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The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics
Why has John Quincy Adams been largely written out of American history when he is, in fact, our lost Founding Father?
Overshadowed by both his brilliant father and the brash and bold Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams has long been dismissed as hyper-intellectual. Viciously assailed by Jackson and his populist mobs for being both slippery and effete, Adams nevertheless recovered from the malodorous 1828 presidential election to lead the nation as a lonely Massachusetts congressman in the fight against slavery. Now, award-winning historian William J. Cooper insightfully demonstrates that Adams should be considered our lost Founding Father, his moral and political vision the final link to the great visionaries who created our nation. With his heroic arguments in the Amistad trial forever memorialized, a fearless Adams stood strong against the Jacksonian tide, the Gag Rule, and the expansion of slavery that would send the nation hurtling into war. This game-changing biography reveals Adams to be one of the most battered but courageous and inspirational politicians in American history.
Overshadowed by both his brilliant father and the brash and bold Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams has long been dismissed as hyper-intellectual. Viciously assailed by Jackson and his populist mobs for being both slippery and effete, Adams nevertheless recovered from the malodorous 1828 presidential election to lead the nation as a lonely Massachusetts congressman in the fight against slavery. Now, award-winning historian William J. Cooper insightfully demonstrates that Adams should be considered our lost Founding Father, his moral and political vision the final link to the great visionaries who created our nation. With his heroic arguments in the Amistad trial forever memorialized, a fearless Adams stood strong against the Jacksonian tide, the Gag Rule, and the expansion of slavery that would send the nation hurtling into war. This game-changing biography reveals Adams to be one of the most battered but courageous and inspirational politicians in American history.
544 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2017
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624 people want to read
About the author
William J. Cooper Jr.
16 books20 followersWILLIAM J. COOPER, JR., is Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University and a past president of the Southern Historical Association. He was born in Kingstree, South Carolina, and received his AB from Princeton and his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University. He has been a member of the LSU faculty since 1980 and is the author of The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877-1890; The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1816-1856; Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860; Jefferson Davis, American; and coauthor of The American South: A History. He lives in Baton Rouge.
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April 10, 2022
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Most of William Cooper’s ten books are focused on the mid-19th century American South with an emphasis on the Civil War and slavery. But he agreed to undertake this study of John Quincy Adams at the behest of David Herbert Donald’s widow. Donald had begun working on a biography of JQA but died before it could take shape.
By Cooper’s admission, this is not the most comprehensive or detailed survey of John Quincy Adams available. Instead, it is the book that resulted from Cooper’s desire to understand Adams in his era – a period of transformational politics which swept the country from an almost patrician political system to a swashbuckling Jacksonian style. And in that respect this book is enormously successful.
Many readers – particularly those seeking an efficient review of Adams’s life without the sharp brevity of an installment of The American Presidents Series – will appreciate this biography. It provides a smart, no-nonsense and historically perceptive overview of Adams without unnecessary diversions or detail.
Cooper does a nice job exposing Adams’s personality traits…his ascetic nature and rigid self-reliance, his fanatical dedication to self-improvement, his lifelong devotion to his mother and his religious views (including his struggle to balance faith against reason). The reader is also never in doubt about Adams’s lifelong penchant for choosing principle over pragmatism.
Other notably meritorious aspects of this biography include the author’s analysis of Thomas Jefferson, his review of the Amistad case, an uncharacteristically descriptive account of an Adams-hosted gala honoring Andrew Jackson and a lengthy review of Adams’s lengthy post-presidential career in the House of Representatives.
The best feature of Cooper’s book, however, is probably his exploration of Adams’s career-long struggle to maintain moral leadership and public-policy viability while the political landscape shifted around him. A fervent unwillingness to sacrifice his principles – even to maintain good relations with his own party – was costly, but core to Adams’s sense of self.
But readers expecting to understand John Quincy through his relationships with friends, family and colleagues will be disappointed. To the book’s credit, description of the fractious relationship between Adams and Andrew Jackson is fabulous. Adams’s own parents, however, make relatively few appearances and his relationship with his siblings and children (among many others) are largely unexplored.
In addition, readers hoping to encounter a dynamic, colorful narrative or to see the world through Adams’s eyes will instead find a clinical, matter-of-fact writing style largely devoid of unnecessary color, tangents or description. This narrative is penetrating and perceptive but not especially picturesque. Finally, the nine chapters (averaging 50 pages in length) contain little foreshadowing – or summarizing.
Overall, William J. Cooper’s biography of John Quincy Adams is a solid mid-sized treatment of the life of the 6th president. It provides a uniquely thoughtful analysis of Adams career within the context of his era of dramatic political change. What it does not do is provide a consistently captivating story with the degree of literary flourish or level of detail that some readers desire.
Overall Rating: 3¾ stars
Most of William Cooper’s ten books are focused on the mid-19th century American South with an emphasis on the Civil War and slavery. But he agreed to undertake this study of John Quincy Adams at the behest of David Herbert Donald’s widow. Donald had begun working on a biography of JQA but died before it could take shape.
By Cooper’s admission, this is not the most comprehensive or detailed survey of John Quincy Adams available. Instead, it is the book that resulted from Cooper’s desire to understand Adams in his era – a period of transformational politics which swept the country from an almost patrician political system to a swashbuckling Jacksonian style. And in that respect this book is enormously successful.
Many readers – particularly those seeking an efficient review of Adams’s life without the sharp brevity of an installment of The American Presidents Series – will appreciate this biography. It provides a smart, no-nonsense and historically perceptive overview of Adams without unnecessary diversions or detail.
Cooper does a nice job exposing Adams’s personality traits…his ascetic nature and rigid self-reliance, his fanatical dedication to self-improvement, his lifelong devotion to his mother and his religious views (including his struggle to balance faith against reason). The reader is also never in doubt about Adams’s lifelong penchant for choosing principle over pragmatism.
Other notably meritorious aspects of this biography include the author’s analysis of Thomas Jefferson, his review of the Amistad case, an uncharacteristically descriptive account of an Adams-hosted gala honoring Andrew Jackson and a lengthy review of Adams’s lengthy post-presidential career in the House of Representatives.
The best feature of Cooper’s book, however, is probably his exploration of Adams’s career-long struggle to maintain moral leadership and public-policy viability while the political landscape shifted around him. A fervent unwillingness to sacrifice his principles – even to maintain good relations with his own party – was costly, but core to Adams’s sense of self.
But readers expecting to understand John Quincy through his relationships with friends, family and colleagues will be disappointed. To the book’s credit, description of the fractious relationship between Adams and Andrew Jackson is fabulous. Adams’s own parents, however, make relatively few appearances and his relationship with his siblings and children (among many others) are largely unexplored.
In addition, readers hoping to encounter a dynamic, colorful narrative or to see the world through Adams’s eyes will instead find a clinical, matter-of-fact writing style largely devoid of unnecessary color, tangents or description. This narrative is penetrating and perceptive but not especially picturesque. Finally, the nine chapters (averaging 50 pages in length) contain little foreshadowing – or summarizing.
Overall, William J. Cooper’s biography of John Quincy Adams is a solid mid-sized treatment of the life of the 6th president. It provides a uniquely thoughtful analysis of Adams career within the context of his era of dramatic political change. What it does not do is provide a consistently captivating story with the degree of literary flourish or level of detail that some readers desire.
Overall Rating: 3¾ stars
January 15, 2018
The book begins when ten-year-old John Quincy joins his father on assignment to France and then covers his entire life in some areas with either more or less detail. Cooper covers in-depth the period when John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State under President James Monroe. He details Adams’ authorship of the Monroe Doctrine and also his key role in the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty in which the U.S. gained Florida as well as territory from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Cooper analyzes the growing populism and political polarization that presaged Adams’ defeat by Andrew Jackson in the 1828 presidential election. Cooper then covers Adams’ distinguished career in Congress and his Supreme Court argument in the Amistad case.
The book is well written and researched. Cooper wrote a balanced, well-sourced and highly readable book. The book does not break new ground but concentrates on Adams’ work prior to becoming president. Cooper also covers the Antimasons and the Whigs. He places Adams primarily in the time frame of the founding fathers and flows into the Antebellum period. Cooper provides insights into John Quincy’s strengths and weakness.
Cooper wrote the award- winning biography of Jefferson Davis. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is just over sixteen and a half hours. Richard Poe does a good job narrating the book. Poe is an actor and a prolific audiobook narrator.
The book is well written and researched. Cooper wrote a balanced, well-sourced and highly readable book. The book does not break new ground but concentrates on Adams’ work prior to becoming president. Cooper also covers the Antimasons and the Whigs. He places Adams primarily in the time frame of the founding fathers and flows into the Antebellum period. Cooper provides insights into John Quincy’s strengths and weakness.
Cooper wrote the award- winning biography of Jefferson Davis. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is just over sixteen and a half hours. Richard Poe does a good job narrating the book. Poe is an actor and a prolific audiobook narrator.
October 22, 2017
It's not unreasonable to ask whether a new biography of John Quincy Adams is needed. In recent years Paul Nagel, Robert Remini, Harlow Giles Unger, Fred Kaplan, and James Traub have all published books that chronicle the life of America's sixth president, which raises the question of what William J. Cooper offers that is different from these other works. His answer is embodied in the book's title, as he sees Adams not as a figure of the antebellum-era politics in which he served but as more reflective of the generation of the "founding fathers" that preceded it. It's an interesting argument, and one that Cooper supports not just by detailing the commonalities between Adams's politics and those of his father's generation, but also by describing Adams's religious beliefs and enthusiasm for intellectual discovery, which are closer to the Enlightenment-era thinking of the Revolutionary generation than the more Romantic ideas that would characterize the 19th century.
