Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Paul C. Nagel and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-12-05 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives, Washington D.C.: Congressman John Quincy Adams, rising to speak, suddenly collapses at his desk; two days later, he dies in the Speaker’s chamber. The public mourning that followed, writes Paul C. Nagel, “exceeded anything previously seen in America. Forgotten was his failed presidency and his often cold demeanor. It was the memory of an extraordinary human being—one who in his last years had fought heroically for the right of petition and against a war to expand slavery—that drew a grateful people to salute his coffin in the Capitol and to stand by the railroad tracks as his bier was transported from Washington to Boston.” Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S. senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829), and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in the House). On the basis of a thorough study of Adams’ seventy-year diary, among a host of other documents, the author gives us a richer account than we have yet had of JQA’s life—his passionate marriage to Louisa Johnson, his personal tragedies (two sons lost to alcoholism), his brilliant diplomacy, his recurring depression, his exasperating behavior—and shows us why, in the end, only Abraham Lincoln’s death evoked a great out-pouring of national sorrow in nineteenth-century America. We come to see how much Adams disliked politics and hoped for more from life than high office; how he sought distinction in literacy and scientific endeavors, and drew his greatest pleasure from being a poet, critic, translator, essayist, botanist, and professor of oratory at Harvard; how tension between the public and private Adams vexed his life; and how his frustration kept his masked and aloof (and unpopular). Nagel’s great achievement, in this first biography of America’s sixth president in a quarter century, is finally to portray Adams in all his talent and complexity.

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Fred Kaplan and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “There is much to praise in this extensively researched book, which is certainly one of the finest biographies of a sadly underrated man. . . . [Kaplan is] a master historian and biographer. . . . If he could read this biography, Adams would be satisfied that he had been fairly dealt with at last.” —Carol Berkin, Washington Post In this fresh and illuminating biography, Fred Kaplan, the acclaimed author of Lincoln, brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams—the little-known and much-misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams—and reveals how Adams' inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America. Kaplan draws on a trove of unpublished archival material to trace Adams' evolution from his childhood during the Revolutionary War to his brilliant years as Secretary of State to his time in the White House and beyond. He examines Adams' myriad sides: the public and private man, the statesman and writer, the wise thinker and passionate advocate, the leading abolitionist and fervent federalist. In these ways, Adams was a predecessor of Lincoln and, later, FDR and Obama. This sweeping biography makes clear how Adams' forward-thinking values, his definition of leadership, and his vision for the nation's future is as much about twenty-first-century America as it is about Adams' own time. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, John Quincy Adams paints a rich portrait of this brilliant leader and his vision for a young nation.

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by James Traub and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on Adams' diary, letters, and writings, chronicles the diplomat and president's numerous achievements and failures, revealing his unwavering moral convictions, brilliance, unyielding spirit, and political courage.

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by James E. Lewis and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2001-03-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book focuses on John Quincy Adams's extensive role in foreign policy, including his years as secretary of state and as president. Brief but thorough, John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union analyzes Adams's foreign policy accomplishments during key moments in American history, including the Rush-Bagot Agreement, the Transcontinental Treaty, the recognition of the Spanish-American republics, and the Monroe Doctrine. At the same time, the book shows that Adams was far less successful than many historians suggest. John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union focuses on Adams's ideals of the centrality of the union to American happiness, the necessity of federal action to protect the union, and the indivisibility of foreign and domestic concerns. This book's examination of these three points casts new light on the logic behind many of Adams's accomplishments and also exposes the sources of some of his failures. This is the first study to examine how Adams's views ultimately led to his failure as a policymaker. This book is ideal for courses in diplomatic history, American history, and American political history.

Download or read book Nation Builder written by Charles N. Edel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s rise from revolutionary colonies to a world power is often treated as inevitable. But Charles N. Edel’s provocative biography of John Q. Adams argues that he served as the central architect of a grand strategy whose ideas and policies made him a critical link between the founding generation and the Civil War–era nation of Lincoln.

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Harlow G. Unger and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a leading Founding Fathers historian, a masterful biography of a towering figure in the American nation's formative years.

