JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND THE UNION

This follows after six years the author's John Quincy Adams. which took him up to the Presidency, and was a scholarly and largely a definitive study of that period in his life This rounds out and comprises for the average reader the more significant part of his career, built on the foundations he laid of America's foreign policy. Mr. Bemis has tapped every kind of source, many of them exciting, human and historical. The published and unpublished portions of Adams' copious diary provide matter for authentic dialogue, critical interchanges on contemporary history. A change or two in tense is his sole violation of accuracy. Throughout the sense of immediacy attends the presentation of political involvement at every level of government. The complex purposes of Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Jackson, Monroe, Crawford and others come clear. Adams' ingenuity as a ""minority president"" and his courageous battles on the floor of Congress come alive. An essential for any consideration of Adams and his period.