The Presidency of John Quincy Adams

Historians have not been generous in judging the presidency of John Quincy Adams. Those who have most conspicuously upheld Adamss fame have at the same time virtually ignored his service in the White House. Critics on the other hand have described his administration as a failure founded upon "bargain and corruption" and marked by exclusion of the United States from the British West Indian trade the ineffectiveness of its efforts to promote strong Pan-American relationships and the enactment of the "tariff of abominations." Some analysts have even argued that it generated the sectionalism which terminated the "Era of Good Feelings." Mary Hargreaves contends instead that the basic effort of Adamss presidency was to harmonize divergent sectional interests. To ignore the Adams administrations commitment to nationalism she argues is to overlook a fundamental stage in the establishment of the federal government as guardian of the general interest. The volume contains new information on the development of United States commercial policy the nations early relationships with Latin America and difficulties of local and regional adjustment to the growth of the national economy. It will be of keen interest to all students of the economic and political history of the early national period.