about means that i'm not being tracked is in general factually just untrue. >> author john havens on how your personal data is tracked and used and trips how to secure your >> this week, our guest is fred kaplan. he talks about his latest book on john quincy adams and his career as a biographer of other figures. >> the author of "john quincy adams: american visionary." i want to quote back to you something you said. i prefer my subjects dead.

>> my comment was that i might have been better off if he was dead. the experience of interviewing him was very difficult. we had a bit of a falling out after the book was finished. i do not really mean that. that was gore vidal, of course. an eminent american. not quite of the significance of mark twain or charles dickens. still, distinctive american and a distinctive character. a man of -- of -- of deep and conflicting tendencies. he can be generous and loyal. he could be backbiting and demanding.

a controlling personality. >> watch a little of this. let's give people a chance to see what he looks like. >> i had the distinct feeling that we live in a revolutionary time. the rich are becoming richer. the hatred of those inside the beltway for those outside is creating a true hatred on the part of the many for the few who govern or appear to do so. the decision-makers and paymasters are beyond our reach in board rooms of the world. >> that was in 1991. what did you see there?

>> i saw him at his witty and perceptive best. i saw gore, as so often he was, assertive and incisive. he was more often wrong than right. and, the career is fascinating, in terms of the periods of our history that he lived through and his relationship with his semi-aristocratic background and championship of the common voice. >> the year was 1999 that you did this. >> yes. that is correct. >> how did you get into biography? >> i got into biography when i was a student of charles dickens, particularly.

i was attracted to someone who had a great influence on dickens, thomas carlyle. and essayist and author. and, i got the sense that this was someone who was victorian. but, he brought up resonances of a personal sort. a victorian gore vidal. i got entranced by the mystery of this man. he was witty and caustic like vidal. a more elaborate prose writer than vidal.

more difficult to fathom. in the general reading world and the academic world. this was someone who attracted me and i wanted to write a narrative, as opposed to writing analytic and academic material. i wanted to reach a wider audience. there is no modern biography of carlisle that i felt represented him well. i jumped into it. >> what year did you do that? >> a long time ago. i am kind of old, at this point. when did i do that? the 1970's. >> you cannot be sure of the publications date. charles dickens in 1969? >> that may, indeed, be correct. i was a professor at queens college in new york. by profession, i was a

victorianist. i began to define myself as a biographer. i said that i could immerse myself in 4-6 years of the life of thomas carlyle and charles dickens. and, say, henry james, mark twain, moving into the 20th century and american literature. of course, i got fascinated by lincoln as a writer. i wrote a biography of him. i immersed myself in 19th century american history and, from lincoln, because lincoln provoked in me and suggested to me my next subject, john quincy adams.

>> if you are in a classroom, what would you tell them? if they wanted to be biographers. give us an idea of what biographers need to do to be successful. >> there are so many different kinds of biographies and biographers. you have to look at the individual. what are your talents and how can their talents interface with the challenge of writing a biography? what kind of biography suits them best? you want to write an interpretive biography. you want to write a psychological biography. what is it that you bring to the biographical challenge that will enable you to write a successful biography? in my case, the attraction was that i could combine my love of research and immense respect for

knowing things and knowledge. and my tremendous commitment to language. to literature in language -- and language. my subjects were great writers. i expanded myself and committed more fully and vitally because i spent years in the lives of great writers and with their work. i was attracted to lincoln because he is a great writer. john quincy adams is a magnificent writer. not on the same level as lincoln. he is not as precise. he is not as available to us as lincoln was. he wrote a great deal more than lincoln did. we have to pick and choose. i was attracted to john quincy adams because he created a huge body of literary work.

his diary and other things that he wrote. and, at the same time, his literary work was inseparable from his public life and the country that he loved. >> what about the way that you work? your approach is to spend six or seven years. you start from scratch. what you do as a biographer to keep track of everything? >> of the 5-7 years that i worked on a biography, the first 2-4 years are reading. i immersed myself in the primary works and the words of the subject. then, i do the background. how do i keep track? the computer. those folders in files -- and files. i start when i get into the writing process -- notes that i

take onto the computer as i read. i say, remember this passage. this will be useful. it is helpful to have a conceptual sense of what the overall structure and the basic theme or themes of the biography will be. because i'm so interested in language and the genius of american english and the importance of it to our culture. political culture, general howure, i concentrate -- effective is the writing that i am reading? is it rich? is it meaningful? does it speak to us? i arrange things in chronological order and create a file for each year of my subject's life. i put into that file quotations

