questions. later, we hear from president obama at the 2016 oceans conference. ♪ announcer: this week on q and a, new york university professor james traub. professor traub discusses his adams -- john quincy "john quincy adams, militant spirit." brian: what would john quincy adams say if he was here today about what he sees in the world? james: john quincy adams did not like his own word. he was critical then.

he would be critical now. know, i think above the donald trump thing, his first reaction would be, "what happened to the idea of public service?' why are we having some guy who thinks his business qualification -- his qualification is business? " askedt himself if you had him, why are you qualified to be president, he would say, "because i have served the public selflessly," and that was true, " since i was a young man." he had been a congressman, secretary of state. his own definition of sacrifice and even of heroism all had to do with the idea i am here for the republic. that is my purpose.

and i think he would be sort of saddened and second by this sort of discussed with which people talk about the idea of service. brian: what would he think about a former secretary making $225,000 to give a speech? james: that is an interesting question. in his day, politics was not a root cause. it was the opposite. when he was a young man, he ran for the state legislature of massachusetts. all of his friends would do that because the fear he was -- the theory was first you make joe at eating a lawyer, and then went a lawyer, anding then you went into politics. so adams struggled economically his whole life, but he thought that it was right that he struggle. and i think that again, part of his sense is, it is public

service. you accept the fact that you are not going to make money doing it. you will die for. -- poor. madisonerson famously, not so famously, had terrible economic problems once they step down because they never made any money at all. adams was haunted by the fear that he would die destitute. he was a pretty good investor and was able to invest enough money to bail out many importunate family members as well as his own family. but he thought profiting from politics was immoral. brian: what did you like about him most? james: it is fine. he is not a likable person. i use the word admire or then like. -- more than like. when we have this like test, what i like to have a beer with

this guy, the test george w. , thewon over al gore answer is no. he is kind of a forbidding figure. his son said he war and iron mask. -- an iron mask he was an astonishing talker. he forgot nothing. but i don't describe him as a likable man. i give full measure to his unlikable, indeed, really unpleasant qualities. bad husband, and bad father, great son, irreverent son. of there is this deep sense an obligation beyond himself. he was never in a war. he never saw battle, but he was fearless and he was prepared to risk his life in the name of public service. when it came to the last part of his life, and we can come to this later, when he took on the

slaveocracy in congress, he started getting death threats. he kept all the letters. there were dozens of them. they were not things like, you deserve to die. they were things like, i am in kentucky or someplace, and i am leaving now. and i am coming for you. i will cut you down. sometimes he would get letters from people that say, ok, i am halfway there. i'm still advancing george washington. very credible threats. he did not tell federal marshals. he did not tell his wife. he lived his wife -- his life and thought it was shameful to live otherwise. that is heroism. brian: what did you think before spending all of this time with john quincy adams? james: among the various things i do, i teach class on foreign .olicy at nyu

the class is basically in foreign policy from woodrow wilson forward. for was searching 19th-century foreign policy and naturally, you come across adams' name. i thought, i should read a book on adams, and i looked. no disrespect to any of my predecessors, but really since 1950 and 1956 when the great wrote aic historians prize-winning biography, there has not been a substantial treatment of him. --hought, oh, on expounded founding father territory. then i learned he kept a diary. at an episodic diary but diary like no public figurehead ever cap. it began when he was 11. 18, he wasme he was

physically paralyzed near his death, that is an astonishing rate third -- record. .e must've thought this you don't have to say that of adams. you don't have to say that, he tells us what he thought. here is a third thing. adams was not a good president. he was not a successful president. here's cap -- his career ended at the end of his presidency as his father's career ended at the end of his presidency. he goes back to congress and becomes the great champion of the anti-slavery forces. trajectory of a man who weaves the presidency -- leaves the presidency scorned -- evened, as a fossil then, he was thought of as a fuddy-duddy, he goes back to this increasingly westernized america, that was the judgment on him. to revert thatst

