John Quincy Adams and the Union by Samuel Flagg Bemis
The
second volume, resting like the first on full and unrestricted access
to the Adams Family archives, concludes Professor Bemis's basic
biography of John Quincy Adams. It covers the "Second Career" of this
remarkable statesman and many-sided personality: his election as sixth
president of the United States, his program of Liberty with Power, his
defeat by Andrew Jackson, the trials of his private life, his return to a
humble seat in the House of Representatives from the Plymouth District
of Massachusetts, his seventeen-year struggle there for the Union in the
great sectional controversy over slavery, and his dramatic death on the
floor of the House while protesting the decoration of generals who had
won the War with Mexico.
In this American Study, Samuel Flagg
Bemis has combined the canons of historical scholarship with the
interest of the novelist and the insight of the psychologist.
John Quincy Adams A public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel
Nagel
probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic,
erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career
spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S.
senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829),
and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in
the House). On the basis of a thorough study of Adams' seventy-year
diary among a host of other documents, the author gives us a richer
account than we have yet had of JQAs life, his passionate marriage to
Louisa Johnson, his personal tragedies (two sons lost to alcoholism),
his brilliant diplomacy, his recurring depression, his exasperating
behavior and shows us why in the end, only Abraham Lincoln's death
evoked a greater outpouring of national sorrow in nineteenth-century
America. We come to see how much Adams disliked politics and hoped for
more from life than high office; how he sought distinction in literary
and scientific endeavors, and drew his greatest pleasure from being a
poet, critic, translator, essayist, botanist, and professor of oratory
at Harvard; how tension between the public and private Adams vexed his
life; and how his frustrations kept him masked and aloof (and
unpopular).
No comments:
Post a Comment
Book review and recommendations