that i have selected that seem to fit the overall vision of the book. and, quotations from the secondary material. and then, the basic facts of what happened to my subject that year. >> let's go over the people that you have written about. i'm not would ask you the literary question. go back to charles dickens. if you are trying to explain him as a person, what would you say? >> immensely energetic. overriding personality. yeshen slid to rare e.g. in -- immense literary genius with a gift for spontaneity and

spontaneous expression with a powerful imagination, in terms of character and setting. >> how many books have you read? >> all of them numbers of times. i have taught dickens in seminars to undergraduates and graduate students. in addition to the biography of dickens, ages ago, when i was a young man, i wrote a phd dissertation on dickens and published a book on the hidden strings of fiction. dickens is a fascinating character and was explosive when he walked into a room. he was a man of forceful personality who saw himself as a literary general in the world. >> henry james? >> quieter. reticence. shy in his own way. but at the same time, the most

observant and tentatively observant writer that i have ever encountered. he looked at the world through a sort of quiet internal genius that was optically precise and magnified the qualities and characters that he wanted to capture. he is a difficult writer for many. he went through various stages and his prose changed. the late henry james is a difficult writer. i don't think he is. if you sit down with a teacher, mentor, or someone who really wants to read henry james, i can claim he is lucid. sentence by sentence. >> what about mark twain? >> the genius of colloquial language and satire.

the great american genius of satire who had the capability to look at the american scene with painful humor, incisively, and evoke the nature of american culture and american life in the 19th and 20th century. a diverse career from tom sawyer and huckleberry finn to later more painful satirical work about the corruption of american life. >> let's go back to vidal. i have a quote from you that says that he put a lot of pressure on me. the year he wrote this -- does that change anything you are willing to say about gore?

did you worry about him? >> he did look into suing me. >> why? >> because -- because i rejected his attempt to vet my manuscript before publication, in the face of a written agreement that we had from the start. i had a specific and binding letter from him in which he agreed that he would make no effort or attempt to influence directly the manuscript and that i was free to publish it. nt would not see it until it was published. when the manuscript went to the publisher for process a year before publication, i got a call. sometimes gore was warm and

friendly. sometimes, he was sharp and caustic. also, he was meandering. he had a strong attraction to alcohol. he also had a strong sense of what it was doing to him. history was written in the present. i had a previous experience with him about that when i published his letters and exchanges with louis. they are wonderful letters and the new yorker was happy to publish them. gore saw the proof copy and said, we must change this. i said, these are the words of the letters. we can't change them now. he was the creator of fiction in

the presence to suit the reality that he wanted it to be. i said, no, you cannot change the manuscript. i said, i have this letter. his response was, what letter? i had anticipated the day when this would come and i read the letter to him on the telephone. he was silent and said goodbye. my publisher had heard from a lawyer -- a famous civil liberties lawyer and a high-priced one. gore was always like to threaten litigation. and, and, the lawyer attempted to adjudicate. and, i think from the events that followed, it is pretty clear that the advice from his attorney was, do not pursue this. this, legally, is not in your

favor and will not suit -- it will not attract -- it will not be presented in an attractive way. they dropped it and it was the end of that. that was the end of an intense and mutually interesting relationship in which i spent a lot of time with him in the united states and italy, interviewing and taping. >> did he cut you off after that? >> yes. indeed. i got a call and it was gore's voice. i recognized the voice. he said, who is this? it was late at night. i said, this is fred. he said, oh. i said, do you have anything you

want to say to me? he said, no. i said, goodbye. >> i like to watch television, when journalists and politicians talk nonsense. no problem is ever addressed. there is a lot of talk about process and meaningless words. i watched the director of the budget, novak. what to do about the budget? to my amazement, the defense budget was actually mentioned by mr. evans. apparently, the brooking institute thought that a few hundred dollars might be cut. although the defense budget is the cancer that is killing our

body politic, it is not addressed by the media. the director of the budget created a diversion. entitlements, he moaned, if only we could get them on the table. >> was it an act? did he mean all this? >> he meant all this. gore only spoke what he felt and believed. and, of course, he is a public performer when he is speaking. but, he is also a provocateur. a provocateur and a propagandist. he does not distinguish between the statements and the claims that he makes and truth. they are ipso facto true because he makes them and because he has a mission and purpose in mind. and, i still have great respect