judgment but the same qualities that had made him a bad president, the same kind of intransitence, that sealed the case. --an: a book who wrote about he said something in the interview i have never forgot. i want you to fill in the blanks. this is about the diary. back to the -- [video clip] >> back to the diaries? >> 608 reels for the adams papers. 19 reels devoted to the diaries. >> have you read them all? >> more than once. i think i am the only person in the united states who has had the tenacity to do that. >> can you quantify how many pages? out -- i forgot

who told me this -- if you extended the real of the film, it runs nine miles. brian: that was your experience of the diaries in the archives? >> it is 17,000 or so pages of volumes.n think of that as an experience. so no diary is ever of course truly a transparent record. it is a record of what that person thought, not what actually happened. only that, there elements -- there are elements that go sideways. things you would not expect. his wife it louisa had innumerable miscarriages. you don't know for sure because adams won't talk about that until we come to a passage where she has agonized and suffered, and then adams himself is

tortured. but for him, pregnancy was to intimate. .- too intimate but the thing that does come through so powerfully is the personality of a man with a deep fire in his soul. self accusatory, harshly self accusatory -- i must wake up earlier. i must read more. i reread my diary, it has all been nothing. there is that. there is his astonishing in addition -- erudition. he loved byron. byron was the most bad of the bad boys, bad and dangerous to know. everything atoms would have deplored -- adams would have deplored. but he loved the poetry and literature. e, loved byron, he loved auper

who he also thought of as a libertine. so the breadth of his personality also comes through. i was never through. tree, he wass fascinated by dan draghi -- dendrology, which is his word for the study of trees. and my eyes scanned over and i thought, more trees, i can skip this passage. i can'te paul nagel, say i have read every word. brian: where did you read it? james: here is the great thing about modern life. the answer is, on my computer. exists injournal several forms. his son, john charles adams, who was illiterate, and indeed his mother john and abigail,

collected 45% of the diaries in 12 bound volumes. so i have that. then, in addition to that, the adams papers project at the massachusetts historical society , which cannot be said from the point of view of people who care about this that start with john all the way down to the seventh generation, have digitized the whole diary. it is all available online. in addition to that, they have the gun optically scanning the diary so that you get a , which nowversion runs through, i don't know, 1617 -- 1817, when he was secretary of state. brian: i want to put on the soeen his life broken down that those who have never paid any attention or even those that

have can see the run down. you look at, i know you point out in your book, he was minister to the netherlands age 27 to 29. minister to prussia age 30 to 33. u.s. senator from massachusetts age 35 to 40. to 46,r to russia 42 that is his age. minister to great britain 47 49. secretary of state 50 to 57. president of united states 1825 to 1829, age 57 to 61, and then representative of the house for massachusetts age 63 to 80. which parts did you have the most interest in when you wrote? james: i guess the last. i would say, prior to what you put up on the screen, his youth

was fascinating because his father took him, john adams, took him to france in 1778 and again in 1780 when he was going as a diplomat. and as a young man, had an upbringing in europe that was really like that of very, very few americans, and he wrote about it in his diary. and so we know about the time that he spent, nine months or maybe a year, as a 13-year-old secretary to america's then russiador to prussia -- in st. petersburg. the ambassador was received by catherine the great. there was a five volume history of england. i know everything he did then. his youth was very, very

interesting. but then, if you ask what was the part that was the most riveting for me, it was really his final phase when he is, he is the former president of united states, and there he is in the house. what you would imagine in a case like that is this man, full of years and honors, speaking grandly, you know, of his knowledge -- no, no. he was furious. he was a harpy. --would taunt and range rage. he was bitter, he was indicative. all of his righteousness and his bile were all provoked by slavery. and by the southern smug opposition to those anti-slavery forces. and so, this is really magnificent. i mean, he is like a hissing snake or a spitting dog.

