6. John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams
Robert V. Remini

As usual, I've waited a month or two to write in this blog since reading the book, but as I think about my general impression of John Quincy Adams, I think about how the presidency of the early 19th century was actually quite similar to the modern office, in some important ways.

The big thing is, the president is not an island. He certainly gets all the attention, and we have very strict standards about whether a person is 'presidential' or not in appearance and demeanor, but he really can't accomplish anything at all on his own. The interesting thing about Adams is that he was actually old-fashioned even in his own time in his belief that 'public servants' should be above politics, and should pull together the best ideas from any source, rather than sticking doggedly to a partisan agenda, no matter the consequence. Then, as today, that kind of productive, thoughtful and balanced approach did not go unpunished. He was by turns despised and ridiculed by his own party and the opposition.

So then, as now, the president is a manager of a political party, trying to get it to hold together well enough to accomplish something. Some are obviously much better at this than others. Adams wasn't very good.

Interesting, too, that Adams had a long and productive career in the Senate after his one term in the White House. That's a measure of his commitment to public service, and a belief that's probably out of reach in this day in age, that the presidency is just one of several important positions in the federal government, no more or less important than the civic responsibility carried out by tens of thousands of other individuals from clerks to letter carriers.

The term 'president' - the one who presides - is an interesting one, deliberately unimpressive and bureaucratic sounding. This person was meant to be a high level manager and facilitator, not the 'chief American' as we tend to think of him today (to our shame in some cases). It's the Congress that's supposed to be the real 'representation' of our best. We seem by now, though, to have given up on them. In part, I think, it's because may of us have lost a sense of local identity. As a California native I know I certainly never had a regional identity, that I was aware of, the way I imagine Southerners or New Englanders do. Perhaps that is my regional identity - one of national interest. And when it comes down to it, I do take pride in the fact that it's usually California law that the federal government uses as a model for its most progressive efforts.

At any rate, John Quincy Adams... a good man, big eyebrows, liked to swim, and in some ways a model for virtue in the political realm, useless as that may be.

Probably going to be a while before I get back to this blog as I prepare for the GRE, grad school applications and about a zillion other books to read. But I'm looking forward to reading some good, recent examinations of the incredible damage done to the cause of justice by Andrew Jackson - whose face we see every time we visit an ATM, not coincidentally.