for gore vidal. i wish his life had been a happier one for him. at the same time, he was a man who made substantial and interesting contributions. >> of all you have written on, if you had to pick one to have dinner with or a conversation with or know, who would it be? >> it is a terrible question. my answer at this moment is john quincy adams. it may surprise you. i feel so close to him, having been immersed in his life, i would be delighted. i would be delighted to have dinner with dickens, james, or

mark twain. each one of those gentlemen is just extraordinary. >> call had written a book on john quincy adams and said that he had read every single word of the diary. if you put the microfilm end to end, it would go nine miles. >> there are 600 microfilm reels at the historical society. every major library in america has a full set. >> how did you tackle it? >> is only surviving son, charles francis, went on to have a distinguished career in politics and law. charles francis edited an

edition of his father's memoirs and published half of the material. he did a wonderful job. there are 12 volumes, including the index. it includes the public side of john quincy's life with little bit about the private. for the other half, you have to go to the microfilm. that is what i did. the miracle of the computer is that you can go online to the massachusetts historical society site and there it is. it is in john quincy adams' handwriting. that is the challenge. >> did you read it? >> i did. it is difficult to read as time goes by and he becomes an elderly man.

like most biographers who deal with material, i have my tricks. i have ways of moving through the material that allow me to be efficient. >> tell us a trick. >> dare i do that? of course i do. one of my tricks was to make use of knowledge that i had prior to reading the diary or the manuscript -- the handwritten portions -- that allow me to not have to read every word of every year or allow me to get to certain points in john quincy's life where i want to make sure i

read every word. i knew from other sources that certain periods did not have things happening that would concern my interest or the kind of biography i was writing. i can move along more efficiently. >> you have done a lot on john quincy adams and charles francis adams. i want to show you video of jqa's birthplace and the show we did on first ladies. >> for the first 10 years of their married life, john and abigail lived at home. is where they raise their children. this is the birthplace of their second child who became the sixth president of the united states. is important because the link between she and john adams would

be letter writing and he was provided a window to what was happening back in the colony of massachusetts during the revolutionary war. abigail would report to john during the battle of bunker hill on june 17, 1775. she took her son and would watch the battle of bunker hill with her son and report to john adams of the fires. she was literally the eyes of the revolution and john adams was at the second continental congress in philadelphia. >> a list of his life after he saw the bunker hill battle. begin the discussion about john

quincy adams and look at all of the jobs, including being president, secretary of state, minister to england, russia, prussia, united states senator, and a representative for 17 years. >> an extraordinary american career. a great man and patriot. he deserves much more attention for his accomplishments and for what he has to say to us today. his career can be divided as the chronology shows. three phases. the first is his career as a diplomat. he was appointed as a young man by george washington to represent the united states in the netherlands and other various diplomatic appointments followed. there were years that we're talking about.

he finished his career as minister and ambassador to the court of st. james. the second stage of his career -- i will correct that and say that we have to put his service as secretary of state under james monroe. he was most proud of his two major accomplishments in this stage of his career. he finally signed again and finished in 1821.

and, that established the boundary for louisiana territory. it pushed american territory all the way to the pacific northwest. the treaty ended the war of 1812. a brutal and silly war in which the united states pushed itself into an unnecessary conflict. the reasons for the conflict no longer existed. slow transatlantic medication prevented president madison and congress from knowing this when they declared war. he was proud of the treaty that ended that. that is the first stage of his career.

the second is the presidency. 1825-1829. he is defeated by andrew jackson. the presidency was difficult and painful in his life because he came into office under an unusual and controversial circumstances. he was elected by the house of representatives. the first was thomas jefferson. thomas jefferson was elected by the house of representatives under unusual circumstances because aaron burr made problems and trouble. because of the weakness in the constitution that did not

distinguish between presidents and vice presidents. aaron burr said, why not elect me president? at any rate, john quincy adams was elected under controversial circumstances that embittered the opposition. andrew jackson, their candidate, had the right to the office because he had more votes. it is the case that the constitution did not give slaveholding states the 3/5 provision that allowed for extra electoral votes, john quincy adams would have been elected in the initial election. he won because of an agreement

with henry clay. it became controversial. initially, it was accepted. however, his opponents insisted that it was an illegitimate presidency. they would not allow him any achievement in office. so, when the house and the senate went to the opposite party, or matter how much he tried to work with the opposition, he was not going to get any place. >> is there any way to bring that to the day so people can understand what it had been like being his background sitting in the white house? >> yes. john quincy adams was the second adams to be elected to the white house he was the second northerner to be elected to the