The sense of Adams as a man out of step with his times emerges over the course of Cooper’s book. Part of the reason for this was his upbringing, which was itinerant due to his accompanying his father on diplomatic missions during the American Revolution. Traveling through Europe exposed him more directly to Enlightenment ideals, and gave him the motivation to master several different languages. Such an education helps to explain why President Washington selected the 27-year-old Adams as minister to the Netherlands, as he brought to his job a level of knowledge that belied his youth. This was the start of a succession of diplomatic appointments over the next two decades, broken by a term in the United States Senate, and which culminated in eight years as Secretary of State.
Cooper describes Adams’s early career and presidency in a fairly straightforward manner. It is when he gets to Adams’s post-presidential career in the House of Representatives, however, that his narrative hits its stride. This is understandable given Cooper’s background as an historian of the antebellum South, as he brings a different set of insights to Adams’s involvement in the political issues of the 1830s and 1840s than previous biographers. Foremost among them is Adams’s role in the debates over the “gag rule” over slavery in the House during that time, which Adams was at the forefront of the fight against. Cooper’s explanation of Adams’s relationship with the abolitionist movement during this period is a particular strength of this book, as is its role in his development of his nationwide celebrity. As Cooper demonstrates, even Southerners who opposed his championing of antislavery petitioning esteemed the elderly Adams as a living link to their legendary past, which contributed to the national mourning that greeted his death in 1848.
Cooper’s approach makes for a valuable appreciation of Adams’s significance as both a politician and a national symbol. While concentrating on his political career comes at the coverage of his personal life – with his family absent from the text for pages at a time – this seems an accurate reflection of the life Adams lived, in which public service was always at the forefront. It makes for a book that is an excellent resource for anyone seeing to learn about Adams’s long and distinguished public career, as well as what it represented to a growing nation.
The sense of Adams as a man out of step with his times emerges over the course of Cooper’s book. Part of the reason for this was his upbringing, which was itinerant due to his accompanying his father on diplomatic missions during the American Revolution. Traveling through Europe exposed him more directly to Enlightenment ideals, and gave him the motivation to master several different languages. Such an education helps to explain why President Washington selected the 27-year-old Adams as minister to the Netherlands, as he brought to his job a level of knowledge that belied his youth. This was the start of a succession of diplomatic appointments over the next two decades, broken by a term in the United States Senate, and which culminated in eight years as Secretary of State.
Cooper describes Adams’s early career and presidency in a fairly straightforward manner. It is when he gets to Adams’s post-presidential career in the House of Representatives, however, that his narrative hits its stride. This is understandable given Cooper’s background as an historian of the antebellum South, as he brings a different set of insights to Adams’s involvement in the political issues of the 1830s and 1840s than previous biographers. Foremost among them is Adams’s role in the debates over the “gag rule” over slavery in the House during that time, which Adams was at the forefront of the fight against. Cooper’s explanation of Adams’s relationship with the abolitionist movement during this period is a particular strength of this book, as is its role in his development of his nationwide celebrity. As Cooper demonstrates, even Southerners who opposed his championing of antislavery petitioning esteemed the elderly Adams as a living link to their legendary past, which contributed to the national mourning that greeted his death in 1848.
Cooper’s approach makes for a valuable appreciation of Adams’s significance as both a politician and a national symbol. While concentrating on his political career comes at the coverage of his personal life – with his family absent from the text for pages at a time – this seems an accurate reflection of the life Adams lived, in which public service was always at the forefront. It makes for a book that is an excellent resource for anyone seeing to learn about Adams’s long and distinguished public career, as well as what it represented to a growing nation.
October 17, 2019
I daresay John Quincy Adams has become my favorite president. Although it isn't his presidency that I admire. It is the man and, in particular, his career in Congress following his presidency. He wasn't afraid to speak up for what he believed. He got away with a lot! Politics today pales in comparison with the scathing denunciations that JQA gave publicly.
February 5, 2021
I'm always wary of a book whose author seeks to justify its existence in the preface, by critiquing books that have come before, suggesting that this book will be both different and better. It makes the author sound defensive and dismissive - and if you're going to take that approach, you'd better bring the goods.
In "The Lost Founding Father," Cooper sets out to explain why he's written yet another book about John Quincy Adams, by gently knocking two other recent efforts. He calls Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams: American Visionary and James Traub's John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit "two fat biographies," "lengthy tomes" and "massive." So his main problem with them seems to be that they're long - though each is under 600 pages. Cooper's goal is "to understand John Quincy in his time" - in about 200 fewer pages.
And after reading it, I'm not sure we really needed yet another book about John Quincy Adams.
In describing Adams as the "Lost Founding Father," Cooper considers him a man rooted in a bygone era, emulating the Founders even as the political scene changed dramatically around him. Adams revered the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, and stubbornly clung to the increasingly-outmoded idea that a candidate should not campaign, and a president should not push legislation. That, Cooper concludes, is why Adams was both an unsuccessful president, and why he was later a formidable opponent to the Congressional slaveocracy.
But you have to sift through a lot of uninspired, often elementary and simplistic writing to get at this thesis. Cooper seems to assume zero prior knowledge of American history on the part of the reader. The Continental Congress is described as a place where "men from throughout the colonies came together" and formed a "committee assigned to prepare a document declaring the thirteen American colonies independent." Later, "a group of leaders emerged who were determined to form a truly national government... They called the document delineating their vision the Constitution of the United States."
Sections like that are about as captivating and enlightening as a middle-school textbook. Overall, there's little attempt to craft a story - Cooper writes about things that happened, then about other things that happened, in the order in which they happened. He covers a lot of ground without getting into a lot of detail, lest his book become "massive" like those others. And yet each individual chapter is, on average, about 50 pages long, with no section breaks - so while the book itself isn't lengthy, it feels longer than it is, because the chapters go on and on, covering many years and many topics with no opportunity to take a breath.
The book does have some good qualities. Cooper thoughtfully delves into Adams's religious beliefs and practices. And the best part of the book, to me, was the description of the election of 1824 that was decided in the House. For once, the narrative slows down and becomes deliberate and descriptive, fully chronicling Adams's path to victory and analyzing whether there was really a "corrupt bargain" with Henry Clay that clinched the presidency for Adams - ultimately concluding that, whether or not there was, even the appearance of a deal was an unforced political error that handed their opponents a cudgel to use against Clay and Adams for the rest of their careers.
This is not a terrible book. It's factual and straightforward and well-meaning. It's just not the best John Quincy Adams book out there. Using the preface to compare your book to others, only invites readers to do the same. And I apparently came to a different conclusion about his book than Cooper did.
In "The Lost Founding Father," Cooper sets out to explain why he's written yet another book about John Quincy Adams, by gently knocking two other recent efforts. He calls Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams: American Visionary and James Traub's John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit "two fat biographies," "lengthy tomes" and "massive." So his main problem with them seems to be that they're long - though each is under 600 pages. Cooper's goal is "to understand John Quincy in his time" - in about 200 fewer pages.
And after reading it, I'm not sure we really needed yet another book about John Quincy Adams.
In describing Adams as the "Lost Founding Father," Cooper considers him a man rooted in a bygone era, emulating the Founders even as the political scene changed dramatically around him. Adams revered the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, and stubbornly clung to the increasingly-outmoded idea that a candidate should not campaign, and a president should not push legislation. That, Cooper concludes, is why Adams was both an unsuccessful president, and why he was later a formidable opponent to the Congressional slaveocracy.
But you have to sift through a lot of uninspired, often elementary and simplistic writing to get at this thesis. Cooper seems to assume zero prior knowledge of American history on the part of the reader. The Continental Congress is described as a place where "men from throughout the colonies came together" and formed a "committee assigned to prepare a document declaring the thirteen American colonies independent." Later, "a group of leaders emerged who were determined to form a truly national government... They called the document delineating their vision the Constitution of the United States."
Sections like that are about as captivating and enlightening as a middle-school textbook. Overall, there's little attempt to craft a story - Cooper writes about things that happened, then about other things that happened, in the order in which they happened. He covers a lot of ground without getting into a lot of detail, lest his book become "massive" like those others. And yet each individual chapter is, on average, about 50 pages long, with no section breaks - so while the book itself isn't lengthy, it feels longer than it is, because the chapters go on and on, covering many years and many topics with no opportunity to take a breath.
The book does have some good qualities. Cooper thoughtfully delves into Adams's religious beliefs and practices. And the best part of the book, to me, was the description of the election of 1824 that was decided in the House. For once, the narrative slows down and becomes deliberate and descriptive, fully chronicling Adams's path to victory and analyzing whether there was really a "corrupt bargain" with Henry Clay that clinched the presidency for Adams - ultimately concluding that, whether or not there was, even the appearance of a deal was an unforced political error that handed their opponents a cudgel to use against Clay and Adams for the rest of their careers.
This is not a terrible book. It's factual and straightforward and well-meaning. It's just not the best John Quincy Adams book out there. Using the preface to compare your book to others, only invites readers to do the same. And I apparently came to a different conclusion about his book than Cooper did.
December 16, 2020
John Quincy Adams is not remembered – at least not by me (prior to this book), and I dare say that is true of most Americans – as a significant president in American history, but that is a mistake that our history books used in public schools and even universities (I have a bachelor’s degree in history) seem to make by not highlighting this man’s life in more detail.
Even David McCullough’s masterful biography of John Adams (which I have read twice) doesn’t tell much of JQA’s life, so I began this book hoping to glean some nuggets of information. Instead, I was thrilled to learn of all the many things (some listed below but I may have forgotten some) that he took part in during his long life and career of service.
JQA was present – with his father – for the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that ended the war for American Independence, then served as a secretary to a diplomat in Belgium (because he had learned the language in France and was needed at The Hague as an interpreter). He then served through the next 40 years as a diplomat and ambassador in England, Russia, and Prussia. He spoke and/or read French, Latin, and German, and was always trying to improve his education (and would have liked to read a lot more for pleasure as well as study if not for his calls to public service). He served in the U.S. Senate before becoming Secretary of State under James Monroe, then became the sixth President of the United States. After that, he was elected to represent Massachusetts in the House of Representatives.