but above all, he is the most credible opponent. , he is soce but twice enraged, this is what he called the slaveocracy, the southern slaveowners of congress, they had moved to have him censured. there was a censure proceeding. the first time, he defended himself alone, nobody would come to his aid, and he defeated the south alone. in 1842, he had a whole community of people around him. he had a researcher in the library of congress, but in the end, it was still his own speech for days that caused the south to cry uncle. so when people say to me, when miranda going to for him? musical if you work to do something, this would be the moment when this cantankerous old new

englander is spitfire. brian: what was the gag rule? james: here is the firm -- form in which he took on the slaveholders. the constitution guarantees the right of petition, and we don't think about that right anymore, because if you want to influence your congressman, you can join a special lobby group, give them money, ok. in those days, when you could not, the only way you had a voice besides voting was to submit a petition. said, my uncle john fought bravely in the revolutionary war, he has not gotten the pension, he should get one. but there were also petitions about issues. so in 1835 when the abolitionist movement really began, it was really more the anti-slavery movement, people were not calling themselves abolitionists , they would petition congress. the petitions would say, i would

like congress to prohibit slavery in the district of columbia, which is a federally administered district and therefore the congress has the power to do so. or i want slavery. everything you could do to end it in virginia, that was virginia's call. no one in congress wanted to submit these petitions because the south dominated congress because of the 3/5 rule, that meant every slave counted for /5 of a person. south carolina was over represented. so adams would present them. in the beginning he said, look, i do not even sympathize with these petitions, but people have a right to petition them, so i will. this was a big threat because slaveowners said, slavery is a state's right issue. it cannot be discussed or debated in congress.

adam said, it is a right of petition, of course it can. responded byolders doing something unprecedented. they said, they passed, propose and then pass laws which stipulated that on the issue of slavery, and only on the issue of slavery, congress would not see petitions. they were married -- many variants of that, but it was like that. that rule was a congressional rule which expired with each new congress. that meant there would be a huge fight. adams and others would petition -- present these petitions. immediately, the south would respond for the proposal for a new gag rule. .very time the south would win but the debates and got closer and more ferocious. and adams, after standing alone the first couple times, got more and more confederates. he began to mentor a whole generation of anti-slavery

congressmen. movements were consequence. adams was doing things preposterously to flout the rules. he would present the petition that was not from abolitionists, it was from slaves. the south would not quit. how can slaves present a petition? they are not people, they are property. he said if they came from a dog or a horse, i would present it to congress. sultan hearsman petitions -- hears petitions. washe petitions of slaves asking congress not to ban slavery but to preserve slavery. but in fact, he knew it was sent in as a fraud in order to goad him into presenting it, and he did it on purpose. so he raged this out.

he had these incredible dramas. , thevery year, generally opposition to the gag rule built up. finally, after 10 years of nonstop adult, the gag rule -- battle, the gag rule would not be sustained. brian: what did that mean then in the house from there on? james: the honest answer is, was slavery going to be ended by debate in the house or senate? no. sm we cannot say adams' heroi led to the end of slavery. it led to the free debate of slavery which the south feared. that free debate over slavery is what ultimately led to the election of 1860 of the explicitly anti-slavery candidate, abraham lincoln, which convinced the south that had no future in the republic, and it seceded to civil war.

so adams and of that the foundation. -- kind of laid the foundation. brian: where do you start your life? have been a journalist all my life. this writing history thing is new for me. i don't write about dead people. i write about living people. i have been a journalist since i graduated from college. brian: where? james: at harvard. and i'd knocked around and whenever young people come to me and they, i want to be a journalist like me, i say, don't be journalist like me. i spent years writing for magazines that are all defunct now. i cannot member's the names of the science magazines and business magazines and airlines -- anything. i worked as an editor briefly, but i did not want to do that. i wanted to write. telllly the thing i always kids who come to me, i only got

whenely good at this thing i insisted on writing about the stuff that i cared about, the stuff that i was thinking about even if i weren't writing about it. that is when i started writing more important things for more important publications that i am happy to say to exist to this day. to this day.t so i wrote about my favorite subjects, foreign policy. crime, thes, race, 1980's, still the cold war. nobody wrote about foreign policy. it was a frozen thing. it was domestic questions, things about affirmative action, school reform -- i wrote about school reform for many years. that is my life. i have books at the same time on some of these same schedule -- subjects. and in the new york times, which i was writing for chiefly at that time and for many years, assigned me a piece about a man going to iraq to try to persuade

