Quotes from James Traub

He would not bend on anything he considered a matter of principle, no matter what the possible cost to his own happiness. And with Adams, practically everything was a matter of principle.

To know [John Quincy Adams] is not to love him. It is, however, to admire him greatly.

Adams derived bitter satisfaction from the new administration's peccadilloes. He sent letters to Charles and to Abby describing the White House fracas over Peggy Eaton, a tavernkeeper's daughter whom Jackson's secretary of war and close confidante, John Eaton, had married and whom the wives of other cabinet members and of Vice President Calhoun refused to meet. Secretary