white house. he was only one of two anti-slavery presidents to be elected to the white house. >> he was the sixth president. >> he was the last one until the 16th which is abraham lincoln. it was deeply feared by the house that worried that his vision of a unified country in which the federal government of the states were partners in a relationship that enables the federal government to play a leading role in binding the country together through infrastructure projects, through

supporting manufacturer and so on. he was deeply suspected by the federal states for -- they say he wanted to much power for the federal government. in order to protect slavery. they wanted slavery to remain totally in control of the state, no federal involvement in it. he went into office with a lot of people against him. then they used his agreement with henry clay, which from my point of view was an ordinary agreement. he was the most qualified man in the country to be appointed secretary of state. adams appointed him because he agreed on almost everything in terms of their vision for america, for the cut of programs that they wanted. the propaganda machine of the jacksonian democratic party was called the corrupt bargain. jackson and his people were

brilliant in creating our soundbite culture. it was a very painful presidency for john quincy adams, but what he did accomplish was to get out there for public discussion that eventually bore fruit in 1860-1861, of a vision of the american future that essentially was one of the great strengths of the country throughout the rest of the 19th century and certainly the great strength of the country in the 20th and 21st century. >> amanda matthews talked about the personal side. >> a as here's a very unpleasant years for the adams is. it was readily apparent. everyone talks about it. their son talks about in his own diary about how sad that household seems at the time.

>> what made it that way? >> i think the cloud under which the presidency began. it never left and because this campaigning for 1828 began almost instantly, wheeze to feel very personally the attack on her husband, on his character, she was not american enough. that situation really did not, they finally reached the pinnacle and it is not a happy pinnacle. it is a very stormy for years. >> how much of that you agree with? >> i agree with much of it. an accurate comment, it is not a full comment. it doesn't describe the totality of what they are feeling and what they're going through. louise and catherine, john quincy's wife, a brilliant woman of great charm and great beauty,

found the white house years extremely difficult. she also made it -- he alternated between her desire to advance her husband's career and strong detestation of the corruption and the boorishness of washington and washington political society during those years. >> you think if we had lived back then, we talk about a divided city now, would it have been just as divided than? >> equally and always. our contemporary emphasis on how politicized the country is, how divided washington is should be understood in the context that this has always been the case.

when the constitution was ratified, it was ratified in the late 1780's, it barely passed. barely gained a majority of the votes of the state. it was -- there was immense opposition to it area did george washington's second term, first term, the great george washington could do no wrong, but the seething underneath. by his second term, washington says i cannot take this anymore. this backbiting and this ugliness, this awfulness. it has always been our history. you can say it is a great weakness and you can also say it is a great strength. we are very divided. as long as our division is part of the articulated public form of debate according to democratic principles, i think we will be fine. >> in the middle of everything that they were doing, talk about george washington adams, who

died in the 1829 at age 28. >> committed suicide in fact. >> how? >> jumped from a steamer in long island sound as it went from newport rhode island on its way to new york, where it was going to -- on his way to new york. he was going to travel down to washington to join his mother and father. this is just after john quincy adams and louisa leave the white house. george washington adams is the elder him -- is the eldest of the adams children. they did have a daughter who lived for year and died in st. petersburg, something that louisa never got over. >> st. petersburg, russia. >> russia, indeed. he always hoped his eldest son would be to him what he had been

to his own father. he would be a student that he would look up to his father, that he would be disciplined and have a great future. that he would be an ornament in the adams family pantheon. >> why did he commit suicide? >> it is so difficult to say. he was a little bit on drugs, he was a little bit on alcohol. he felt he was a failure. he wanted to be a poet. he then attempted in a very minor way a political career in massachusetts. it didn't work out. he felt himself under the heavy burden and weight of the family history and inheritance and expectations. and there are also probably genetic factors that we can point to but we can't be sure about. >> he was 31 -- john quincy adams the second.

