John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was one of the most experienced and well-traveled American statesmen of his era. Before becoming the sixth president of the United States in 1825, he had served as a diplomat in the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, and England, and had led the American commission that negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812. After the last of his European posts he served as Secretary of State under James Monroe, and was the principal architect of the Monroe Doctrine. After his presidency, Adams was elected to represent southeastern Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving for the remainder of his life, until his fatal collapse at his Congressional desk.

David Waldstreicher is Distinguished Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center and the author of The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journey Through American Slavery and Independence, Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification, and Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution. He is the editor of A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams and, for Library of America, of The Diaries of John Quincy Adams in two volumes.