saddam hussein to let weapons inspectors back in. this was january 1980. i did that. i showed up on a thursday, and on monday, i flew to baghdad. that was the most fun i ever had as a journalist. i thought, wow, foreign policy, this is great. that was really the beginning of what is the chief source of my career since then. brian: you think your son in this book, alex. what part did he play, and how big is your family now? james: i am from the suburbs of new york. whoife is an art historian now runs an organization called the center for curatorial readership which cranes -- trains curators to be better leaders of their institutions, whether they are going to become directors or not. my son alex who is 25 right no lives in calcutta where he works -- right now lives in calcutta

where he works for an english-language newspaper. he is very happy. calcutta is one of the worst cities you have ever seen, and he loves it. he sends me his stuff to be edited, and i sent him my stuff to be edited. he read every word of this book and gave me extensive comments. i would say never unduly harsh, but talk. he can be very tough on me to the point where i will just push back because, you know, you get defensive. but he is usually right. so he has that role, and i hope he will always have that role with my work. brian: back to john quincy adams. he was born to john adams, but where, and how many kids are in his family? james: he was born in a place but it isd braintree, now quincy. so, he was this second

child. he had an older sister named abby. and then there were two more boys who were born after him. he was the second of four. but because he was the oldest as, he was always treated number one. and so, on the question of education, for example, when the parents talk about nabby, she is kind of folded into the group. but john quincy is there, he is the one who is kind of nominated for to be the next generation. i suppose they must have seen early on that he was an exceptionally gifted person and also very disciplined, which his two younger brothers were not. they just did not have that iron in their sole that both of the elder adams had. the weight ofore their hopes, their expectations, their disappointments with a heavy burden to bear. a bookjoshua kendall has

called "first dad," a book on presidents and their children. here's is what he had to say about john quincy adams. [video clip] >> of all of the other dads, who would you not like to have been the son of? >> i think john was really, really tough. >> number one reason? >> he had a son at harvard and don't come home for christmas, i will feel nothing but shame in your presence. .here was a class of 75 kids it was really, really tough. james: he was a terrible father. the thing that strikes you is that this guy did not have an easy time as the son of parents who had such high expectations. and his mother would write him these letters that would kill your blood. when he goes to europe as a boy, she writes him a letter that

against thearns him pleasures of europe. she says, i would sooner you perish beneath the sea then that you become -- she does not say a libertine, but that is what she means. and she means it. you would think that if you were grown up -- you had grown up under this excruciating burden, and you were aware of the chill that had entered your own soul as a result -- that i think he was -- you would say, i will not make that music -- mistake with my own children. but he worshiped his parents. he worshiped his mother as much as his father. in the biography thomas she is kind of the villain. thate can understand today. but he did not view her that way at all. he wept when she died. he never, he never dissented. he worshiped them both.

part of him that said, when he finally had children of himself, i better not do to them what they did to me. quite the contrary, it was worse. he was worse because i think he had a terrible era failing. so he -- fear of failing. so he drove the children unmercifully. behavior woulde include not only being 30th in the class -- one of his sons was actually kicked out of harvard. in those days, students were always writing about this and that. his whole class was rioting, and he was kicked out. the president tried to intervene, and he said, sorry. he was writing these letters to both of his, there were three boys. one of whom, charles francis, became the john quincy adams of

the next generation. he always, he was kind of a loose liver, but he kept it from his father. his father did not know. the other two, one, it was irresponsible and the cause of heart sickness. the other, george, was a deeply troubled person. there was something that did not grasp reality about george. he was a lovely person. people like him but he could not -- he lived in a dream world. adams, instead of recognizing that that is what george was, he just laid into him for his unrealistic. even adams realized that a certain point, he was not getting anywhere. you can see that in the letters that he sent. also committed suicide. do i think adams is responsible? it is a terribly have a judgment to make. i think george was a strange

