Table Of ContentADVANCE PRAISE FOR
John Quincy Adams
“James Traub’s new biography of John Quincy Adams is exceptionally strong.
Adams was a complicated hero, a patrician visionary, but also, as Traub puts it, a
militant spirit, one of the most important diplomats in all of American history
and, finally, slavery’s greatest enemy in American politics. Traub does justice to
both the man and his times, with a historian’s sense of complexity and a writer’s
eye for drama and detail.”
—Sean Wilentz, author of
The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln “Certainly by modern
standards, John Quincy Adams doesn’t seem like presidential material: all high
seriousness and rectitude, uncompromising to a fault, precisely not a guy with
whom you want to sit down and have a beer. But James Traub’s beautifully
written, absolutely definitive biography is a surprising page-turner that made me
admire this other President Adams as he finally deserves to be admired—and to
wonder if the species of American civic virtue he embodied, always rare, always
endangered, has not become extinct.”
—Kurt Andersen, author of
True Believers and host of Studio 360
“In the crowded pantheon of politically glamorous Adamses, John Quincy has
long been overshadowed. Here he has finally been given his due. James Traub,
one of America’s most incisive journalists on foreign affairs, has crafted a
moving biography of an unlikely hero—a tense, introspective man who had no
gift for small talk and felt beleaguered by criticism from members of Congress
as well as his own three sons. By capturing Adams’s unflashy brilliance and do-
the-right thing convictions, Traub convinces us that our sixth president is as
worthy of our affection and gratitude as any before or after him.”
—Deborah Solomon, author of American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman
Rockwell
Copyright © 2016 by James Traub.
Published by Basic Books,
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Designed by Cynthia Young
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Traub, James.
John Quincy Adams: militant spirit / James Traub.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-09879-8 (e-book) 1. Adams, John Quincy, 1767–1848. 2. Adams family. 3. Presidents—
United States—Biography. 4. United States—History—1783–1865. 5. United States—Politics and
government—1783–1865. 6. United States—Foreign relations—1783–1865. I. Adams, John Quincy, 1767–
1848. II. Title.
E377.T73 2016
973.55092—dc23
[B]
2015030745
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my father,
Marvin Traub
CONTENTS
Introduction
PART I
HE IS FORMED FOR A STATESMAN
1 The Flame Is Kindled (1767–1778)
2 His Thoughts Are Always Running in a Serious Strain (1778–1780)
3 As Promising and Manly a Youth as Is in the World (1781–1785)
4 You Are Admitted, Adams (1785–1788)
5 Friend of the People (1788–1794)
6 I Shall Be Much Mistaken If He Is Not Soon Found at the Head of the
Diplomatique Corps (1794–1795)
7 A Young Lady of Fine Parts and Accomplishments (1795–1797)
8 President Adams’ Political Telescope (1797–1801)
PART II
WAR AND PEACE
9 I Feel Strong Temptations to Plunge into Political Controversy (1801–1803)
10 Curse on the Stripling, How He Apes His Sire (1803–1804)
11 The Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory (1804–1807)
12 If We Must Perish, Let It Be in Defense of Our Rights (1807–1809)
13 A Bull-Dog Among Spaniels (1809–1812)
14 Restoring the Peace of the World (1812–1814)
15 A Card of Invitation to a Dress Party at the Prince Regent’s (1815–1817)
PART III
TERRITORIAL EXPANSION
16 A Line Straight to the Pacific Ocean (1817–1819)
17 The Bargain Between Freedom and Slavery Is Morally and Politically
Vicious (1819–1820)
18 She Goes Not Abroad in Search of Monsters to Destroy (1820–1822)
19 If He Wishes for Peace with Me, He Must Hold Out the White Flag (1822–
1823)
20 The Most Important Paper That Ever Went from My Hands (1822–1823)
21 Who Can Hold a Fire in His Hand by Thinking on the Frosty Caucasus?
(1823–1824)
22 I Tread on Coals (1824–1825)
PART IV
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT
23 The Spirit of Improvement (1825)
24 An Arrow to the Heart (1825–1827)
25 A Great Man in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time (1825–1826)
26 Cultivating His Garden (1826–1827)
27 The Sun of My Political Career Sets in Deepest Gloom (1828–1829)
PART V
THE SLAVOCRACY
28 Stay Thy Hand, God of Mercy (1829–1831)
29 Our Union: It Must Be Preserved (1831–1833)
30 The Ark of Our God Is Falling into the Hands of the Philistines (1831–1835)
31 Am I Gagged? (1835–1836)
32 I Am Not to Be Intimidated by All the Grand Juries in the Universe (1837)
33 Among the Most Illustrious of the World’s Benefactors (1837–1838)
34 The Captives Are Free! (1838–1841)
35 The Acutest Enemy of Southern Slavery That Ever Existed (1841–1842)
36 The Sober Second Thought of the People (1842–1845)
37 Let Justice Be Done Though the Heavens Fall (1843–1845)
38 The End of Earth (1845–1848)
39 Obsequies
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