But it’s not just the offices he held (and I may have missed some) as much as the events in which he participated. After being present when the treaty confirming the victory over the British in the war of independence was signed in Paris, he was also in the Senate to approve the Louisiana Purchase and was involved in deciding to declare war on the British (and Canada) in The War of 1812, and he was the main negotiator for the Treaty of Ghent that ended that conflict. He also took part in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and was the architect of the Monroe Doctrine. He had involvement in the resettlement of Native Americans from Georgia to the western territories. His election to the presidency was historic, since he didn’t have a plurality of votes (leading to what is known as the “corrupt bargain”).
He, like his father, was a one-term president because of an opponent from a Southern State (in a time of regionalism) who played on the fears that the New Englanders would end slavery or would cater to the interests of the North. His was the last in a series where - from the founding - all had been either a Virginian or a Massachusetts-born president. He believed in abolition but pragmatically understood that it would not come about without a struggle and knew that it would probably involve bloodshed.
It wasn’t so much that he was a unique or great president – his presidency was not particularly significant – but he was a great man of his time that was involved in a lot of different situations. He was, both literally and in the minds of many Americans, the link between the Founding and the times in in which he lived while the nation became continental (as he dreamed when conceiving the Monroe Doctrine).
But the best parts of this book – and they were diamonds in the rough – involved his family. He surely loved his wife and sons, but the loss of their daughter who died in infancy was the greatest sorrow for him and his wife. The book also covers his spirituality and beliefs about religion and God. He kept a journal for decades, often finding it tedious to maintain but knowing its importance to posterity. Ben Franklin gets a lot of credit for his program of self-improvement over his lifetime, but JQA was a man who tried to quietly live according to his principles, and I feel like I am a better person for having seen this glimpse into the life of this great man.
Even David McCullough’s masterful biography of John Adams (which I have read twice) doesn’t tell much of JQA’s life, so I began this book hoping to glean some nuggets of information. Instead, I was thrilled to learn of all the many things (some listed below but I may have forgotten some) that he took part in during his long life and career of service.
JQA was present – with his father – for the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that ended the war for American Independence, then served as a secretary to a diplomat in Belgium (because he had learned the language in France and was needed at The Hague as an interpreter). He then served through the next 40 years as a diplomat and ambassador in England, Russia, and Prussia. He spoke and/or read French, Latin, and German, and was always trying to improve his education (and would have liked to read a lot more for pleasure as well as study if not for his calls to public service). He served in the U.S. Senate before becoming Secretary of State under James Monroe, then became the sixth President of the United States. After that, he was elected to represent Massachusetts in the House of Representatives.
But it’s not just the offices he held (and I may have missed some) as much as the events in which he participated. After being present when the treaty confirming the victory over the British in the war of independence was signed in Paris, he was also in the Senate to approve the Louisiana Purchase and was involved in deciding to declare war on the British (and Canada) in The War of 1812, and he was the main negotiator for the Treaty of Ghent that ended that conflict. He also took part in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and was the architect of the Monroe Doctrine. He had involvement in the resettlement of Native Americans from Georgia to the western territories. His election to the presidency was historic, since he didn’t have a plurality of votes (leading to what is known as the “corrupt bargain”).
He, like his father, was a one-term president because of an opponent from a Southern State (in a time of regionalism) who played on the fears that the New Englanders would end slavery or would cater to the interests of the North. His was the last in a series where - from the founding - all had been either a Virginian or a Massachusetts-born president. He believed in abolition but pragmatically understood that it would not come about without a struggle and knew that it would probably involve bloodshed.
It wasn’t so much that he was a unique or great president – his presidency was not particularly significant – but he was a great man of his time that was involved in a lot of different situations. He was, both literally and in the minds of many Americans, the link between the Founding and the times in in which he lived while the nation became continental (as he dreamed when conceiving the Monroe Doctrine).
But the best parts of this book – and they were diamonds in the rough – involved his family. He surely loved his wife and sons, but the loss of their daughter who died in infancy was the greatest sorrow for him and his wife. The book also covers his spirituality and beliefs about religion and God. He kept a journal for decades, often finding it tedious to maintain but knowing its importance to posterity. Ben Franklin gets a lot of credit for his program of self-improvement over his lifetime, but JQA was a man who tried to quietly live according to his principles, and I feel like I am a better person for having seen this glimpse into the life of this great man.
March 5, 2023
This is an interesting biography of the only person to have been elected president who was subsequently elected to the House of Representatives! The son of the first President Adams, John, John Quincy was also only the second of the early presidents who failed to win re-election – the first being his father John! And yet, as the title of William Cooper’s biography of Adams indicates, he has become for most of us the lost Founding Father.
Late in Cooper’s book he aptly encapsulates\d how John Quincy Adams straddled two very different periods in early American life: the more classically educated, landed-gentry patriarchs of the Founding generation and the much-changed Americans of the early to mid-19th century:
“From the advent of the Jackson presidency, he had watched with growing alarm what he interpreted as the declension of the United States. In his mind the grand design of the Founders, which he shared and cherished, appeared blurrier and blurrier. The prospect of national greatness, with the federal government fostering economic growth and development, had all but disappeared…. Thus for Adams in a fundamental sense, 1829 [the year Andrew Jackson assumed office as president] marked a significant watershed in American history. When he departed the Executive Mansion, the nation of the Founders left with him.
“In its stead he saw a politics centered on a localism that aimed to shackle national power. Holding high the banner of states’ rights, its chieftains, mostly southerners with their northern lackeys, seemed bent on weaving slavery ever more securely into the national fabric. To make matters even more distressing, these men were ardent expansionists, and they strove to expand slavery along with national boundaries.” (P. 396)
When he died in 1848 at age eighty-two – he suffered his second and fatal stroke while at his desk in the House of Representatives – he was aptly mourned as the last of the Founding generation as he had known personally, and been friends with, among others, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. During his long life he served in an amazing number of public positions, including as an ambassador to several countries (including Russia), as Secretary of State, as president, and as a long-time (10-term) member of the House of Representatives.
Like his father John, John Quincy was not really a “man of the people” as we have come to expect of politicians. Like the first several men elected president, he thought it was unseemly to campaign for any office believing that, since such should be filled by men of both principle and experience, the appropriate people would come to him if he were the right man for the job.
The most important take-aways for me from this interesting account of a man who spent his entire adult life in the public sphere are these:
First, he witnessed and lived through the transition from the world of the Founders – one in which a certain element of noblesse oblige was expected of those in high public office and where public service was supposed to be reserved for the best and brightest – to the much more modern world more familiar to us that cannot but be seen as somewhat tawdrier and mud-encased in comparison, a world of mass politics and all of the accompanying rigamarole we have come to expect: almost endless campaigning of some sort, sloganeering in place of policy proposals, and public office being sought by seemingly some of the lowest of the low. Public service? Nah, private opportunity! Serious discussion of public policy options? Nah, the fun and necessity of keeping one’s base ginned up!
With the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, Adams properly perceived that a significant corner had been turned in both the style and content of politics and, indeed, in how public policy was to be considered and pursued.
He hated this new world and despised many of the “new men” who rose to prominence within it. This was also the period in which parties – partisan “factions” in the perspective of the Founders – took more solid and enduring forms and when, again a phenomenon very familiar to us in the 21st century, proposals were advanced or defeated more because of party affiliation and rivalry than on their merits. There were many times when I paused in reading to recognize how much our democratic republic has lost with the introduction of mass democracy as well as gained. Perhaps, when you read this, you will have similar reactions.
Second, he was a man of principal and courage. But he was also a nationalist expansionist and a racist.
Cooper takes considerable pains to show us how what we now know as the Monroe Doctrine was really not only the idea of, but largely penned by, John Quincy Adams. From his earliest public service Adams firmly believed that “destiny” foreordained the United States “filling up the entire continent,” or at least as much of it as possible given that Great Britain had a firm grip on Canada. Thus he was an enthusiastic supporter of Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana purchase, even though it was Jefferson whom he blamed for not only defeating but tarnishing the reputation of his father in the election of 1800. Jefferson was just one of the people in John Quincy’s life whom he came to regard with great disfavor for some of their actions or lack of appropriate principles but whom, nonetheless, he supported when he believed that they were acting in the best long-term interests of the country.
Adams also welcomed both the expansion of the United States into Texas and then into the territories ceded by Mexico after the Mexican American war of the latter 1840s, but he fought rigorously against allowing slavery to expand into those territories and he regarded the war with Mexico as unjust because he thought it was the result of President Polk’s maneuvering and not a conflict originated by Mexican actions.
His slavery of hatred was genuine and ancient; like Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, he believed that truly all men were created equal, and he regarded slavery as not only unjust but as the source of growing and deepening divisions between the states. He also thought it as most regrettable that the Constitution seemed to acknowledge some legitimacy to those who owned slaves in its granting of the 3/5s clause that allowed the South to inflate its numbers in the House of Representatives by counting the slaves they owned, slaves that could be numbered for purposes of representation by their white masters but who otherwise had no rights at all.
As calls for abolition of the slaves and the ending of the institution of slavery began to grow in earnest in the 1830s, Adams courageously brought hundreds of petitions to the floor of the House each year calling for the abolition of slavery, despite the House’s imposition of an effective “gag rule” on receiving these same petitions.
Yet, Adams shared the bias against Black people which most Americans held in those days: while he clearly believed that they were human beings and unjustly deprived of their liberty through the institution of slavery, he also believed them inferior to white people and, like many others, thought that it would be best for both peoples – white and Black – if after being freed they were located “elsewhere.” Adams was one of those who favored the deportation of freed Blacks back to Africa, even though a majority of them by mid-century were people born in the United States, even if their ancestors had been kidnapped from their homelands in Africa.
This book would be of interest both to people who want to know more about John Quincy Adams, but also to those who want to get a more visceral feel for the times through which he lived and the important political, economic, and social issues that were of greatest importance to the people living then.