how did he die. >> he was an alcoholic. there was an unfortunate history of alcoholism in the adams family. both sides, but especially on abigail adams'side. john quincy adams brother was an alcoholic, it was the shame of the family. the family always feared the potential for alcoholism and immorality. it showed up quite a bit. >> the third son, charles francis, lived to be 79. what is the story of the brothers going after the same cousin for mary? >> well, that story is an interesting story of competition

between brothers, but also a very provocative and flirtatious young lady, who became, with the death of her parents, a resident of the john quincy adams household as a very young teenager. so she grew up into her middle teenage years enjoying her life in the adams household and flirting with the brothers. charles francis as an older adolescent sort of fell in love with her. he always had a bit of a crush on her. then, of course, his brother fell in love with her and fell out. that is george washington adams. they became engaged. then time went by and george

washington adams got into more and more difficulty off in the distance in massachusetts while the young lady was in washington with the adams family. then the other brother appeared on the scene, if you will, that is john. john adams, that is john quincy's son, and the young lady became intimate and married. >> you write in your book, this is again a personal thing, about john quincy adams'daily walked onto the potomac river, swimming in the new? >> it is hard to say, because it seems likely that he was either in the neuter almost nude. -- in the nude or almost nude. he is an early riser. he came during the summer months when he was still here and he

wasn't at home in massachusetts, he became -- he went to the potomac for regular early morning refreshment, often accompanied by someone, but sometimes alone. he would swim in the river and sometimes got into trouble, got swept away by the tide once and almost drowned. there is a wonderful episode in the memoir, the autobiography, that a make use of john quincy adams. in which for the last time he goes to swim in the river and there are some young men there who are also swimming who sort of recognize him. i wondered what an extraordinary experience for these young men, can you just imagine seeing our

president swimming either naked or just in some small garment in the water and then stretching out and drying in the sun on the banks of the potomac river. >> you start off in your book, your first sentence is, john quincy adams adams is a president about whom most americans know very little. how long did it take you to compose that first sentence? >> not for long. it came to me almost instantaneously. i sat down to write this in the preface for the book, and before i got into the narrative of the first chapter, it begins when john quincy adams is president and he learns that his elderly father, the second president, is very ill. he wants to travel home. he wants to see his father before he dies. the book is -- it didn't take me long to think up that sentence because i am so aware of how underappreciated and undervalued

john quincy adams is. i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we live in what is predominantly, and i think somewhat unfortunately been semi-thoughtlessly it pro andrew jackson world. andrew jackson has been glorified as a great hero of that. period. he is a hero of the battle of new orleans. in my view, andrew jackson was a terrible president and a disaster for the country. he was proslavery, anti-american indian. he was against a modern economic structure for the country area he hated banks. he had volatile and nasty temperament. there were some great things about jackson that were totally anti-adams. the fact that jackson is

somewhat thoughtlessly glorified in our contemporary world and our contemporary view of 19th century american history, has pushed john quincy adams into a sort of gloomy netherworld, in which we don't think of him as the extraordinary man that he was. >> how much of -- when you get into a biography like this and you sink your teeth into someone like john quincy adams, you like him because he reflects the way you think. >> there is a great deal of that. there's no doubt about that. in terms of -- the fact that i share certain views of the american commonwealth of what our basic values are and how

they should be expressed through legislation, through law, through moral values of the culture as a whole, it does play a role, of course. but that doesn't mean that i could not be fair in presenting even andrew jackson. if i immersed myself in andrew jackson, i would be empathetically identifying with what makes him tick and what makes him tick is that he is like all of us a human being, with likes and dislikes, with inherited genetic structure, with values of come from his environment and his culture, and every human being is worth looking at and studying and being empathetic with. however, it helps when you're writing an autobiography

applicable to use when you think that political figure had an important and valid vision for america's future. >> here's a minute and 10 seconds from the movie amistad. this movie is 1997. anthony hopkins is who we see playing john quincy adams. >> why are we here? how is it that simple issues should not find itself so noble that to be argued before the supreme court of the united states of america? do we fear the lower courts and somehow missed the truth? or is it our great consuming fear of civil war? it has allowed us to heap symbolism in a simple case of nebraska. even if it stands before us. truth has been driven from this case like a slave.

