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A balding middle-aged man in early 19th-century formal attire with an ornately embroidered dark jacket and white cravat is portrayed against a deep red and green background.
The Next 250
Bob Crawford /

John Quincy Adams and America’s Tortured Adolescence

And what his example of statesmanship can teach us today.

John Quincy Adams (1815), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

The 1830s and 1840s are the era I call “America’s tortured adolescence.” The Founding Fathers have ceded the stage to their sons and grandsons. One of those sons, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, addressed the New York Historical Society on April 30, 1839, the 50th anniversary of George Washington’s inauguration and the jubilee of the Constitution.

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Bob Crawford

Bob Crawford is the author of America’s Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, From President to Political Maverick and a member of the Grammy-nominated band the Avett Brothers.

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