Reading a recently published biography of the sixth president lost in the mist of time, John Quincy Adams, son of the second president. The only such combination other the George Bushes.
After serving as Secretary of State for eight years, ambassador to Russia, The Netherlands, Great Britain, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator and finally President from 1825 through 1828. After his defeat he returned to the U.S. House of Representatives to serve until his death in 1848.
His life covered the tumultuous years of the nation’s founding and trying to survive the great power conflict between Napolean, Great Britain and Spain and the opening salvos of the slavery issue. He was serving in Russia as Napolean invaded with a 685,000-man army only to return home with 27,000 men. The nation expanded west; the voting public enlarged with the addition of small farms and businesses; and Adams was defeated in 1828 by Andrew Jackson, a man of the Southwest, in an acrimonious election like we have today.