young man from the time he was born. who knows. wife worried that her husband would think that she blamed him. that shey think thought that was because she secretly did. she did not think she -- should but she did. one could have. again, that is a mystery. there was no question that he was a harsh and unforgiving father. trapper 24 of three -- chapter 24. 1825-1827. an arrow to the heart. john quincy adams awoke in almost every day of his tenure in the white house. he rose as early as four clock in the summer and perhaps an hour later in the winter. you go on to a lot of things. a lot the personal things. james: the thing that strikes

you, not as a politician, he has done whatever he needs to do, he is so solitary. he a solitary man. when you ask, why is his great literary achievement a journal, i think the answer is because he was most at ease speaking to himself. speaking with in his own mind. his powerful multi chambered mind. struckident, one is just by how solitary he was. companions.ave boom more presently, he did not form alliances. he did not do anything that you would do in order to be able to persuade people who otherwise might not go along your agenda. his four years in the white house were just paying -- pai n.everything was hard. he achieved almost nothing. he probably would not have succeeded very well anyway

because he was very much the last of the line and a new world was coming into being with andrew jackson. there are other reasons that had to do with the contested election he want that made him it was- people think illegitimate. a conventional politician like henry clay who was a secretary of state, the lbj at this time, would have found a way of saying, i will not propose this or that because it will never get through, but i'm just going to focus on this and then i will really work it hard to get it repaired adams never did it -- get it through. adams never did it. eventually, people would see i'm right. eventually, abraham lincoln enacted a certain amount. self-defeating brian: behavior for a politician. brian: what was his routine in the morning? once he would wake up at

don, he would take himself on a solitary walk. he went out to the white house and would either turn right towards congress or the left towards georgetown. he would walk through the darkness. no one would ever see him. there was nobody there. washington was still a small town. pennsylvania avenue had just been page. paved. he would walk and thing. he would come back and see the dawn rise in the white house. then he would get to work. normally, he would read the bible for an hour in des moines. maybe when he was president he would have to omit that. that was his usual habit. he would read the bible. then he would have breakfast later and get to work. getting to work for him, a lot of it was writing. other writing letters to officeholders.

he was responding. if anybody wanted a military patch, he had to do that. he had to do a lot of things that presidents would not have to do. then he would meet with the cabinet in the afternoon and go back and read some more. e some more. then he would have a late supper and then he would write in his journal late at night. he would probably like -- write the drought lasting. he was spend an hour a day writing the drought. this was a guy who was unbelievably overworked. his cabinet got worked into the ground. he still wrote the journal. that he wasrite frequently ill, almost always melancholy. this line, yet luis's name rarely appears in his journal for his presidential years. james: it is striking. virtually never. with theseonsumed

battles he was fighting. absented herself. she went up to the bedroom and eight bonbons. ate bonbon's receipt a sweet too. and could not gain weight. she was always been. -- thin. she was basically profoundly depressed. she was having a breakdown. soing those times, she was him shee and angry at wrote poetry. she loved to read poetry. she wrote fragments of place. plays. the most painful want to read by far, it begins as a processional. it never turns into a narrative. in the processional, there is lord sharply and lady sharply.

he is adams. he is seen as a man of absolutely irreproachable morals and perfect demeanor who is utterly devoid of human warmth and ambitious at the same time. that a firstieve lady would write this about her husband. the one time in the course of writing this book when i thought, why am i writing about this man? it was when it was reading that play she wrote. it is just awful. brian: you described him as a short man, balding and study. -- stubby. indifferently dressed. a notice as he moved swiftly along the streets. james: you knocked on the door and his son would probably answer it. there was nobody else to answer the door. maybe a servant. in theng i skipped,

summer, when he would do in the morning is he would go swimming. in those days, there was a branch of the potomac that went to the white house and he would walk to a rock and take his close off and get naked and put on goggles and go swimming. one time he is swimming with his decides servant and he not to take office he's wearing sleeve with a bold the .- boulbous sleeve it fills up with water and he comes close to drowning. he takes office close off. clothes off. he comes off -- back to the white house at 9:00-10:00 and as far as i can tell, no one had missed him. he had been gone for hours. if this happened now, you would have the entire u.s. military out hunting for the guy.

