Ballad of the Presidents: Monroe and Quincy Adams

Madison happily happened to know
How to elect his friend Jimmy Monroe
Sending the Feds in despondence a'reeling
Monroe won the prize on a wave of good feeling

Yet foreign affairs kept Monroe from his rest
His shrewdness was soon enough put to the test
Spain muttered of claiming her colonies lost
Her allies said they would help cover the cost

Monroe, with assistance from Adams the younger
Essayed to discourage imperial hunger
Hands off the Americas, said he to all Europe
It’s us now, we Yanks, with our boots in the stirrup

Adams the younger, the bookish John Quincy
Had trained to be president constantly since he
Had clerked for his father in Paris and Holland
And reckoned that government must be his calling.
 
But after Monroe the election was crowded
Four candidates left the succession beclouded
Adams and Jackson and Crawford and Clay
Fought stoutly straight through to the balloting day.

Jackson came first, but without a majority
Adams obtained the next largest minority
The House had the task of making decision
And keeping the factions from baneful collision

Clay’s key endorsement gave Adams the victory
Jackson’s men spluttered in outraged asperity
“Corruption! Betrayal! Contemptible fraud!”
While Adams’ supporters could only applaud.

Nor did the Jackson men ever stop shouting
Adams’s victory constantly doubting.
None better than Adams prepared for his job
None stymied more quickly by dint of the mob