, LCA to CFA, May 6, 1822, AFP.

George and John
:
Quoted in Nagel,
John Quincy Adams,
279; LCA to JA2, May 11, 1823, AFP.

“My children seem”
:
“Diary,” DLCA 2:519; LCA to GWA, February 12, 1824, AFP; DCFA 1: September 6, 1824.

Louisa worried, too
:
Nathaniel Frye to Duncan Stewart, April 23, 1827, Herbert Battles Tanner Family Papers, 1790–1972, Wisconsin Historical Society, Library-Archives Division; “Diary,” DLCA 2:494; LCA to AA, February 10, 1818, AFP.

Even the success
:
DCFA 1: January 31, 1824.

Louisa sat for two
:
Oliver,
Portraits of John Quincy Adams and His Wife,
81–87, 102–6.

Her friends, she acknowledged
:
Recollections of the wife of an aide to General Jacob Brown, Moore family papers, 1751–1939, Kroch Library Rare & Manuscript Collections, Cornell University; LCA to JA2, July 18, 1823, LCA to GWA, November 28, 1824, AFP.

Finally, the election
:
Howe,
What Hath God Wrought,
208; Parsons,
Birth of Modern Politics,
83.

John Quincy dropped
:
Smith,
First Forty Years of Washington Society,
170; Louis McLane to Catherine McLane, December 24, 1824, January 29, 1825, Louis McLane Correspondence, Manuscript Division, LC; LCA to GWA, December 14, 1824, AFP.

At six o'clock
:
“Diary,” DLCA 2:488, 657–58.

That January night
:
Louis McLane to Catherine McLane, January 13, 1825, Louis McLane Correspondence, Manuscript Division, LC; DJQA, January 9, 1825; JQA to GWA, November 28, 1827, AFP. There has been a massive amount written about the meeting between JQA and Henry Clay, including James F. Hopkins, “Election of 1824,”
History of Presidential Elections, 1789–1968,
ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Fred L. Israel (New York: Chelsea House, 1971), 349–409; David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler,
Henry Clay: The Essential American
(New York: Random House, 2010), 179–80; Robert V. Remini,
Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union
(New York: W. W. Norton 1987), 251–72; Howe,
What Hath God Wrought,
247–48.

Did his wife know
:
LCA, “Metropolitan Kaleidoscope,” AFP; DJQA, February 8, 1825.

Exactly what Louisa said
:
JA to LCA, March 30, 1825, AFP; DJQA, February 9, 1825; Louis McLane to Catherine McLane, February 12, 1825, Louis McLane Correspondence, Manuscript Division, LC; Heidler and Heidler,
Henry Clay
, 185.

On Thursday, March 3
:
DJQA, March 4, 1825; “Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams,” March 4, 1825, in the Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Yale Law School, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/qadams.asp, accessed May 10, 2015;
Independent Chronicle & Boston Patriot
, March 12, 1825.

PART
EIGHT
:
A
BIRD
IN
A
C
AGE

1

One day in late
:
LCA to CFA, April 20, 1825, AFP; William Seale,
The President's House
, Volume I (Washington, DC: White House Historical Association, 2008), 156–59.

The fable was apt
:
James Sterling Young,
The Washington Community, 1800–1828
(New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1966), 216.

Only now, her independence
:
LCA to Joseph Hopkinson, April 21, 25, and May 1, 1825, Hopkinson Family Papers (Collection 1978), the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Smith,
The First Forty Years of Washington Society,
248; Mrs. Basil Hall,
The Aristocratic Journey: Being the Outspoken Letters of Mrs. Basil Hall Written During a Fourteen Months' Soujourn in America, 1827–1828
(New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1931), 169.

“I am utterly weary”
:
LCA to CFA, July 25, 1828, LCA to GWA, November 6, 1825, AFP. I have resisted pathologizing or diagnosing her psychological state using modern lenses. Others have not. For a short argument that she suffered “severely from mental disease, characterized as dysthymia, chronic depression, and even hysteria,” see Ludwig M. Deppisch,
The Health of the First Ladies: Medical Histories from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2015).

He had little goodwill
:
Young,
Washington Community,
188–95; Howe,
What Hath God Wrought,
251–60; Kaplan,
John Quincy Adams,
401–12; LCA to Thomas Hellen, June 19, 1825, AFP.

