John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit

Traub, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and author of The Devil's Playground, offers a lengthy and comprehensive account of the political and diplomatic contributions as well as the personal plight of John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth U.S. president and a major figure in early 19th-century history. Drawing primarily from Adams's diaries, letters, and political writings along with contemporaneous newspaper articles and previously published research and analysis, Traub provides a meticulous study of the statesman's public service and private life. Adams surfaces as an ambitious intellectual with deeply held convictions striving to hold his family together through illness, tragedy, and financial woes while relentlessly promoting a strong, active federal government as the young but rapidly expanding and diversifying nation grappled with geographic sectionalism and political partisanship. This rich and occasionally slow account emphasizes Adams's distinguished early career tenure as diplomat and secretary of state, the heated 1824 presidential election resulting in Adams defeating longtime personal and political foe Andrew Jackson, and his tireless effort to force the issue of slavery onto the Congressional floor as a postpresidential member of the House of Representatives.