JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 1767-1848
Sixth United States President
I am a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners: my political adversaries say, a gloomy misanthropist, and my personal enemies, an unsocial savage. On himself, Diary, 4 June 1819.
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Well has he been called 'The Massachusettes Madman.' He boasts that he places all his glory in independence. If independence is synonympus with obstinacy, he is the most independent statesman living. L. Falkner, The President Who Wouldn't Retire.
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John Quincy Adams was the second Adams to become president. He is not to be confused with his father, John Adams, who was the first Adams but the second president, or with his Uncle Sam Adams (who was not the real Uncle Sam, except to his nieces and nephews). It was fortunate for us, if not for the second John Adams, that he had the Quincy, which the first John did not. Richard Armour, It All Started With Columbus.
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In many respects the most wonderful man of the age, certainly the greatest in the United States —perfect in knowledge but deficient in practical results. As a statesman he was pure and incorruptible, but too irascible to lead men's judgment. Philip Hone on the death of John Quincy Adams, 24 February 1848, in S. F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union.
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Of all the men, whom it was ever my lot to accost and to waste civilities upon, [he] was the most doggedly and systematically repulsive. With a vinegar aspect, cotton in his leathern ears, and hatred of England in his heart, he sat in the frivolous assemblies of Petersburg like a bull-dog among spaniels; and many were the times that I drew monosyllables and grim smiles from him and tried in vain to mitigate his venom. Hon. W. H. Lyttleton, Letter to Charles Bagot, 22 January 1827.
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When they talk about his old age and venerableness and nearness to the grave, he knows better. He is like one of those old cardinals, who as quick as he is chosen Pope, throws away his crutches and his crookedness, and is as straight as a boy. He is an old roue, who cannot live on slops, but must have sulphuric acid in his tea. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals.
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John Quincy Adams was a short, stout, bald, brilliant and puritanical twig off a short, stout, bald, brilliant, and puritanical tree. Little wonder, then, that he took the same view of the office of President as had his father. Alfred Steinberg, in ibid.
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Sedate, circumspect and cautious; reserved, but not distant; grave but not repulsive. He receives but seldom communicates, and discerns with great quickness motives, however latent, and intentions, however concealed . . . Mr. Adams has more capacity than genius; he can comprehend better than he can invent; and execute nearly as rapidly as he can design. George Waterton, in Marie B. Hecht, John Quincy Adams, A Personal History of an Independent Man.
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