Long relegated to the sidelines of history as the hyperintellectual son of John and Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), has never basked in the historical spotlight. Remembered, if at all, as an ineffective president during an especially rancorous time, Adams was humiliated in office after the contested election of 1824, viciously assailed by populist opponents for being both slippery and effete, and then resoundingly defeated by the...