John Quincy Adams: American Visionary

Fred Kaplan (Get this book)
In this elegant study, Kaplan portrays our sixth president as a deeply literary man, devout husband, orator, diplomat and teacher who had grand plans for the country's future, including the building of national infrastructure and the abolition of slavery. Indeed, John Quincy Adams was concerned about America's loss of innocence in its rapid expansion and growing distance from its foundational ideals. A prodigious, gifted writer, he worried about "the internal health of the nation," with the squabbling between the Republicans and Federalists during the contested presidential elections, the addition of slave states to the union and the War of 1812, which had revealed the country's evolution into "a parcel of petty tribes at perpetual war with one another." Like his father, Quincy Adams was Harvard-educated, a lawyer and inculcated to answering the call of his country, despite his own wishes. Kaplan ably navigates his subject's life, showing us "a president about whom most Americans know very little." A lofty work that may propel readers back to Quincy Adams' own ardent writings.--Kirkus