Like all good history, this study of parts of our past focuses a mirror on our present as well!
Late in Cooper’s book he aptly encapsulates\d how John Quincy Adams straddled two very different periods in early American life: the more classically educated, landed-gentry patriarchs of the Founding generation and the much-changed Americans of the early to mid-19th century:
“From the advent of the Jackson presidency, he had watched with growing alarm what he interpreted as the declension of the United States. In his mind the grand design of the Founders, which he shared and cherished, appeared blurrier and blurrier. The prospect of national greatness, with the federal government fostering economic growth and development, had all but disappeared…. Thus for Adams in a fundamental sense, 1829 [the year Andrew Jackson assumed office as president] marked a significant watershed in American history. When he departed the Executive Mansion, the nation of the Founders left with him.
“In its stead he saw a politics centered on a localism that aimed to shackle national power. Holding high the banner of states’ rights, its chieftains, mostly southerners with their northern lackeys, seemed bent on weaving slavery ever more securely into the national fabric. To make matters even more distressing, these men were ardent expansionists, and they strove to expand slavery along with national boundaries.” (P. 396)
When he died in 1848 at age eighty-two – he suffered his second and fatal stroke while at his desk in the House of Representatives – he was aptly mourned as the last of the Founding generation as he had known personally, and been friends with, among others, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. During his long life he served in an amazing number of public positions, including as an ambassador to several countries (including Russia), as Secretary of State, as president, and as a long-time (10-term) member of the House of Representatives.
Like his father John, John Quincy was not really a “man of the people” as we have come to expect of politicians. Like the first several men elected president, he thought it was unseemly to campaign for any office believing that, since such should be filled by men of both principle and experience, the appropriate people would come to him if he were the right man for the job.
The most important take-aways for me from this interesting account of a man who spent his entire adult life in the public sphere are these:
First, he witnessed and lived through the transition from the world of the Founders – one in which a certain element of noblesse oblige was expected of those in high public office and where public service was supposed to be reserved for the best and brightest – to the much more modern world more familiar to us that cannot but be seen as somewhat tawdrier and mud-encased in comparison, a world of mass politics and all of the accompanying rigamarole we have come to expect: almost endless campaigning of some sort, sloganeering in place of policy proposals, and public office being sought by seemingly some of the lowest of the low. Public service? Nah, private opportunity! Serious discussion of public policy options? Nah, the fun and necessity of keeping one’s base ginned up!
With the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, Adams properly perceived that a significant corner had been turned in both the style and content of politics and, indeed, in how public policy was to be considered and pursued.
He hated this new world and despised many of the “new men” who rose to prominence within it. This was also the period in which parties – partisan “factions” in the perspective of the Founders – took more solid and enduring forms and when, again a phenomenon very familiar to us in the 21st century, proposals were advanced or defeated more because of party affiliation and rivalry than on their merits. There were many times when I paused in reading to recognize how much our democratic republic has lost with the introduction of mass democracy as well as gained. Perhaps, when you read this, you will have similar reactions.
Second, he was a man of principal and courage. But he was also a nationalist expansionist and a racist.
Cooper takes considerable pains to show us how what we now know as the Monroe Doctrine was really not only the idea of, but largely penned by, John Quincy Adams. From his earliest public service Adams firmly believed that “destiny” foreordained the United States “filling up the entire continent,” or at least as much of it as possible given that Great Britain had a firm grip on Canada. Thus he was an enthusiastic supporter of Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana purchase, even though it was Jefferson whom he blamed for not only defeating but tarnishing the reputation of his father in the election of 1800. Jefferson was just one of the people in John Quincy’s life whom he came to regard with great disfavor for some of their actions or lack of appropriate principles but whom, nonetheless, he supported when he believed that they were acting in the best long-term interests of the country.
Adams also welcomed both the expansion of the United States into Texas and then into the territories ceded by Mexico after the Mexican American war of the latter 1840s, but he fought rigorously against allowing slavery to expand into those territories and he regarded the war with Mexico as unjust because he thought it was the result of President Polk’s maneuvering and not a conflict originated by Mexican actions.
His slavery of hatred was genuine and ancient; like Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, he believed that truly all men were created equal, and he regarded slavery as not only unjust but as the source of growing and deepening divisions between the states. He also thought it as most regrettable that the Constitution seemed to acknowledge some legitimacy to those who owned slaves in its granting of the 3/5s clause that allowed the South to inflate its numbers in the House of Representatives by counting the slaves they owned, slaves that could be numbered for purposes of representation by their white masters but who otherwise had no rights at all.
As calls for abolition of the slaves and the ending of the institution of slavery began to grow in earnest in the 1830s, Adams courageously brought hundreds of petitions to the floor of the House each year calling for the abolition of slavery, despite the House’s imposition of an effective “gag rule” on receiving these same petitions.
Yet, Adams shared the bias against Black people which most Americans held in those days: while he clearly believed that they were human beings and unjustly deprived of their liberty through the institution of slavery, he also believed them inferior to white people and, like many others, thought that it would be best for both peoples – white and Black – if after being freed they were located “elsewhere.” Adams was one of those who favored the deportation of freed Blacks back to Africa, even though a majority of them by mid-century were people born in the United States, even if their ancestors had been kidnapped from their homelands in Africa.
This book would be of interest both to people who want to know more about John Quincy Adams, but also to those who want to get a more visceral feel for the times through which he lived and the important political, economic, and social issues that were of greatest importance to the people living then.
Like all good history, this study of parts of our past focuses a mirror on our present as well!
Read
February 2, 2024I always thought of him as president, but it is his important accomplishments and time as Secretary of State that I will remember him for. He spoke French, Dutch, German, and Russian, in addition to Greek and Latin. He read the Bible about an hour every day and when he needed clarification on a passage he would read it in other languages, finding German to be the most helpful in clearing up uncertainties.
His wife was a TCK who was an American citizen but grew up in France and England.
Adamantly opposed to slavery and also to the war with Mexico. Good on ya' cous'!
When his parents joined the Unitarian Church, he could not follow them. It wasn't the kind of Christianity he believed. However, he had great trouble believing the doctrine of the Atonement.
Glad to learn about my supposed 4th cousin several times removed. :)
His wife was a TCK who was an American citizen but grew up in France and England.
Adamantly opposed to slavery and also to the war with Mexico. Good on ya' cous'!
When his parents joined the Unitarian Church, he could not follow them. It wasn't the kind of Christianity he believed. However, he had great trouble believing the doctrine of the Atonement.
Glad to learn about my supposed 4th cousin several times removed. :)
May 25, 2025
I could only hope to live a life so fully devoted to my country’s improvement.
A book full of magnanimity and reflection. John Quincy Adams is deserving of this and much more. He deserves our full inquiring into what duty is and how to have moral fervor when making political decisions.
A book full of magnanimity and reflection. John Quincy Adams is deserving of this and much more. He deserves our full inquiring into what duty is and how to have moral fervor when making political decisions.
November 24, 2017
Having read this book, I now know more about John Quincy Adams then I had ever expected, and I’m glad I picked up this biography on a whim. This is a erudite but highly readable account of the life of John Quincy Adams. The author has an interesting premise, that Adams is a “lost Founding Father.” I’m not sure the author convinced me about that, but he did convincingly show the weakness of Adams’ presidency and how he and the public were out of step during his time as president. His years as president are a small part of the biography and, for me, the least interesting. His life before and after we’re the best and most thoroughly informative sections. Besides the political life of Adams, I think the author also provides a thorough coverage of his personal life and beliefs, particularly Adams’s lifelong study of the Bible and Christianity. I think time is well spent with this biography.
June 13, 2019
Another solid one volume appraisal of JQA, this time focusing on the notion of his personal ethos as a bridge between the Founding generation and that of the quickly expanding North American continent.
In essence, the strength here is a broad overview of American politics from the first Presidency and Congress through the impending crisis of the Civil War. Adams worked with and knew the five American Presidents preceding him, and clashed with and spurned the slavery accommodating and outrageously populist policies of those following him. Literally to his dying day, JQA stood against the expansion of slavery as well as predicting that Civil War would end up being the only solution. The post Presidency 9 term House of Representatives run are most prominently covered here, as are the oppositionary forces that would end up combining against him to prevent his re-election. JQA believed in a robust federal government that would support interstate roads and canals as well as expansionary fiscal policies. But even in the 1820s, rural and insular forces combined to thwart many of his ideals. The irony is that his last few years were spent in opposition to Manifest Destiny, largely because the United States seemed content to rely on war and chicanery to achieve it. Bt the time he fatally collapsed in the House chamber, Texas, Oregon, and California were being assimilated into the United States and his life had been bookended by the original 13 colonies to sea to sea acqusition of territory. This biography is also of benefit for those who don't want the large volume treatment (44o pps).
In essence, the strength here is a broad overview of American politics from the first Presidency and Congress through the impending crisis of the Civil War. Adams worked with and knew the five American Presidents preceding him, and clashed with and spurned the slavery accommodating and outrageously populist policies of those following him. Literally to his dying day, JQA stood against the expansion of slavery as well as predicting that Civil War would end up being the only solution. The post Presidency 9 term House of Representatives run are most prominently covered here, as are the oppositionary forces that would end up combining against him to prevent his re-election. JQA believed in a robust federal government that would support interstate roads and canals as well as expansionary fiscal policies. But even in the 1820s, rural and insular forces combined to thwart many of his ideals. The irony is that his last few years were spent in opposition to Manifest Destiny, largely because the United States seemed content to rely on war and chicanery to achieve it. Bt the time he fatally collapsed in the House chamber, Texas, Oregon, and California were being assimilated into the United States and his life had been bookended by the original 13 colonies to sea to sea acqusition of territory. This biography is also of benefit for those who don't want the large volume treatment (44o pps).