The weather did
:
Howe,
What Hath God Wrought
. Though it focuses on an earlier period, for a study connecting the rise of nationalism in the early republic and celebrations, see David Waldstreicher,
In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

Lafayette was an old friend
:
LCA to GWA, September 11, 1825, AFP.

2

Louisa was fifty-one
:
“Record of a Life,” DLCA 1:2. In the past twenty-five years, academics have paid far closer attention to women and autobiography in the early republic, sometimes through different theoretical lenses. See Lepore,
Book of Ages,
328–29n2. For an early survey, see Estelle C. Jelinek,
The Tradition of Women's Autobiography from Antiquity to the Present
(Boston: Twayne, 1986), 57–88.

Her history, her
:
“Record of a Life,” DLCA 1:21–23.

Her marriage, as she saw it,
:
Ibid., 41, 51.

It did not matter
:
Ibid., 8, 61.

The Marquis de Lafayette
:
LCA to GWA, August 8, September 4, 1825, AFP.

Meanwhile, there were
:
LCA to GWA, August 22, 1825, AFP; Howe,
What Hath God Wrought
, 251–60.

Louisa wanted comfort
:
LCA to GWA, May 1, 1825, AFP.

A host of maladies
:
For a psychological connection with illness, particularly migraines, see Megan Marshall,
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
(New York: First Mariner Books, 2006), 190, 196, 220, 228, 261, 513, among others, and Oliver Sacks,
Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder, Expanded and Updated
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 178–80, 206–9.

She wasn't merely
:
“Diary,” DLCA 2:542. The neurologist and author Oliver Sacks has written about the “dramatic role in the emotional economy of the individual” that migraines can serve. While the symptoms are undeniably real, “rooted in physiological reactions,” Sacks wrote in
Migraine
, they can be “summoned to serve an endless variety of emotional needs.” Sacks,
Migraine
, 207.

3

On the morning
:
LCA to JQA, July 10, 1826, AFP; DJQA, July 8, 1826.

His death was
:
LCA to GWA, July 14, 1826, AFP.

To John Quincy
:
JQA to LCA, July 14, 1826, AFP; Bemis,
John Quincy Adams and the Union
, 11–12.

Louisa's grief turned
:
LCA to JQA, July 18, 1826, AFP; DCFA 1: May 31, 1824.

She knew too well
:
LCA to JQA, July 18, 1826, AFP.

A few days after
:
DJQA to LCA, July 14, 1826; DCFA 2: July 25, 1826.

There was something
:
Howe,
What Hath God Wrought,
214; LCA to JQA, August 21, 1826, AFP; DCFA 2: August 9, 1826.

Everyone was miserable
:
DCFA 2: August 14–23, 1826.

“This morning my wife”
:
DJQA, August 28, 1826; JA to GWA, JA2, and CFA, April 4, 1815, AFP.

“We have been”
:
JQA to LCA, August 26, 1826, AFP.

4

The health of George's body
:
JQA to GWA, November 12, 1827, AFP; Bemis,
John Quincy Adams and the Union,
116.

Louisa was more forgiving
:
LCA, “Metropolitan Kaleidoscope”; LCA to GWA, May 1, 1825, GWA to LCA, May 6, 1825, AFP.

He was trying
:
LCA to JQA, August 11, 1826, AFP; DGWA, August 1 and 2, 1825, AFP.

On December 31, 1825
:
DGWA, December 31, 1826, AFP.

He could not hide
:
LCA to CFA, September 9, 1826, AFP; DCFA 1: September 6, 1824.

When George fell
:
DJQA, September 20, 21, 27, 1826.

By late October
:
LCA to GWA, October 29, 1826, AFP; DJQA, June 28 and 29, 1827; LCA to JA2, July 16, 1827,
:
AFP.

A month later
:
JQA to LCA, July 24, 1827, AFP; DFCA 2: August 3, 1827.

With her son John
:
LCA to Mary Hellen, August 19, 1827, LCA to JQA, September 22, 1827, AFP.

5

Back in the White House
:
Seale,
The President's House,
168–69; JQA to CFA, May 28, 1828, AFP;
:
Mona Rose McKindley, “With a Heart of Oak: John Quincy Adams, Scientific Farmer and Landscape Gardener” (Master's Thesis, Harvard University, 2013), 26–50; Kaplan,
John Quincy Adams,
415.

What they did share
:
DJQA, October 7, 1826.

Meanwhile, by the winter
:
Wilentz,
The Rise of American Democracy,
294; JQA to CFA, May 28, 1828, AFP.