John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was perhaps the best prepared president we have ever had. When he was a boy he was an assistant to the foreign secretary in Russia. Then he was a secretary to both Prussia and England, and finally Secretary of State under President Monroe. He helped to find peace with England after the War of 1812, and he also wrote what would come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. One can even make the claim that he was better prepared for the presidency than his father.

Yet, despite this, and having a former president as a father, John Quincy's own Presidential term was very unsuccessful. This begins with the corrupt bargain. This bargain began with the election of 1824. The candidates for the elections were Quincy, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson got the popular votes but the race was directly counted by the electoral college. The way they all finish was Jackson, Quincy, Crawford, and Clay.. Yet, none of them got the majority, so the top three had to go to the House of Representatives. Then William Crawford had a stroke, so it went down to both Jackson and Quincy, with Henry Clay being the Speaker of the House of Representatives. On the first ballot, Quincy won and named Clay to be his Secretary of State. Jackson, predictably, screamed bloody murder about this, calling it a corrupt bargain.

This was something that harmed Quincy's Presidency before it even started, it continued into his single term with those who voted for Jackson in the 1824 election stopping anything Quincy wanted to do. Although, Quincy did not help matters. He made overly intellectual speeches that were often misunderstood by those in congress and his constituence alike. He also did not listen to the people. Where John Quincy wished to work on public improvements like investments in astronomy, and roads, the people wished to have a stronger economy and more access to farmland for food production. He also refused to change his tone with the people, believing that he would not have to explain his reasoning for wanting the said improvements. This disconnect with both those in government and the general public left him with few accomplishments.

Yet, it was his post-presidential career that was better served to the public, and what h is remembered for the most. He was an outspoken abolitionist, and served his time in the Senate as a man who tried his best to either stop the spread of slavery, or abolish it completely. Yet, a congressional gag rule stopped many of his efforts. But this was not the only thing he did. At the age of 79, he went before the Supreme Court and argued for the captured African people of the slave ship Amistad. This, Quincy thought, was the crowning achievement of his career, which is saying something, considering all that he had done.

In the end, this man holds true to the principle that a bad Presidency, does not make up a person's life. In fact, as is the case with many of the early Presidents, it may be the least remarkable thing about them. Still, as far as a Presidency goes, one can learn from John Quincy Adams that it is important to know how people see you, so that you can act accordingly and get as many things done as possible.

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To be fair I knew what I was getting into when it came to picking up Unger's take on John Quincy Adams. This is because that I had just finished his book on President Monroe, and I disliked it greatly. I felt that Unger was extremely biased in his presentation of Monroe, as well as showing contempt for any other founding father. Couple that with making up events that simply did not happen in history, and Unger makes a book that I hate and did not mind giving back to the library.

Many of those same complaints that I had with his book on Monroe carry over into John Quincy Adams. Quincy is a man who is treated with saint-like reverence and is like by almost everyone. Quincy almost never does anything wrong. At worst, when it comes to some of the puzzling actions of his Presidency, he is called nieve, never mind the fact that he had a former father who was President to look to for guidance. This novel is also criminally short. Where any other author would devote at least a paragraph or two to a topic, Unger manages to find a way to pass it off in a few sentences. This may be good for the time-crunched reader, but it does not bode well for those looking to understand John Quincy the man and politician. For example, there comes a point where John Quincy is at home in the US, and has worked hard to get his sons into Harvard, only to find that one of his sons has taken part in a student protest. A reader may ask what motivated the son to do such a thing, and how did John Quincy feel about his son exercising his right to protest, especially considering the reader's 21st century ideas of free speech. Yet, Unger does not go into any of this, only saying that the son engaged in a protest, Quincy was upset, and the child was punished. This can leave the reader with an incomplete view of Quincy, to put it mildly.

Then there is the inconsistency of how the Monroe Doctrine Is been displayed both here and in Unger's James Monroe book. In the Monroe volume, Unger states the following:

“Contrary to the writings of some historians, Monroe's proclamation was entirely his own creation-not Adam's. The assertion that Adams authored the “Monroe Doctrine” is not only untrue, it borders on the ludicrous by implying that President Monroe was little more than a puppet manipulated by another's hand. Such assertions show little insight into the presidency itself and the type of man who aspires to and assumes that office; indeed, they denigrate the character, the intellect, the intensity and the sense of power that drive American presidents.”

Yet, in the John Quincy Adams novel, Unger would have the reader think that John Quincy wrote the Doctrine. This inconsistency was not lost on others who have read this book. Howard, the man who runs the blog Plodding Through the Presidents saw this discrepancy as well, and decided to contact the author about it on twitter.

You can read the whole article here: https://www.ploddingthroughthepresidents.com/2017/04/the-hagiographies-harlow-giles-unger.html

In a nutshell, Unger seemed to be going back and forth on the issue, eventually saying that they had similar ideas that the both managed to agree on as they both made up the policy on what would become the Monroe Doctrine. If that sounds confusing, that's because it is. (I'd suggest reading the above blog post to see it for yourself.) Needless to say, I think this is where Unger's bias comes back to haunt him, and now he is having trouble trying to reconcile his treatment of people with historical fact, and he is coming out on the losing side.

Needless to say, this and the above mentioned weaknesses make me rate this book a two out of five. Reader's may notice that I gave this book two stars when I gave Unger's Monroe volume one. Why? Well, I knew what I was getting into this time around. Can I really be this harsh on a book when I knew that it was going to be this biased and inconsistent in its presentation of history? Maybe, maybe not. In either case, I would not waste your time with this book. Just like his actual presidency, this book results in giving a shallow representation of a man who deserves much better.