March 6, 2022
Review of: The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics, by William J. Cooper
by Stan Prager (3-6-22)
Until Jimmy Carter came along, there really was no rival to John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) as best ex-president, although perhaps William Howard Taft earns honorable mention for his later service as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Carter—who at ninety-seven still walks among us as this review goes to press—has made his reputation as a humanitarian outside of government after what many view as a mostly failed single term in the White House. Adams, on the other hand, whose one term as the sixth President of the United States (1825-29) was likewise disappointing, managed to establish a memorable outsize official legacy when he returned to serve his country as a member of the House of Representatives from 1831 until his dramatic collapse at his desk and subsequent death inside the Capitol Building in 1848. Freshman Congressman Abraham Lincoln would be a pallbearer.
Like several of the Founders whose own later presidential years were troubled, including his own father, John Quincy had a far more distinguished and successful career prior to his time as Chief Executive. But quite remarkably, unlike these other men—John Adams, Jefferson, Madison—who lingered in mostly quiet retirement for decades beyond their respective tenures, in his long career John Quincy Adams could be said to have equaled or surpassed his accomplished pre-presidential service as diplomat, United States Senator, and Secretary of State, returning as just a simple Congressman from Massachusetts who was to be a giant in antislavery advocacy. Adams remains the only former president elected to the House, and until George W. Bush in 2001, the only man who could claim his own father as a fellow president.
Notably, the single unsatisfactory terms that he and his father served in the White House turned out to be bookends to a significant era in American history: John Adams was the first to run for president in a contested election (Washington had essentially been unopposed); his son’s tenure ended along with the Early Republic, shattered by the ascent of Jacksonian democracy. But if the Early Republic was no more, it marked only the beginning of another chapter in the extraordinary life of John Quincy Adams. And yet, for a figure that carved such indelible grooves in our nation’s history, present at the creation and active well into the crises of the antebellum period that not long after his death would threaten to annihilate the American experiment, it remains somewhat astonishing how utterly unfamiliar he remains to most citizens of the twenty-first century.
Prominent historian William J. Cooper seeks to remedy that with The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics (2017), an exhaustively researched, extremely well-written, if dense study that is likely to claim distinction as the definitive biography for some years to come. Cooper’s impressive work is old-fashioned narrative history at its best. John Quincy Adams is the main character, but his story is told amid the backdrop of the nation’s founding, its evolution as a young republic, and its descent to sectional crises over slavery, while many, at home and abroad, wondered at the likelihood of its survival. It is not only clever but entirely apt that in the book’s title the author dubs his subject the “Lost Founding Father.”
Some have called Benjamin Franklin the “grandfather of his country.” Likewise, John Quincy Adams could be said to be a sort of “grandson.” He was not only to witness the tumultuous era of the American Revolution and observe John Adams’ storied role as a principal Founder, he also accompanied his father on diplomatic missions to Europe while still a boy, and completed most of his early education there. Like Franklin, Jefferson, and his father, he spent many years abroad during periods of fast-moving events and dramatic developments on American soil that altered the nation and could prove jarring upon return. Unlike the others, his extended absence coincided with his formative years; John Quincy grew up not in New England but rather in France, the Netherlands, Russia, and Great Britain, and this came to deeply affect him.
A brooding intellectual with a brilliant mind who sought solitude over society, dedicated to principle above all else, including loyalty to party, the Adams that emerges in these pages was a socially awkward workaholic subject to depression, blessed with a wide range of talents that ranged from the literary to languages to the deeply analytical, but lacking even the tiniest vestige of charisma. He strikes the reader as the least suitable person to ever aspire to or serve as president of the United States. A gifted writer, he began a diary when he was twelve years old that he continued almost without interruption until shortly before his death. He frequently expressed dismay at his inability to keep up with his ambitious goals for daily diary entries that often ran to considerable length.
There is much in the man that resembles his father, also a principled intellect, whom he much admired even while he suffered a sense of inadequacy in his shadow. Both men were stubborn in their ideals and tended to alienate those who might otherwise be allies. While each could be self-righteous, John Adams was also ever firmly self-confident in a way that his son could never match. Of course, in his defense, the younger man not only felt obligated to live up to a figure who was a titan in the public arena, but he lacked a wife that was cut from the same cloth as his mother, with whom he had a sometimes-troubled relationship.
Modern historians have made much of the historic partnership that existed, mostly behind the scenes, between John and Abigail Adams; in every way except eighteenth century mores she seems his equal. John Quincy, on the other hand, was wedded to Louisa Catherine, a sickly woman given to fainting spells and frequent migraines whose multiple miscarriages coupled with the loss of an infant daughter certainly triggered severe psychological trauma. A modern audience can’t help but wonder if her many maladies and histrionics were not psychosomatic. At any rate, John Quincy treated his wife and other females he encountered with the patronizing male chauvinism typical of his times, so it is dubious that if he instead found an Abigail Adams at his side, he could have flourished in her orbit the way his father did.
Although Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was largely the force that drove the landmark “Monroe Doctrine” and other foreign policy achievements of the Monroe Administration, most who know of Adams tend to know of him only peripherally, through his legendary political confrontation with the far more celebrated Andrew Jackson. That conflict was forged in the election of 1824. The Federalist Party, scorned for threats of New England secession during the War of 1812, was essentially out of business. James Monroe was wrapping up his second term in what historians have called the “Era of Good Feelings” that ostensibly reflected a sense of national unity controlled by a single party, the Democratic-Republicans, but there were fissures, factions, local interests, and emerging coalitions beneath the surface. In the most contested election to date in the nation’s history, John Quincy, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford were chief contenders for the highest office. While Jackson received a plurality, none received a majority of the electoral votes, so as specified in the Constitution the race was sent to the House for decision. Crawford had suffered a devastating stroke and was thus out of consideration. Adams and Clay tended to clash, but both were aligned on many national issues, and Jackson was rightly seen as a dangerous demagogue. Clay threw his support to Adams, who became president. Jackson was furious, even more so when Adams later named Clay Secretary of State, which was then seen as a sure steppingstone to the presidency, something that further enraged Jackson, who branded his appointment by Adams a “Corrupt Bargain.” As it turned out, while Adams prevailed, his presidency was marked by frustration, his ambitious domestic goals stymied by Congress. In a run for reelection, he was dealt a humiliating defeat by Jackson, who headed the new Democratic Party. The politics of John Quincy Adams and the Early Republic went extinct.
While evaluating these two elections, it’s worth pausing here to emphasize John Quincy’s longtime objection to the nefarious if often overlooked impact of the three-fifths clause in the Constitution, which granted southern slaveholding states outsize political clout by counting an enslaved individual as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation. This was to prove significant, since the slave south claimed a disproportionate share of national political power when it came to advancing legislation or, for that matter, electing a president. He found focus on this issue while Secretary of State in the debate that swirled around the Missouri Compromise of 1820, concluding that:
The bargain in the Constitution between freedom and slavery had conveyed to the South far too much political influence, its base the notorious three-fifths clause, which immorally increased southern power in the nation … the past two decades had witnessed a southern domination that had ravaged the Union … he emphasized what he saw as the moral viciousness of that founding accord. It contradicted the fundamental justification of the American Revolution by subjecting slaves to oppression while privileging their masters with about a double representation. [p174]
This was years before he was himself to fall victim to the infamous clause. As underscored by historian Alan Taylor in his recent work, American Republics (2021), the disputed election of 1824 would have been far less disputed without the three-fifths clause, since in that case Adams would have led Andrew Jackson in the Electoral College 83 to 77 votes, instead of putting Jackson in the lead 99 to 84. When Jackson prevailed in the next election in 1828, it was the south that cemented his victory. The days of Virginia planters in the White House may have passed, but the slave south clearly dominated national politics and often served as antebellum kingmaker for the White House.
In any case, Adams’ dreams of vindicating his father’s single term were dashed. A lesser man would have gone off into the exile of retirement, but Adams was to come back—and come back stronger than ever as a political figure to be reckoned with, distinguished by his fierce antislavery activism. His abhorrence of human bondage ran deep, and long preceded his return to Congress. And because he kept such a detailed journal, we have insight into his most personal convictions.
Musing once more about the Missouri Compromise, he confided to his diary his belief that a war over slavery was surely on the horizon that would ultimately result in its elimination: “If slavery be the destined sword in the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of this Union … the same sword will cut in sunder the bonds of slavery itself.” [p173] He also wrote of his conversations with the fellow cabinet secretary he most admired at the time, South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, who clearly articulated the doctrine of white supremacy that defined the south. To Adams’ disappointment, Calhoun told him that southerners did not believe the Declaration’s guarantees of universal rights applied to blacks, and “Calhoun maintained that racial slavery guaranteed equality among whites because it placed all of them above blacks.” [p175]
These diary entries from 1820 came to foreshadow the more crisis-driven politics in the decades hence when Adams—his unhappy presidency long behind him—was the leading figure in Congress who stood against the south’s “peculiar institution” and southern domination of national politics. These were, of course, far more fraught times. He opposed both Texas annexation and the Mexican War, which he correctly viewed as a conflict designed to extend slavery. But he most famously led the opposition against the 1836 resolution known as the “gag rule” that prohibited House debate on petitions to abolish slavery, which incensed the north and spawned greater polarization. Adams was eventually successful, and the gag rule was repealed, but not until 1844.
It has long been my goal to read at least one biography of each American president, and I came to Cooper’s book with that objective in mind. I found my time with it a deeply satisfying experience, although I suspect because it is so pregnant in detail it will find less appeal among a more popular audience. Still, if you want to learn about this too often overlooked critical figure and at the same time gain a greater understanding of an important era in American history, I would highly recommend that you turn to The Lost Founding Father.
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Note: I reviewed the referenced Alan Taylor work here …. Review of: American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850, by Alan Taylor https://regarp.com/2021/12/11/review-...
