Harvard professor

While a member of the Senate, Adams also served as a professor of logic at Brown University.^[27] Disowned by the Federalists and not fully accepted by the Republicans, he then accepted the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard, and used this as a platform; he assumed this position in 1805 after declining the presidency of Harvard. Adams' devotion to classical rhetoric shaped his response to public issues. He remained 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 Era. Many of Adams' idiosyncratic positions were rooted in his abiding devotion to the Ciceronian ideal of the citizen-orator "speaking well" to promote the welfare of the polis.^[28] He was also influenced by the classical republican ideal of civic eloquence espoused by British philosopher David Hume.^[29] 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.^[30]

First U.S. minister to Russia

President James Madison appointed Adams as the first United States Minister to Russia in 1809. Though Adams had only recently broken with the Federalist Party, his support of Jefferson's foreign policy had earned him goodwill with the Madison Administration.^[31] After resigning his post at Harvard, Adams and his wife Louisa boarded a merchant ship in Boston on Aug. 5, 1809. Their youngest son was with them during the long and tedious voyage to St. Petersburg which was temporarily interrupted outside the southern coast of Norway^[32] due to the Gunboat War. They were at first boarded by a British officer who examined their papers and then, later that day, by a Norwegian officer who ordered the ship to Christiansand. In Christiansand, Adams discovered thirty-eight U.S. vessels had been detained by the Norwegians and determined to gain the release of both ships and crew as soon as possible. The voyage to St. Petersburg resumed but was once again stopped by a British squadron. Adams showed his commission to Admiral Albermarle Bertie, the commander of the Squadron who recognized Adams as an ambassador. Because of the many delays, the Adamses did not arrive in St. Petersburg until October 23, 1809.^[33]