Which future U.S. president was a commissioner for the Treaty of Ghent?

John Quincy Adams was a U.S. commissioner for the Treaty of Ghent.

Adams served as the nominal head of the five-member American delegation that negotiated the treaty ending the War of 1812. The other American commissioners were Albert Gallatin, James Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell. Negotiations began in Ghent, in the United Netherlands, in August 1814.

The treaty was signed on December 24, 1814, and largely restored the prewar status quo. It returned captured territory and ended hostilities, but it did not resolve every American grievance, including the issue of British impressment that had helped cause the war.

Adams later became the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. The other options were also important War of 1812 figures—William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson were generals, while James Monroe was secretary of state—but none was an American commissioner at Ghent.