Mr Adams Last Crusade or Spanking the Donkey

Mr. Adam's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress

Author: Joseph Wheelan

Following his single term as President of the United States (1825–1829), John Quincy Adams, embittered by his loss to Andrew Jackson, 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.

Mr. Adams's Last Crusade will enlighten and delight anyone interested in American history.

Boston Globe

Wheelan has written a solid and entertaining account of Adams's 17-year congressional career

Frederick J. Augustyn Jr. - Library Journal

Former AP reporter Wheelan (Jefferson's War) renders a valuable service by reminding readers that a constructive post-presidential career is not a new phenomenon. While Robert V. Remini's John Quincy Adamscovered the sixth president's entire career, Wheelan's contribution focuses on the illustrious 17-year period in Adams's life when, as a congressman for eastern Massachusetts, after his one White House term ended, he functioned as a "man of the whole country." Within the constraints of his time, this highly intelligent but prickly man eventually fought more forcefully for abolition and civil rights, for women's political participation, and against Indian removal than perhaps anyone else then in the U.S. government. Readers who remember the film portrayal of John Quincy Adams working to free the passengers of the slave ship Amistadin the film of that name will benefit from the fuller treatment on "Old Man Eloquent" here. They will learn of his role in the governmental support of scientific research through the judicious use of James Smithson's bequest, for example. Although Wheelan seems to have used few new sources as addenda to Adams's diligently kept 68-year-long diary and his family's papers, he artfully interprets the life of this conscience-bound President as one ironically to be fulfilled by his congressional career. That Adams entered Congress at age 64, beset by depression and physical ailments, and succeeded, should encourage other service-minded seniors. Recommended for public libraries and for all U.S. history collections.

Table of Contents:

Author's Note     vii
Prologue     xi
Favored Son of the Revolution     1
The Road to the Presidency     27
An "Agony of Mind"     37
The Freshman Congressman     67
A Worthy Cause     91
Adams, Science, and the Smithsonian Institution     111
Lightning Rod of Congress     129
"True and Honest Hearts Love You"     145
The Amistad     163
"Old Nestor"     187
Triumph     205
A New War and Decline     225
Epilogue     253
Bibliography     261
Notes     269
Index     293
Acknowledgments     307
About the Author     309

Look this: Dignity and Daily Bread or Study Guide for Use with Financial Accounting

Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season

Author: Matt Taibbi

The 2004 Election Was a Circus, and Matt Taibbi enjoyed a Front-Row Seat.

As a correspondent for the New York Press, The Nation, and Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi scoured the political landscape for hard-hitting news stories. But the closer he got to the politicians, the more pompous and vapid they appeared. How could he write anything meaningful about these puffed-up martinets, much less vote for them? Nevertheless, Taibbi forged on and continued his responsibilities as a serious campaign reporter—though not without frequent bouts of blind panic, drug use, and donning a gorilla suit.

Spanking the Donkey indicts the surreal irrelevance of today’s mainstream politics with barbed wit and caustic intelligence. Follow Taibbi as he covers the primary for the 2004 presidential election, joining him for a spot on John Kerry’s campaign plane, face-to-face encounters with John Edwards’s pancake makeup, enough Howard Dean press conferences to memorize the good doctor's stump speech by heart, and—just to spice things up—a two-month stint working undercover in a Republican campaign office in Orlando, Florida. Brimming with uncensored opinions and total truth, Taibbi captures the real American political mind; as a patron at Flo’s Bar in Manchester, New Hampshire, eloquently puts it: “They all suck . . . who’s running?”

“Gonzo journalist Matt Taibbi will do anything . . . to bring political reporting back to life. Spanking the Donkey is all the more necessary in the aftermath of an election that harnessed enough liberal outrage to light the Vegas strip, cost more than a billiondollars, absorbed hundreds of hours we will never get back, and achieved absolutely nothing.” —Salon