Table of Contents BOOKS BY HARLOW GILES UNGER Title Page Epigraph Acknowledgments Chronology Introduction CHAPTER 1 - A First Son for a Founding Father CHAPTER 2 - The Seeds of Statesmanship CHAPTER 3 - The Land of Lovely Dames CHAPTER 4 - “He Grows . . . Very Fat ” CHAPTER 5 - Never Was a Father More Satisfied CHAPTER 6 - A Free, Independent, and Powerful Nation CHAPTER 7 - A Profile in Courage CHAPTER 8 - Diplomatic Exile CHAPTER 9 - Restoring Peace to the World CHAPTER 10 - Stepladder to the Presidency CHAPTER 11 - The Great and Foul Stain CHAPTER 12 - The End of the Beginning CHAPTER 13 - A New Beginning CHAPTER 14 - Freedom Is the Prize Notes Bibliography and Research Resources Index Copyright Page BOOKS BY HARLOW GILES UNGER American Tempest Improbable Patriot Lion of Liberty Last Founding Father The Unexpected George Washington Lafayette John Hancock Noah Webster America’s Second Revolution The French War Against America Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize That nature’s God commands the slave to rise, Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth be found. 1 —JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 1827. Acknowledgments My deepest thanks to Sara Georgini, an assistant editor of The Adams Papers, at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, for vetting the finished manuscript of this book. Her encyclopedic knowledge of the life and times of the Adams family saved me weeks, probably months, of research and checking. My thanks, too, to Kelly Cobble, curator, and Patty Smith, museum technician, at the Adams National Historical Park, Quincy, Massachusetts, for their gracious and most generous help in providing illustrations for this book. Also very helpful in obtaining illustrations were Richard Sorenson of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Jessica Blesso, of the Library of Congress duplication services; and Anna J. Cook, assistant reference librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society. I know of no words that can express my gratitude to all the great folks at Da Capo Press and the Perseus Books Group, which published this book—the fourth they’ve published with my byline. If this were a newspaper or magazine, all their names would appear on a masthead. I have no idea why book publishers don’t print mastheads in books, but, to try to thank those responsible for the publication and sale of this volume, I am breaking with tradition and not only displaying a masthead but dedicating this book to all the people listed. Da Capo Press A Member of the Perseus Books Group John Radziewicz, Publisher, Da Capo Press Robert Pigeon, Executive Editor Lissa Warren, Vice President, Director of Publicity Kevin Hanover, Vice President, Director of Marketing Sean Maher, Marketing Manager Jonathan Crowe, Editor Cisca Schreefel, Project Editor Trish Wilkinson, Designer Jennifer Kelland, Copy Editor Cathy Armer, Proofreader Marie Maes, Indexer My most sincere thanks to you all and to the entire sales team of the Perseus Books Group. NOTE: Spellings, punctuation, and grammar in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century letters, manuscripts, and publications cited in this book have, where appropriate, been modernized without my knowingly altering the intent of the original author. Readers may find the original spellings in the works cited in the notes.