Following his
single term as President of the United States (1825�1829),
John Quincy Adams, embittered by his loss to Andrew Jackson in the
Election of 1828, boycotted his successor's inauguration, just as his father John Adams had done (the only two presidents ever to do so). Rather than retire, the sixty-two-year-old former president, U.S. senator, secretary of state, and Harvard professor was elected by his Massachusetts friends and neighbors to the House of Representatives to throw off the "incubus of Jacksonianism." It was the opening chapter in what was arguably the most remarkable post-presidency in American history. In this engaging biography, historian Joseph Wheelan describes Adams's battles against the House
Gag Rule that banished abolition petitions; the
removal of Eastern Indian tribes; and the
annexation of slave-holding Texas, while recounting his efforts to establish the Smithsonian Institution. As a "man of the whole country," Adams was not bound by political party, yet was reelected to the House eight times before collapsing at his "post of duty" on February 21, 1848, and then dying in the House Speaker's office. His funeral evoked the greatest public outpouring since Benjamin Franklin's death.
Background Information
The election of 1828 represented a sea change in American politics, ending the national control of the old families of Virginia and Massachusetts. John Quincy Adams, the sixth American president, was the son of John Adams, the second president, and had a long career representing Massachusetts in Congress after his presidency. The Gag Rule was a provision in the rule of the House of Representatives that in the decades for the Civil War prevented the consideration of bills opposing slavery. Andrew Jackson forced the "civilized tribes" of the southeast to cede their homelands to white settlement and move to Indian Territory in a migration known as the Trail of Tears. After Texas gained independence, its annexation to the United States created diplomatic problems with Mexico and internal controversy over slavery.