John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life
Author: Paul C Nagel
John Quincy Adams was raised, educated, and groomed to be President, following in the footsteps of his father, John. At fourteen he was secretary to the Minister to Russia and, later, was himself Minister to the Netherlands and Prussia. He was U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and then President for one ill-fated term. His private life showed a parallel descent. He was a poet, writer, critic, and Professor of Oratory at Harvard. He married a talented and engaging Southerner, but two of his three sons were disappointments. This polymath and troubled man, caught up in both a democratic age not to his understanding and the furies of passion, was an American lion in winter.
Publishers Weekly
With his career still on an upward trajectory and the presidency beckoning, Adams, son of the second U.S. president, needed, so he acknowledged, "to repel a reproach which has been very assiduously spread abroad of a reserved, gloomy, unsocial temper." Because he appeared to be "reserved, cold, [and] austere," it was easy for his political rivals to portray him as "a gloomy misanthropist." How he managed, despite wide unpopularity, to become the sixth president is an absorbing story, deftly told here. Nagel (Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the Adams Family) reveals a life bursting with promise, but so dominated by Abigail and John Adams as to extinguish their son's options and plunge him into a lifetime of intermittent depression. The younger Adams was an effective Russian ambassador in his 20s, a senator, a Harvard professor, a secretary of state, then president. In his post-White House years, as a representative from Massachusetts in a period dominated by slavery issues, he was a tenacious, courageous member of Congress, notes the author. At 80, in 1848, on the floor of the House, he rose to speak and collapsed with a stroke, dying two days later. In this brilliant, colorful life, Nagel evokes an Adams heretofore unseen and a Washington of unpaved streets and uncouth political passions. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Library Journal
Of all American public figures, none led a more remarkable life than John Quincy Adams. The son of a president, Adams was an elected congressman, an accomplished diplomat, a president himself, and, after vacating the White House in virtual disgrace, a congressman once again from 1831 until his death in 1848. He was a man of letters, had a passion for science and technology, and, more important for the historian, kept a diary for nearly 70 years. With this excellent biography, Nagel continues a string of successful books on America's first familiesthe Adamses and the Lees (e.g., Descent from Glory, LJ 12/1/82, and The Lees of Virginia, LJ 6/15/90). Nagel focuses more on the private Adams, utilizing diary entries to provide keen insight into this extraordinary man, who often suffered from severe depression. The result is a fascinating psychobiography. Highly recommended for all libraries.Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., Ala.
Kirkus Reviews
A groundbreaking work on one of America's undeservedly neglected great figures that draws on John Quincy Adams's voluminous diaries.
The son of President John Adams, "JQA" (as he often signed himself) seemed born to a life of brilliant public service: He served as secretary to the US envoy to Russia in 1781 at the age of 14 and acted as an assistant to the commission that negotiated the peace that ended the American Revolution. He later served as ambassador to Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain, as a US senator, as secretary of state under President Monroe, and as president (182529). Nagel acknowledges that JQA's was a "failed presidency," the result of dogged charges of a "corrupt bargain": Having lost the popular poll, he won the presidency due to the influence of Speaker Henry Clay, who was then offered the office of secretary of state. JQA's greatest public service came during his long tenure (183148) in the House of Representatives after his presidency. At the risk of censure for misconduct and in violation of the "gag rule" against discussing antislavery laws in the House, he attempted to present a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and then hundreds of antislavery petitions. He also argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court, which won freedom for slaves who had taken over a slave ship. Nagel (Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family, 1983) also acknowledges that JQA's "iron mask," his cold and aloof demeanor, contributed to his unpopularity. But the author attributes this to a recurring depression and contends that JQA was an engaging and affectionate man who wrote well-received poetry, loved scholarship, enjoyed rambling around his home in Quincy, Mass., and was a devoted husband and father.
A finely detailed portrait of a wrongly neglected American statesman who was not a great president, but who was a great hero.
Books about: Easy Party Cakes or The Encyclopedia of Sauces for Your Food
George W. Bushisms: The Slate Book of Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President
Author: Jacob Weisberg
Or did they?
Judge for yourself. Here are over 100 memorable misstatements by our syntactically challenged president, collected, annotated, and introduced by Slate magazine's Jacob Weisberg.
"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
"We'll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers."
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."
"I do know I'm ready for the job [the presidency].
And if not, that's just the way it goes."
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