Download or read book The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams written by Leonard L. Richards and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1986 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This covers the lasts years of John Quincy Adams in his congressional career in great detail.

Download or read book Portraits of John Quincy Adams and His Wife written by Andrew Oliver and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume affords a visual documentation of the most varied political career in American history and exemplifies the work of the principal American portraitists from the days of Copley and Stuart to the dawn of the Daguerrean era. Included in the 159 illustrations are all the known life portraits, busts, and silhouettes of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, along with important replicas, copies, engravings, and representative likenesses of their siblings. The book is organized into seven chapters which generally coincide with the major divisions of John Quincy Adams' political career. Within each chapter are discussed the artists, their relationships with the Adams's, and the provenance of each of their works. A chronology of John Quincy Adams' life for each period accompanies the chapter to which it pertains. Information about the size of each likeness, the inscriptions if any, the date executed, and present ownership where known is summarized in the List of Illustrations. The Adams's, as they watched themselves age over the years in the marble, ink, or oil of the artists who portrayed them, recorded much by way of commentary on the artistic talent and process at hand. The author makes use of the diaries and correspondence preserved in the Adams Papers, thus combining a learned appreciation with an intimate glimpse of Adams's as they saw themselves.

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Lynn Hudson Parsons and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 1999-03-01 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was born in 1767, a subject of the British Empire, and died in 1848, a citizen of the United States and a member of Congress in company with Abraham Lincoln. In his dramatic career he had known George Washington and Benjamiin Franklin, La Fayette of France, Alexander I of Russia, and Castlereagh of Great Britain. He had both collaborated and quarrelled with Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. In his lifetime Americans had fought for and established their independence, adopted a Constitution, fought two wars with Great Britain and one with Mexico. They had expanded south to the Rio Grande and west to the Pacific. At the time of his death, Adams was seen as a living connection between the present and past of the young republic and his passing severed one of the nation's last ties with its founding generation. As son of the second president of the United States, father of the minister to the Court of St. James, and grandfather to author Henry Adams, John Quincy Adams was part of an American dynasty. In his own career as secretary of state, President, senator, and congressman, Adams was as an actor in some of the most dramatic events of the nineteenth century. In this concise biography, Lynn Hudson Parsons masterfully chronicles the life of one of America's most absorbing figures. From the day in 1778 when, as a boy, he accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission to France, to his last years as an eloquent , cantankerous opponent of this country's foreign and domestic policies, Adams was rarely detached from public affairs. And yet, this biography reveals Adams as a man never truly at home anywhere—in Washington he was stubborn and reclusive, in Europe he was a phlegmatic ideologue, a bulldog among spaniels. His story parallels America's own.

Download or read book Narrative Of The Life Of John Quincy Adams When In Slavery And Now As A Freeman written by John Quincy Adams, Former and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this autobiography, John Quincy Adams chronicles his life as a slave and his journey to freedom. Adams offers a firsthand account of the horrors of slavery, as well as his struggles to obtain an education and secure his release from bondage. A powerful and moving work that sheds light on an important chapter in American history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams written by Phyllis Lee Levin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling look at our sixth president, the first biography to look closely at JQ's international life and at his complicated and troubled marriage

Download or read book American Phoenix written by Jane Hampton Cook and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2013-05-06 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Quincy and Louisa Adams’s unexpected journey that changed everything. American Phoenix is the sweeping, riveting tale of a grand historic adventure across forbidding oceans and frozen tundra—from the bustling ports and towering birches of Boston to the remote reaches of pre-Soviet Russia, from an exile in arctic St. Petersburg to resurrection and reunion among the gardens of Paris. Upon these varied landscapes this Adams and his Eve must find a way to transform their banishment into America’s salvation. Author, historian, and national media commentator Jane Hampton Cook breathes life into once-obscure history, weaving a meticulously researched biographical tapestry that reads like a gripping novel. With the arc and intrigue of Shakespearean drama in a Jane Austen era, American Phoenix is a timely yet timeless addition to the recent renaissance of works on the founding Adams family, from patriarchs John and Abigail to the second-generation of John Quincy and Louisa and beyond. Cook has crafted not only a riveting narrative but also an easy-to-understand history filled with fly-on-the-wall vignettes from 1812 and its hardscrabble, freedom-hungry people. While unveiling vivid portrayals of each character—a colorful assortment of heroes and villains, patriots and pirates, rogues and rabble-rousers—she paints equally fresh, intimate portraits of both John Quincy and Louisa Adams. Cook artfully reveals John Quincy’s devastation after losing the job of his dreams, battle for America’s need to thrive economically, and sojourn to secure his homeland’s survival as a sovereign nation. She reserves her most detailed brushstrokes for the inner struggles of Louisa, using this quietly inspirational woman’s own words to amplify her fears, faith, and fortitude along a deeply personal, often heart-rending journey. Cook’s close-up perspective shows how this American couple’s Russian destination changed US destiny.

