John Quincy Adams

By the standards that historians usually use to judge presidents, John Quincy Adams was a failure. Although better qualified for the office than any American of his generation, he served for only one term and was unable to accomplish any of the most cherished goals set forth so boldly at the beginning of his presidency. His election to the presidency in 1824 was itself fraught with controversy and charges of political corruption and he was soundly defeated in his bid for re-election by Andrew Jackson. To many contemporaries and even some historians, Adams has appeared completely out of touch with the democratic revolution that was transforming American life at the time. He seemed a relic of a discredited, eighteenth-century political world. Yet John Quincy Adams has not shared the fate of other presidential "failures" who have faded almost entirely from the national memory. Indeed, a steady stream of excellent biographies has issued forth from historians who continue to find his life and presidency illustrative of important themes in nineteenth-century American political and cultural history. Adams has gained significant ground on earlier critics and has re-emerged as a first-rate diplomat and as a principled leader. The intention of this book is to provide a concise, synthetic biography of Adams that seeks to integrate the themes of his life into an understandable whole that explains both the successes and failures of his extraordinary career. Using his published journals and writings as basic sources, the book seeks to present a succinct narrative of Adams' career that draws upon the best scholarship on his life and times.