Review of: The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics, by William J. Cooper https://regarp.com/2022/03/06/review-...
by Stan Prager (3-6-22)
Until Jimmy Carter came along, there really was no rival to John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) as best ex-president, although perhaps William Howard Taft earns honorable mention for his later service as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Carter—who at ninety-seven still walks among us as this review goes to press—has made his reputation as a humanitarian outside of government after what many view as a mostly failed single term in the White House. Adams, on the other hand, whose one term as the sixth President of the United States (1825-29) was likewise disappointing, managed to establish a memorable outsize official legacy when he returned to serve his country as a member of the House of Representatives from 1831 until his dramatic collapse at his desk and subsequent death inside the Capitol Building in 1848. Freshman Congressman Abraham Lincoln would be a pallbearer.
Like several of the Founders whose own later presidential years were troubled, including his own father, John Quincy had a far more distinguished and successful career prior to his time as Chief Executive. But quite remarkably, unlike these other men—John Adams, Jefferson, Madison—who lingered in mostly quiet retirement for decades beyond their respective tenures, in his long career John Quincy Adams could be said to have equaled or surpassed his accomplished pre-presidential service as diplomat, United States Senator, and Secretary of State, returning as just a simple Congressman from Massachusetts who was to be a giant in antislavery advocacy. Adams remains the only former president elected to the House, and until George W. Bush in 2001, the only man who could claim his own father as a fellow president.
Notably, the single unsatisfactory terms that he and his father served in the White House turned out to be bookends to a significant era in American history: John Adams was the first to run for president in a contested election (Washington had essentially been unopposed); his son’s tenure ended along with the Early Republic, shattered by the ascent of Jacksonian democracy. But if the Early Republic was no more, it marked only the beginning of another chapter in the extraordinary life of John Quincy Adams. And yet, for a figure that carved such indelible grooves in our nation’s history, present at the creation and active well into the crises of the antebellum period that not long after his death would threaten to annihilate the American experiment, it remains somewhat astonishing how utterly unfamiliar he remains to most citizens of the twenty-first century.
Prominent historian William J. Cooper seeks to remedy that with The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics (2017), an exhaustively researched, extremely well-written, if dense study that is likely to claim distinction as the definitive biography for some years to come. Cooper’s impressive work is old-fashioned narrative history at its best. John Quincy Adams is the main character, but his story is told amid the backdrop of the nation’s founding, its evolution as a young republic, and its descent to sectional crises over slavery, while many, at home and abroad, wondered at the likelihood of its survival. It is not only clever but entirely apt that in the book’s title the author dubs his subject the “Lost Founding Father.”
Some have called Benjamin Franklin the “grandfather of his country.” Likewise, John Quincy Adams could be said to be a sort of “grandson.” He was not only to witness the tumultuous era of the American Revolution and observe John Adams’ storied role as a principal Founder, he also accompanied his father on diplomatic missions to Europe while still a boy, and completed most of his early education there. Like Franklin, Jefferson, and his father, he spent many years abroad during periods of fast-moving events and dramatic developments on American soil that altered the nation and could prove jarring upon return. Unlike the others, his extended absence coincided with his formative years; John Quincy grew up not in New England but rather in France, the Netherlands, Russia, and Great Britain, and this came to deeply affect him.
A brooding intellectual with a brilliant mind who sought solitude over society, dedicated to principle above all else, including loyalty to party, the Adams that emerges in these pages was a socially awkward workaholic subject to depression, blessed with a wide range of talents that ranged from the literary to languages to the deeply analytical, but lacking even the tiniest vestige of charisma. He strikes the reader as the least suitable person to ever aspire to or serve as president of the United States. A gifted writer, he began a diary when he was twelve years old that he continued almost without interruption until shortly before his death. He frequently expressed dismay at his inability to keep up with his ambitious goals for daily diary entries that often ran to considerable length.
There is much in the man that resembles his father, also a principled intellect, whom he much admired even while he suffered a sense of inadequacy in his shadow. Both men were stubborn in their ideals and tended to alienate those who might otherwise be allies. While each could be self-righteous, John Adams was also ever firmly self-confident in a way that his son could never match. Of course, in his defense, the younger man not only felt obligated to live up to a figure who was a titan in the public arena, but he lacked a wife that was cut from the same cloth as his mother, with whom he had a sometimes-troubled relationship.
Modern historians have made much of the historic partnership that existed, mostly behind the scenes, between John and Abigail Adams; in every way except eighteenth century mores she seems his equal. John Quincy, on the other hand, was wedded to Louisa Catherine, a sickly woman given to fainting spells and frequent migraines whose multiple miscarriages coupled with the loss of an infant daughter certainly triggered severe psychological trauma. A modern audience can’t help but wonder if her many maladies and histrionics were not psychosomatic. At any rate, John Quincy treated his wife and other females he encountered with the patronizing male chauvinism typical of his times, so it is dubious that if he instead found an Abigail Adams at his side, he could have flourished in her orbit the way his father did.
Although Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was largely the force that drove the landmark “Monroe Doctrine” and other foreign policy achievements of the Monroe Administration, most who know of Adams tend to know of him only peripherally, through his legendary political confrontation with the far more celebrated Andrew Jackson. That conflict was forged in the election of 1824. The Federalist Party, scorned for threats of New England secession during the War of 1812, was essentially out of business. James Monroe was wrapping up his second term in what historians have called the “Era of Good Feelings” that ostensibly reflected a sense of national unity controlled by a single party, the Democratic-Republicans, but there were fissures, factions, local interests, and emerging coalitions beneath the surface. In the most contested election to date in the nation’s history, John Quincy, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford were chief contenders for the highest office. While Jackson received a plurality, none received a majority of the electoral votes, so as specified in the Constitution the race was sent to the House for decision. Crawford had suffered a devastating stroke and was thus out of consideration. Adams and Clay tended to clash, but both were aligned on many national issues, and Jackson was rightly seen as a dangerous demagogue. Clay threw his support to Adams, who became president. Jackson was furious, even more so when Adams later named Clay Secretary of State, which was then seen as a sure steppingstone to the presidency, something that further enraged Jackson, who branded his appointment by Adams a “Corrupt Bargain.” As it turned out, while Adams prevailed, his presidency was marked by frustration, his ambitious domestic goals stymied by Congress. In a run for reelection, he was dealt a humiliating defeat by Jackson, who headed the new Democratic Party. The politics of John Quincy Adams and the Early Republic went extinct.
While evaluating these two elections, it’s worth pausing here to emphasize John Quincy’s longtime objection to the nefarious if often overlooked impact of the three-fifths clause in the Constitution, which granted southern slaveholding states outsize political clout by counting an enslaved individual as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation. This was to prove significant, since the slave south claimed a disproportionate share of national political power when it came to advancing legislation or, for that matter, electing a president. He found focus on this issue while Secretary of State in the debate that swirled around the Missouri Compromise of 1820, concluding that:
The bargain in the Constitution between freedom and slavery had conveyed to the South far too much political influence, its base the notorious three-fifths clause, which immorally increased southern power in the nation … the past two decades had witnessed a southern domination that had ravaged the Union … he emphasized what he saw as the moral viciousness of that founding accord. It contradicted the fundamental justification of the American Revolution by subjecting slaves to oppression while privileging their masters with about a double representation. [p174]
This was years before he was himself to fall victim to the infamous clause. As underscored by historian Alan Taylor in his recent work, American Republics (2021), the disputed election of 1824 would have been far less disputed without the three-fifths clause, since in that case Adams would have led Andrew Jackson in the Electoral College 83 to 77 votes, instead of putting Jackson in the lead 99 to 84. When Jackson prevailed in the next election in 1828, it was the south that cemented his victory. The days of Virginia planters in the White House may have passed, but the slave south clearly dominated national politics and often served as antebellum kingmaker for the White House.
In any case, Adams’ dreams of vindicating his father’s single term were dashed. A lesser man would have gone off into the exile of retirement, but Adams was to come back—and come back stronger than ever as a political figure to be reckoned with, distinguished by his fierce antislavery activism. His abhorrence of human bondage ran deep, and long preceded his return to Congress. And because he kept such a detailed journal, we have insight into his most personal convictions.
Musing once more about the Missouri Compromise, he confided to his diary his belief that a war over slavery was surely on the horizon that would ultimately result in its elimination: “If slavery be the destined sword in the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of this Union … the same sword will cut in sunder the bonds of slavery itself.” [p173] He also wrote of his conversations with the fellow cabinet secretary he most admired at the time, South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, who clearly articulated the doctrine of white supremacy that defined the south. To Adams’ disappointment, Calhoun told him that southerners did not believe the Declaration’s guarantees of universal rights applied to blacks, and “Calhoun maintained that racial slavery guaranteed equality among whites because it placed all of them above blacks.” [p175]
These diary entries from 1820 came to foreshadow the more crisis-driven politics in the decades hence when Adams—his unhappy presidency long behind him—was the leading figure in Congress who stood against the south’s “peculiar institution” and southern domination of national politics. These were, of course, far more fraught times. He opposed both Texas annexation and the Mexican War, which he correctly viewed as a conflict designed to extend slavery. But he most famously led the opposition against the 1836 resolution known as the “gag rule” that prohibited House debate on petitions to abolish slavery, which incensed the north and spawned greater polarization. Adams was eventually successful, and the gag rule was repealed, but not until 1844.
It has long been my goal to read at least one biography of each American president, and I came to Cooper’s book with that objective in mind. I found my time with it a deeply satisfying experience, although I suspect because it is so pregnant in detail it will find less appeal among a more popular audience. Still, if you want to learn about this too often overlooked critical figure and at the same time gain a greater understanding of an important era in American history, I would highly recommend that you turn to The Lost Founding Father.
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Note: I reviewed the referenced Alan Taylor work here …. Review of: American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850, by Alan Taylor https://regarp.com/2021/12/11/review-...
Review of: The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics, by William J. Cooper https://regarp.com/2022/03/06/review-...
