Josiah Quincy

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Josiah Quincy (February 23, 1744 - April 26, 1775) was a famous American lawyer. He was father of the (below) Josiah Quincy, and son of Josiah Quincy (1709-1784). He was born in Boston on February 23, 1744. He was a descendant of Edmund Quincy, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1633, and received in 1636 a grant of land at Mount Wollaston, or Merry Mount, afterwards a part of Braintree and now Quincy. He graduated at Harvard in 1763, and studied law in the office of Oxenbridge Thacher (d. 1765), to whose large practice he succeeded.

In 1767 Quincy contributed to the Boston Gazette two bold papers, signed “Hyperion”, declaiming against British oppression; they were followed by a third in September 1768; and on February 12, 1770 he published in the Gazette a call to his countrymen "to break off all social intercourse with those whose commerce contaminates, whose luxuries poison, whose avarice is insatiable, and whose unnatural oppressions are not to be borne." After the Boston massacre (March 5, 1770) he and John Adams defended Captain Preston and the accused soldiers and secured their acquittal.i He used the signatures Mentor, Callisthenes, Marchmont Needham, Edward Sexby, &c., in later letters to the Boston Gazette.

He travelled for his health in the South in 1773, and left in his journal an interesting account of his travels and of society in South Carolina; this journey was important in that it brought Southern patriots into closer relations with the popular leaders in Massachusetts. In May 1774 he published Observations on the Act of Parliament, commonly called The Boston Port Bill, with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies, in which he urged patriots and heroes to form a compact for oppositiona band for vengeance. In September 1774 he left for England, where he consulted with leading Whigs as to the political situation in America; on March 16, 1775 he started back, but he died on the 26th of April in sight of land.

Josiah Quincy (February 4, 1772 - July 4, 1864) was a U.S. educator and political figure. He was president of Harvard University from 1829 until 1845. He was born in Boston on February 4, 1772. He studied at Phillips Academy, Andover, graduated at Harvard in 1790, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1793, but was never a prominent advocate He became a leader of the Federalist party in Massachusetts; was an unsuccessful candidate for the national House of Representatives in 1800; served in the Massachusetts Senate in. 18045; and was a member in 180513 of the national House of Representatives, where he was one of the small, Federalist minority. He attempted to secure the exemption of fishing vessels from the Embargo Act, urged the strengthening of the American navy, and vigorously opposed the erection of Orleans Territory, Louisiana into a state in 1811, and stated as his deliberate opinion, that if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States that compose it are free from their moral obligations to maintain it; and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation,amicably if they can, violently if they must. This is probably the first assertion of the right of secession on the floor of Congress. Quincy left Congress because he saw that the Federalist opposition was useless, and thereafter was a member of the Massachusetts Senate until 1820; in 1821-22 he was a member and speaker of the state House of Representatives, from which he resigned to become judge of the municipal court of Boston. In 182328 he was mayor of Boston, and in his term Faneuil Hall Market House was built, the fire and police departments were reorganized, and the city's care of the poor was systematized. In 1829-1845 he was president of Harvard College, of which he had been an overseer since 1810, when the board was reorganized; he has been called " the great organizer of the university": he gave an elective (or " voluntary ") system an elaborate trial; introduced a system of marking (on the scale of 8) on which college rank and honors, formerly rather carelessly assigned, were based; first used courts of law to punish students who destroyed or injured college property; and helped to reform the finances of the university. During his term Dane Hall (for law) was dedicated, Gore Hall was built, and the Astronomical Observatory was equipped. His last years were spent principally on his farm in Quincy, where he died on July 1, 1864.