from court to court, wretched and destitute. then, not by any great legal acumen, quite the opposite. but through the long powerful arm of the executive office, this is most important cases ever come to this court. >> the circumstances. >> a brilliant performance in spielberg's best film, for me. in 1839, a group of captured and enslaved africans on a ship called the amistad were being taken from africa to be sold in havana, cuba am a witch had a great legal slave market. they overpowered the captain and crew and took over the ship

themselves. they attempted to return to africa, but none of them being sailors, they had to rely on the navigational skills of one of the captured members of the crew who sent them in the wrong direction in the hope that they would be captured and the ship would be returned to the rightful owners. the ship was indeed captured off the coast of long island, new york and taken to connecticut. then the united states is faced with the problem, what to do with these 50 odd black people whom the white people on board the ship claim are slaves and their property, but they are not sure? we are not sure. it is a long legal process that followed which led to eventually the supreme court. the van buren administration, the entire slaveocracy -- van

buren was very much a colleague of and in sympathy with southern values and ideas. the administration and a good deal of the country would have been happy to have seen these amistad prisoners either returned to the white people who claimed that they belong to them and sent to havana, but of course the abolition movement, we're talking the late 1830's, this is 1839. the supreme court cases 1841. the abolition movement which is growing stronger and stronger, even though it is a small minority, and even though most of the north, even though it is uneasy about slavery, it is willing to tolerate it for the

sake of the national harmony. certainly most of the north is racist. the whole issue, the whole problem is really causing tremendous concern. what will we do with these people who we have cap sure? how can we satisfy the supreme court? of course, it makes a decision after looking at all the evidence and after hearing john quincy adams. the decision written by justice joseph story, that indeed these africans stolen and taken illegally from africa, the do not have the legal status of slaves and they should be discharged is free. adams'argument is brilliant. at the end of his speech which i quote at length, there's a glorious paragraph about morality, truth and u.s. values, and a very personal statement of this old man and where he is come from and of all the supreme

court justices he is known in the past is just a brilliant bit of writing. >> joseph story and john quincy adams are both from massachusetts. >> indeed. when john quincy adams as relatively young man was offered by james monroe a supreme court associate justice ship and turned it down, joseph story was appointed. >> he was the youngest ever, 32 years old. >> that is right. >> this is the last part of your book, this is the last art of john quincy adams'life after he had been in congress and after your dinner president. here is the historian of the house. in our special on the capital. this will close out a program. >> he suffered a slight stroke

the year before his death. then, when he recovered, he came back to the house. it was his duty as he entered, the door opened. this one-man misspeaking and when he saw adams he stopped speaking. the entire membership started applauding, and they rose to welcome the great statesman. he was escorted to his seat. not much later, the poor man got up and he was about to speak, and he toppled over. several people grabbed him before he hit the floor. somebody screamed, this mr. adams is dying. that he was moved to what was then the speaker's office. he lay there for two days and then died.

that room where he did die is now the lindy boggs room. >> what was most successful. and john quincy adams life, in your opinion? >> for american history, the most successful. is the. and the treaty of ghent in 1814 and the adams treaty of 1819-1821. to transform the country in interesting ways. emotionally and intellectually, the. in which he served in congress and then became the most controversial and outspoken national voice against what was

called the gag rule than, and against slavery, and the amistad trial, all of those, those instances together resonate most for us today, when we are so aware of what happened between adams'death in february 1848 and 1861. the president in 1861 who swore the oath of office, a bible held in the hands of the chief justice of the supreme court, roger tawny who was proslavery, dred scott decision, appointed by andrew jackson, that man was abraham lincoln, who was in the hall, the chamber of the house of representatives when john quincy adams had that fatal and last heart attack.

their tenure in the house of representatives overlapped by three months. december, 1847, january and february, 1848, and they voted the same way on every issue. lincoln was very aware of that great man sitting in a seat close to the speaker. >> this new john quincy adams, about 600 pages long, this follows gore vidal, henry james, charles dickens, thomas carl icahn a mark twain, and abraham lincoln biographies in the past. does fred kaplan have a next book is going to write? >> yes, i do. it is a book that starts with abraham lincoln and john quincy adams in the same house together, voting in the same way against the american war, against slavery and in favor of ring strong national government

which is responsible for infrastructure in the country. it is not a dual portrait of the two men, but it is a comparison between the two of them and the differences and similarities. especially, their attitudes toward slavery and how those work out. the crucial question is, why did john quincy adams say that the notion of colorization, of exporting all of our free blacks and free negroes and slaves to africa and getting rid of them that way, why is that a ridiculous idea and fantasy. why did abraham lincoln right up until late 1862, right up to late 1862, still believed in and work for colonization. >> fred kaplan, moved from new york city to maine where he is

now -- how many years did you teach? wisconsin atn appleton college. then at cal state. hen i returned to new i returned to new york. until 2005 i was a distinguished professor at queens college and the graduate center. >> the name of the book is "john quincy adams." thank you, fred kaplan. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comment about this program visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available on podcast.