January 31, 2022
I learned a lot, although that might reflect me not paying enough attention in high school. I didn't remember Adams' election to the presidency being so contentious, and (ahem) Jackson using the narrative of a stolen election to spearhead efforts to win four years later.
And I respect Adams a lot more now - I had thought of him as an intellectual wonk lacking social skills, and maybe he was, but his wonkiness was also shrewd, and his strategies in his congressional career were near the level of a Henry Clay or an LBJ.
And I respect Adams a lot more now - I had thought of him as an intellectual wonk lacking social skills, and maybe he was, but his wonkiness was also shrewd, and his strategies in his congressional career were near the level of a Henry Clay or an LBJ.
October 12, 2020
Another solid biography of John Quincy Adams. This book focuses on his political life and spends very little time at all talking about his relationships of family life. I think a bit more on his marriage may have helped make the narrative more engaging, but I did enjoy the read as I still find Quincy Adams a fascinating figure.
Love the quote the author used to end the book from Adams - "Proceed - Persevere - Never Despair - don't give up the Ship."
Love the quote the author used to end the book from Adams - "Proceed - Persevere - Never Despair - don't give up the Ship."
January 28, 2021
Due to JQA's prolific diary writing, and more importantly, the self-reflective nature of his diary, this biography had a very different feel than most others I've read. Lots of biographies try to give you a picture of what's going on in the subject's mind by showing you what's going on outside. For this one, you get a picture of what's going on outside by what's going on in JQA's mind.
March 1, 2022
Although it took me a while to cover the great length of the book, I found it to be an interesting historical read. The book analyzes John Quincy Adams as a link between the Revolutionary era and the political dilemma on the eve of the American Civil War. The book creates an excellent portrait of the political life and career of the 6th President of the United States.
August 9, 2025
“Proceed—Persevere—Never despair—don’t give up the ship.”
November 2, 2020
As a fan of all things JQA I was anxious to read this most recent addition to Adams scholarship. Dr. Cooper did not disappoint. It is an engaging and sympathetic view of a great man. Since Cooper's argument is mostly that JQA was in fact more in line with the Founding generation than his own, he skips around the chronology quite a bit. That makes this more recommended for people familiar with Adams' life and work to simply delve deeper than as an introduction or a good birth to death biography. I am not entirely sure Cooper makes his case that Adams was more in line with the Founders than the 19th century, because there are long periods where he seems to forget about that line of reasoning. But it was well worth the time and a good addition to JQA scholarship.
September 26, 2021
John Quincy Adams was one of several Presidents that I knew little about. After reading this book, I can no longer make that claim. Cooper provides details on every facet of JQA's life. He was a bit of an odd duck. Obviously born to privilege, he spent many of his early years overseas with his father. Later he spent many years on various diplomatic postings, having been appointed to them by all the early Presidents except Jefferson. I did not find him particularly likable. He seemed to have a very stoic approach to life, with no obvious indulgences. When he became engaged to his future wife, he kept postponing the marriage. He was driven by his work. He was also a bit of an anachronism. He refused to campaign for any position, despite competing against opponents who had begun the modern practice of campaigning. He was happy being a contrarian. He was elected President despite not having won the popular vote over Andrew Jackson (although apparently there is some possibility that he did win it). He was never a popular President. Much of his best work occurred after his Presidency, when he joined the House of Representatives. I think I would have liked him then, because he fought against the pro-slavery South in every instance. He abhorred the 3/5 rule that allowed Southern states to gain unearned Electoral votes and representation by counting their slaves as 3/5 of a person. He desperately wanted to end slavery, and certainly avoid the expansion of slavery. He did not see how the US could stand as a country while allowing slavery to exist. He hated the Southern Senators and Representatives who supported it, and he hated Presidents like Jackson, Tyler, and Polk who worked to expand slavery. Once he was no longer a candidate for national office, he could speak his mind more openly. So I gained enormous respect for him in his post-Presidency years in the House of Representatives. He was not a great President, but his overall contributions in diplomatic roles, as Secretary of State under James Monroe (he wrote the Monroe Doctrine), as President, and in the House, make him one of the giants of the early US, although he has largely been forgotten.
April 7, 2025
The overshadowed son of a Founding Father had an impressive public service life himself, including serving as secretary of state and U.S. president. Unusual for the era, John Quincy lived with his diplomatic famous father overseas or later handled foreign government assignments himself to France, England, Russia, Germany, and the Netherlands. He became conversant in multiple languages and perhaps is the most well-read president ever. The Bible and Shakespeare were his constant companions.
He and his wife Louisa, who suffered nine miscarriages as well as a stillbirth, left their two oldest sons behind during their formative years in the U.S. while on a five-year mission to Russia. These two sons died in early adulthood, one from suicide, the other from alcoholism.
John Quincy's accomplishments are little known, but they include serving as chief negotiator for the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 with Great Britain; formulating the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819 that made the U.S. a true continental power, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; authoring the Monroe Doctrine; and leading the committee that oversaw the creation of the Smithsonian Institution.
Adams became the first public figure to express doubt that the U.S. could continue indefinitely with both free and slave states. In an age when the South dominated national politics, he believed the end of slavery in the nation had to happen, no matter what the price. As the first ex-president to serve in public office (being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives nine times), Adams took center stage in denouncing slavery. Even though he hadn't argues a case in over 30 years, Adams represented the slaves in the famed Amistad case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The book gives short shrift to Adams's actual presidency. The text tends to be repetitive, especially regarding Adams's opposition to slavery.
He and his wife Louisa, who suffered nine miscarriages as well as a stillbirth, left their two oldest sons behind during their formative years in the U.S. while on a five-year mission to Russia. These two sons died in early adulthood, one from suicide, the other from alcoholism.
John Quincy's accomplishments are little known, but they include serving as chief negotiator for the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 with Great Britain; formulating the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819 that made the U.S. a true continental power, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; authoring the Monroe Doctrine; and leading the committee that oversaw the creation of the Smithsonian Institution.
Adams became the first public figure to express doubt that the U.S. could continue indefinitely with both free and slave states. In an age when the South dominated national politics, he believed the end of slavery in the nation had to happen, no matter what the price. As the first ex-president to serve in public office (being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives nine times), Adams took center stage in denouncing slavery. Even though he hadn't argues a case in over 30 years, Adams represented the slaves in the famed Amistad case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The book gives short shrift to Adams's actual presidency. The text tends to be repetitive, especially regarding Adams's opposition to slavery.
May 17, 2018
This is a great book for the person truly interested in politics! There is biographical info about John Quincy, his relationship with his parents and with his sons, and highlights about Louisa. But, this is not a biographical text; the title is appropriate, the transformation of American politics.
I very much appreciated learning about early American diplomacy by John Quincy, our first diplomat (beyond our relations with England and England). And, about his role/development of many foreign and domestic policies...the Monroe Doctrine was his concept, his battle for the concept, and his authorship. John Quincy had prescient views, arguments, and life-long opinions about the horrors of slavery. He fought the good fights to limit slavery. Cooper gave excellent (best I've ever read) insight into Constitutions 3/5s rule, the Missouri Compromise, and many other important American historical decisions.
I was never aware of the Adams-Onis Treaty... when James Quincy negotiated with Spain to expand the United States across the whole northern half of the continent, west of the Mississippi -- partly along the Sabine River.
Cooper, the author, wrote clearly enough about the Federalists vs. the Republicans that I believe I finally have the differences in my head. He wrote about political strategies, like Federalists vs. Republicans, in context with very good examples from historic characters.
I believe that the Cooper, the author, wrote very well and shared quotes to give insight into John Quincy's character..."He was spoken of as honest and quite well informed. Yet his vehement opinions and rigid manners came to define his temperament." "Too tenacious of his opinions."
I very much appreciated learning about early American diplomacy by John Quincy, our first diplomat (beyond our relations with England and England). And, about his role/development of many foreign and domestic policies...the Monroe Doctrine was his concept, his battle for the concept, and his authorship. John Quincy had prescient views, arguments, and life-long opinions about the horrors of slavery. He fought the good fights to limit slavery. Cooper gave excellent (best I've ever read) insight into Constitutions 3/5s rule, the Missouri Compromise, and many other important American historical decisions.
I was never aware of the Adams-Onis Treaty... when James Quincy negotiated with Spain to expand the United States across the whole northern half of the continent, west of the Mississippi -- partly along the Sabine River.
Cooper, the author, wrote clearly enough about the Federalists vs. the Republicans that I believe I finally have the differences in my head. He wrote about political strategies, like Federalists vs. Republicans, in context with very good examples from historic characters.
I believe that the Cooper, the author, wrote very well and shared quotes to give insight into John Quincy's character..."He was spoken of as honest and quite well informed. Yet his vehement opinions and rigid manners came to define his temperament." "Too tenacious of his opinions."
July 14, 2025
I only knew a little about our sixth president before I read this book. OK, so John Quincy Adams (JQA) was the first son of a former president to win the White House, was good at languages, narrowly won the election in 1824 and successfully argued the landmark Amistad case before our Supreme Court. But few other information about this man had planted itself in my memory.
This careful, readable book will fill in a lot of gaps for every reader interested in American history.
JQA led the United States negotiating team in Ghent, Belgium that allowed both the UK and the USA to strike a binding deal to end fighting a largely naval war that started in 1812. As the American leader of the negotiating team, he signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814 that ended the war. (General Jackson thoroughly beat the British fifteen days later at New Orleans on January 8, 1815. But of course neither combatant knew what occurred in Belgium days prior given the primitive communications of that era.)
After his one term in the presidency, JQA aspired to retire to Massachusetts and lead a scholarly life as a writer. Not to be: he was recruited to run for office as a Congressional representative and won repetitively. He served in Congress for the rest of his life and proved to be a stalwart champion against the hideous affliction of slavery. He was felled by a stroke and entered his repose three days later as he lay stricken in an office of the Capital.
