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Historical person

John Quincy Adams

1767–1848

John Quincy Adams was an American diplomat and statesman whose public career extended from the early republic into the sectional politics preceding the Civil War. The son of John and Abigail Adams, he spent part of his youth in Europe and became an accomplished diplomat, serving in several foreign posts before entering the Senate. As secretary of state under James Monroe he helped negotiate major boundary settlements, supported the acquisition of Florida and played an important role in formulating the principles later associated with the Monroe Doctrine.

Adams became the sixth president of the United States after the disputed election of 1824 but served only one term, facing fierce opposition from supporters of Andrew Jackson. His most distinctive later career began when Massachusetts voters returned him to public life as a member of the House of Representatives. There he became a persistent opponent of the gag rule suppressing antislavery petitions and argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court. He suffered a stroke in the Capitol and died in Washington in 1848.

In Barbara Hambly’s Good Man Friday, January receives help from a young Edgar Allan Poe and encounters politicians including John Quincy Adams, but his own position remains dangerous in a city where free Black people can be abducted and sold.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring John Quincy Adams (1 series)

Benjamin January Mysteries in Order

by Barbara Hambly 21 books 4.2(19,232)

Benjamin January is a free man of colour, a trained surgeon and a professional musician living in New Orleans during the decades before the American Civil War. His investigations move through Creole drawing rooms, music halls, hospitals, plantations, riverboats and slave quarters, where formal law is shaped by…

All books in this series