Download or read book John Quincy Adams written by Marie B. Hecht and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams written by David Waldstreicher and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-06 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams presents a collection of original historiographic essays contributed by leading historians that cover diverse aspects of the lives and politics of John and John Quincy Adams and their spouses, Abigail and Louisa Catherine. Features contributions from top historians and Adams’ scholars Considers sub-topics of interest such as John Adams’ role in the late 18th-century demise of the Federalists, both Adams’ presidencies and efforts as diplomats, religion, and slavery Includes two chapters on Abigail Adams and one on Louisa Adams

Download or read book John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery written by David Waldstreicher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the final years of his political career, President John Quincy Adams was well known for his objections to slavery, with rival Henry Wise going so far as to label him "the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of southern slavery that ever existed." As a young statesman, however, he supported slavery. How did the man who in 1795 told a British cabinet officer not to speak to him of "the Virginians, the Southern people, the democrats," whom he considered "in no other light than as Americans," come to foretell "a grand struggle between slavery and freedom"? How could a committed expansionist, who would rather abandon his party and lose his U.S. Senate seat than attack Jeffersonian slave power, later come to declare the Mexican War the "apoplexy of the Constitution," a hijacking of the republic by slaveholders? What changed? Entries from Adams's personal diary, more extensive than that of any American statesman, reveal a highly dynamic and accomplished politician in engagement with one of his generation's most challenging national dilemmas. Expertly edited by David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason, John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery offers an unusual perspective on the dramatic and shifting politics of slavery in the early republic, as it moved from the margins to the center of public life and from the shadows to the substance of Adams's politics. The editors provide a lucid introduction to the collection as a whole and frame the individual documents with brief and engaging insights, rendering both Adams's life and the controversies over slavery into a mutually illuminating narrative. By juxtaposing Adams's personal reflections on slavery with what he said-and did not say-publicly on the issue, the editors offer a nuanced portrait of how he interacted with prevailing ideologies during his consequential career and life. John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the complicated politics of slavery that set the groundwork for the Civil War.

Download or read book Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams written by William Henry Seward and published by . This book was released on 1856 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire written by William Earl Weeks and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a man, a treaty, and a nation. The man was John Quincy Adams, regarded by most historians as America's greatest secretary of state. The treaty was the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, of which Adams was the architect. It acquired Florida for the young United States, secured a western boundary extending to the Pacific, and bolstered the nation's position internationally. As William Weeks persuasively argues, the document also represented the first determined step in the creation of an American global empire. Weeks follows the course of the often labyrinthine negotiations by which Adams wrested the treaty from a recalcitrant Spain. The task required all of Adams's skill in diplomacy, for he faced a tangled skein of domestic and international controversies when he became secretary of state in 1817. The final document provided the United States commercial access to the Orient—a major objective of the Monroe administration that paved the way for the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Adams, the son of a president and later himself president, saw himself as destined to play a crucial role in the growth and development of the United States. In this he succeeded. Yet his legendary statecraft proved bittersweet. Adams came to repudiate the slave society whose interests he had served by acquiring Florida, he was disgusted by the rapacity of the Jacksonians, and he experienced profound guilt over his own moral transgressions while secretary of state. In the end, Adams understood that great virtue cannot coexist with great power. Weeks's book, drawn in part from articles that won the Stuart Bernath Prize, makes a lasting contribution to our understanding of American foreign policy and adds significantly to our picture of one of the nation's most important statesmen.