One troubling personal belief of this Patriot came to light in this book: his confusion about the Divinity of Jesus Christ. JQA commendably endeavored to read his Bible every day with an annual goal of reading the entire volume right through every year. Admirable. How then is it possible for him to miss a central doctrine of Biblical Christianity: the Atonement. I take this lapse from a comment on page 306 after he heard a sermon preached by a Presbyterian minister: "The entire idea [of the Atonement] he discarded as 'solemn nonsense and inconceivable absurdity.'" I can only conclude that the confusion of this central doctrine may have come from his honored parents who had converted to divinity-denying Unitarianism then on a growth spurt across New England. Lamentable indeed.
This careful, readable book will fill in a lot of gaps for every reader interested in American history.
JQA led the United States negotiating team in Ghent, Belgium that allowed both the UK and the USA to strike a binding deal to end fighting a largely naval war that started in 1812. As the American leader of the negotiating team, he signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814 that ended the war. (General Jackson thoroughly beat the British fifteen days later at New Orleans on January 8, 1815. But of course neither combatant knew what occurred in Belgium days prior given the primitive communications of that era.)
After his one term in the presidency, JQA aspired to retire to Massachusetts and lead a scholarly life as a writer. Not to be: he was recruited to run for office as a Congressional representative and won repetitively. He served in Congress for the rest of his life and proved to be a stalwart champion against the hideous affliction of slavery. He was felled by a stroke and entered his repose three days later as he lay stricken in an office of the Capital.
One troubling personal belief of this Patriot came to light in this book: his confusion about the Divinity of Jesus Christ. JQA commendably endeavored to read his Bible every day with an annual goal of reading the entire volume right through every year. Admirable. How then is it possible for him to miss a central doctrine of Biblical Christianity: the Atonement. I take this lapse from a comment on page 306 after he heard a sermon preached by a Presbyterian minister: "The entire idea [of the Atonement] he discarded as 'solemn nonsense and inconceivable absurdity.'" I can only conclude that the confusion of this central doctrine may have come from his honored parents who had converted to divinity-denying Unitarianism then on a growth spurt across New England. Lamentable indeed.
December 17, 2017
TITLE: The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics
WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK: It is part of my US Presidents Reading Challenge
REIVEW: A long lived individual his life spanned pre-Revolutionary War to almost the Civil War. He was either witness to or direcdt participant in the events that shaped this country. This makes his life story interesting. Although he could be a bit of a ditherer making you want to shout at him, "just make a decision and stick to it". In this respecdt he was a bit like his father, John Adams. They both also made the mistake of keeping the previous administrations cabinet who then worked against him. Part of the reason some had issues with him being president was because they felt he stole the presidency which was a ridiculous charge. No one got a majority in the original election. The decision went to Congress. If promises were made that is the part of doing business. It is not as if the people had spoken with a majority and Congress picked someone differently. JQA certainly had lots of governmental experience prior to be president and afterwards. He was an interestiing guy I just think the writing was just okay.
WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK: It is part of my US Presidents Reading Challenge
REIVEW: A long lived individual his life spanned pre-Revolutionary War to almost the Civil War. He was either witness to or direcdt participant in the events that shaped this country. This makes his life story interesting. Although he could be a bit of a ditherer making you want to shout at him, "just make a decision and stick to it". In this respecdt he was a bit like his father, John Adams. They both also made the mistake of keeping the previous administrations cabinet who then worked against him. Part of the reason some had issues with him being president was because they felt he stole the presidency which was a ridiculous charge. No one got a majority in the original election. The decision went to Congress. If promises were made that is the part of doing business. It is not as if the people had spoken with a majority and Congress picked someone differently. JQA certainly had lots of governmental experience prior to be president and afterwards. He was an interestiing guy I just think the writing was just okay.
February 13, 2019
As is lately my practice, I’ve been reading multiple biographies of the same person in tandem, moving back and forth roughly in chronological order. My purpose has been to try to get a more balanced perspective than reading one author alone can offer. Such has been the case as I’ve read Paul Nagel’s volume on John Quincy Adams and William J. Cooper’s “The Lost Founding Father.” While both books offered me some different insights, Cooper’s book proved to be a rare treat; engaging, comprehensive, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Cooper as an historian of the South (including a definitive biography of Jefferson Davis) seems an odd choice as a biographer of a crusty New Englander who went down fighting against the “slavocracy.” Cooper explains that he took the project on at the request of Aida DiPace Donald, the widow of Lincoln biographer (and Cooper mentor) David Herbert Donald. What a gift that request delivered!
Cooper’s demonstrates (to the full degree possible) that he understands one of the most complex characters in the American story. I have never read a volume that so powerfully elicited both pity and admiration (sometimes on the same page) for an historical figure.
If you’re looking to read just one biography of JQA, by all means select this one!
Cooper as an historian of the South (including a definitive biography of Jefferson Davis) seems an odd choice as a biographer of a crusty New Englander who went down fighting against the “slavocracy.” Cooper explains that he took the project on at the request of Aida DiPace Donald, the widow of Lincoln biographer (and Cooper mentor) David Herbert Donald. What a gift that request delivered!
Cooper’s demonstrates (to the full degree possible) that he understands one of the most complex characters in the American story. I have never read a volume that so powerfully elicited both pity and admiration (sometimes on the same page) for an historical figure.
If you’re looking to read just one biography of JQA, by all means select this one!
October 11, 2024
This book did a very good job of casting Adams in the light that showed both his great achievements and his his personal flaws. Something that struck me most of all was the constant self-deprecation that Adams suffered with. His almost lifelong diary surely gives an insight that we don't have so many public figures. As the author says, at one point, the diary became an intimate friend of Adams and he likely confided things to it and, you wouldn't hear in another's biography.
Adams connection to so many monumental events in early American history is really astounding. As was said in his eulogy, he really was a bridge between the founding fathers early America. To many, he is likely known as a president of the United States, but his impact on the country was felt far more when he served in other roles from Secretary of State congressman.
A well-told story of a fascinating life Aunt worth the read. I had read another biography of atoms that was far more fawning and overly positive Aunt. This book was a good and fairer telling of Adam's life.
Adams connection to so many monumental events in early American history is really astounding. As was said in his eulogy, he really was a bridge between the founding fathers early America. To many, he is likely known as a president of the United States, but his impact on the country was felt far more when he served in other roles from Secretary of State congressman.
A well-told story of a fascinating life Aunt worth the read. I had read another biography of atoms that was far more fawning and overly positive Aunt. This book was a good and fairer telling of Adam's life.
April 27, 2019
I knew almost nothing about John Quincy Adams going into this and found it very interesting for the most part. I didn't realize the role he played in moving the country toward emancipation, though he would never see it come to fruition. It's a little unsettling to read about some of the men in history who fought bravely to end slavery while at the same time holding beliefs about race that would scorch the eyeballs of modern readers. It makes you wonder in what ways your own cultural soup has shaped your views for better or worse.
His frustration with the political climate in which he found himself (dealing with a president that demanded unquestioning loyalty and who appeared to be running the country into the ground, for instance) resonated and gave perspective. I especially appreciated a sentiment that he shared with his son, "Proceed--Persevere--Never despair--don't give up the ship."
His frustration with the political climate in which he found himself (dealing with a president that demanded unquestioning loyalty and who appeared to be running the country into the ground, for instance) resonated and gave perspective. I especially appreciated a sentiment that he shared with his son, "Proceed--Persevere--Never despair--don't give up the ship."
April 20, 2022
Perhaps the best biography of a founder that I have read. Adam’s’ brilliance and weaknesses, hypocrisies and virtues are on full display. The author avoids the common trap among biographers where they either glorify or demonize their subject. Adams is shown to be at the fulcrum between the world of the founding and the new world of mass politics of the Jacksonian age. His moral compass can be shown to ground him and betray him at the same time. By spending much of his early life and career abroad, he would have a radically different world view than his contemporaries. His stubbornness and strident will led him to continue in politics and lead the nation in reframing its attitudes toward slavery. He was a man apart, which is to be both admired and pitied. A very engaging read essential to understanding the period.
May 21, 2023
William J. Cooper sought to expand on the life of American President and life long politician that is often overlooked in John Quincy Adams. Cooper not only addresses the political aspects of Adams’s life, but he weaves in the very thoughts of Adams throughout the book. Whether it is the internal dialogue that Adams goes through in regards to his Christian faith, his ever-evolving views on the growing institution of slavery, or the personal views of political rivals such as Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, and James K. Polk, Cooper does a brilliant job of allowing the reader to feel as though they are getting an in-depth, personal look into Adams’s thoughts. Cooper also does a wonderful job of mixing in his own historical analysis and when he does it is apt and insightful.
August 30, 2020
Near the end of his life, John Quincy Adams saw nothing but bad things in America’s future. Although he was widely respected as the last major living link to the original Founding Fathers, he had lost almost every political battle of his later life, starting when Andrew Jackson made him the second-ever one-term President—the first being his father. The first openly abolitionist ex-President, he was also the first major political figure to foresee that slavery would not be ended in America without a civil war.
He started his life with incredible optimism about America’s future, only to end up certain that its best days were behind it and a dark, violent era lay ahead. Sound familiar?
He started his life with incredible optimism about America’s future, only to end up certain that its best days were behind it and a dark, violent era lay ahead. Sound familiar?
May 21, 2022
That Cooper devotes little more than 10% of his bio to JQ's presidency shows just how rich his public service was. Indeed, JQ's diplomatic contributions in Europe and as Secretary of State, plus his time in the House post-presidency (still unmatched) far overshadowed his ultimately unsuccessful four years in the White House. But as the last link to the Founders, a man of great learning, integrity, ambition and even vision (he knew early on that slavery would end up a bloody battle between the states and, like Madison, that factionalism was the true enemy of democracy), JQ deserves very near the same stature as his better-known and more widely revered predecessors.
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