Quincy, JOSIAH, an American orator and man of letters, and son of Josiah Quincy (1744–75), an eloquent advocate of the rights of the colonists, was born at Boston, February 4, 1772, graduated at Harvard in 1790, and was called to the bar in 1793. He took an active interest in politics as a leading member of the Federal party in New England, and was elected in 1804 to congress, where he became distinguished as a ready, earnest, and fervent orator. He was one of the earliest to denounce slavery, but his most remarkable speech was one in which, spurred on by the jealousy with which the old New England colonies regarded the new western states, he declared that the admission of Louisiana would be a sufficient cause for the dissolution of the union, and that, 'as it would be the right of all, so it would be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation—peaceably if they could, violently if they must.' Disgusted with the triumph of the Democratic party and the war of 1812, he declined a re-election to congress, and devoted his attention for a while to agriculture.
He was, however, a member of the Massachusetts legislature during most of the next ten years, served as mayor of Boston from 1823 to 1828, and in 1829 accepted the post of president of Harvard, which he held until 1845. His remaining years were spent in quiet literary work, and he died at Quincy, July 1, 1864. Among his published works are Memoirs of his father (1825) and of J. Q. Adams (1858), and histories of Harvard University (1840), of the Boston Athenæum (1851), and of Boston (1852). His Speeches were edited (1874) by his son, Edmund Quincy (1808–77), who was secretary of the American Anti-slavery Society, and contributed largely to the Abolitionist press.