David Waldstreicher 
A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams 

A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams presents
a collection of original historiographic essays contributed by
leading historians that cover diverse aspects of the lives and
politics of John and John Quincy Adams and their spouses, Abigail
and Louisa Catherine.

* Features contributions from top historians and Adams’
scholars

* Considers sub-topics of interest such as John Adams’ role
in the late 18th-century demise of the Federalists, both
Adams’ presidencies and efforts as diplomats, religion, and
slavery

* Includes two chapters on Abigail Adams and one on Louisa
Adams

Table of Content

List of Figures x

About the Contributors xi

Introduction: The Adams paradox 1

David Waldstreicher

Part I The First Generation 3

1 John Adams: The Life and the Biographers 5

R. B. Bernstein

2 John Adams and Enlightenment 36

Darren Staloff

3 The Revolutionary Politics of John Adams, 1760-1775
60

Colin Nicolson

4 John Adams in the Continental Congress 78

Karen N. Barzilay

5 John Adams’s Political Thought 102

David J. Siemers

6 John Adams, Diplomat 125

Wendy H. Wong

7 John Adams and the Elections of 1796 and 1800 142

David W. Houpt

8 The Presidency of John Adams 166

Douglas Bradburn

9 John Adams and Religion 184

John Fea

10 Abigail Adams and Feminism 199

Elaine Forman Crane

11 Abigail Adams: The Life and the Biographers 218

Margaret A. Hogan

Part II The Second Generation 239

12 John Quincy Adams: The Life, the Diary, and the Biographers
241

David Waldstreicher

13 John Quincy Adams and National Republicanism 263

Andrew Shankman

14 John Quincy Adams, Diplomacy, and American Empire 281

John M. Belohlavek

15 John Quincy Adams and the Elections of 1824 and 1828
305

David P. Callahan

16 The Presidency of John Quincy Adams 328

Padraig Riley

17 John Quincy Adams, Internal Improvements, and the Nation
State 348

Sean Patrick Adams

18 John Quincy Adams: Apostle of Union 367

David F. Ericson

19 John Quincy Adams, Cosmopolitan 383

Bethel Saler

20 John Quincy Adams and the Tangled Politics of Slavery
402

Matthew Mason

21 John Quincy Adams’s Higher Learnings: Rhetoric,
Science, and Intellectual History 422

Marlana Portolano

22 A Monarch in a Republic: Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams and
Court Culture in Early Washington City 445

Catherine Allgor and Margery M. Heffron

Part III Images and Legacies 469

23 Thomas Jefferson and the John Adams Family 471

Herbert E. Sloan

24 The Adamses on Screen 487

Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein

25 An American Dynasty 510

Edith B. Gelles

References 542

Index 568

About the author

David Waldstreicher is Professor of History at Temple
University and co-editor of the Journal of the Early
Republic. His books include Runaway America: Benjamin
Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (2004),
Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to
Ratification (2009), and A Companion to Benjamin
Franklin (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).