Skipping Over Some Ugly Details

You know you're in biographical trouble when your author starts the paragraph on your presidency this way: "It may confound some readers that biography of any American president should devote only a single chapter to his administration. Nevertheless, such brevity seems appropriate for John Quincy Adams."

Yikes. That can't be a good sign.

Nagel's right, of course: Adams does not have a good presidency by any standard (even that of his father, who, until his son matched him, was the only single-term president). What is significant about JQA's term in office is how it ends: with what we can accurately call the first real presidential campaign. In the elections leading up to 1828, candidates were generally expected to avoid campaigning--to see the idea of being elected as a noble calling that they passively received, a burden borne by those chosen. Their supporters, on the other hand, felt free to go after the other candidates with knives sharpened.

In 1828, Adams (who lost the popular vote but won in the House of Representatives) ran against the man he'd simultaneously lost to and beaten in 1824: General Andrew Jackson. Jackson, wildly popular as the winner of the Battle of New Orleans, had won the popular vote in 1824. Adams's crew went after him with vigor; not only did they accuse him of executing deserters and killing men in duels (which was, um, true), but they also went after Jackson's wife, Rachel. They accused the couple of committing bigamy, since Rachel was technically still married to another man when she and Jackson were wed (the divorce went through later, and the Jacksons had a second marriage performed to try to make up for it, although that never stopped the gossip).

The stress and strain of the campaign took its toll on both Jackson and his wife, and in the latter's case, it actually proved fatal; Rachel Jackson died in December of 1828, one month after her husband finally won the presidency.

The founding fathers feared political parties, seeing them as unnecessarily divisive. But the presidents who followed them, especially JQA, Jackson, and Van Buren--develop the idea of political party towards what it is today.