nobody noticed. write that he had decided to follow mantras example of accepting no social invitations out unless you give offense to whomever he resumes to -- refused. very shynro's wife was and retiring. luis was a gregarious person. adams had been secretary of state, she had parties and that was the only way that adams could connect with the larger world. she was very important to him politically. once he got into the white house, he felt that i am the president of the united states. he felt that as a burden. i can't do anything that would be seen as partial. itdid not want to invite -- was a completely unnecessary restriction. when he first came to washington as a senator, thomas jefferson

would basically invite every interesting person in washington and he and adams had been great friends when they had been in paris. adams and luis would go all the time and it was great from -- fun. he was quite accustomed to the idea of the white house as a social center. cave asike a bear in a president. life: back to the -- his on a string good showing the different years. a couple other moments. in particular, let's look at the years he was in the united states senate. 35-40 years old. did he do anything in the senate memorable? how did he get their? -- there? in those days, senators were not elected directly. they were chosen by state legislatures. so, it was not surprising that

he was the son of a president and a very highly regarded diplomat. through a series of retirements, he got the job. the thing that distant wished him from the moment he got there was that he was a member of the federalist party, his father's party, the opposition party. thomas jefferson was the republican party. brian: was that a republican today? james: no. it ultimately becomes the democratic republican party and then the democratic party. jefferson's party was the antecedent to the republican party. the republican party we know today aligns with lincoln. took the position that he is not here as a party man. he did not believe in party. george washington did not believe in party. felt thate founders party meant faction and it was

bad. selfish association instead of national patriotism. adams absorbed that. when jefferson was doing things that were seen by other federalists as being a disaster for their own party, therefore they opposed it. the louisiana purchase which was going to queue to expand the magnitude of the country into areas of the west and parts of the separate some of which would be slaveholding areas. all of it would be new men who would see no -- old new england as antiquated. adam said, this is a good thing. he had a vision of america as a continental nation. as many did at the time. he supported it. with a million caveats. hand, he was kind of the eccentric and had his own intellectual views and would follow them much working on the other hand, he would indifferent to party and was prepared to accept whatever consequences came of that. that was out he left the senate

because he, in the run-up to the english were attacking american shipping. this meant that they would take just sailors who had signed up on american ships and take them off. often they were not produced, they were american. it was hard to tell the difference. the accents were not so different. jefferson said this was unacceptable. ultimately, he said we are going to establish an embargo. no transatlantic shipping. as a contrast of fee for new england -- this is a catastrophe for england. all of doing what impose the embargo except for adams. he said we can never be supine before it: -- a foreign foe. he knew would be a disaster for him politically and he was not sure the embargo would work. he cannot bear the idea of allowing the british to get away

with these degradations on american shipping. so his friend said to them, are you crazy? you can't do this? he said he will. ultimately, 1808, massachusetts shows the replacement before the term has -- chose his replacing before his term had gone up. he resigned as of today. it was an episode that from the outside looks humiliating. adams considered it one of the proudest moments of his life. brian: back to the second page. where he was secretary of state. who was the president then? what did he do that mattered? james: he is secretary of state under james munro. america is no longer at four. -- war. it is already a different kind of profession.

america's foreign-policy was what we would consider domestic policy and it was territorial expansion. that was the goal. of foreign policy, america was like what china spoke of a peaceful rise. all they wanted was to not have problems abroad so they could focus on this enormous dynamic at home of expanding. achievement was negotiating with spain over territorial expansion. spain held florida. floridas and the included the western part which is arkansas now. america have been try to get that for a long time. adam saw that spain was a weak country. america was rising. adams knew he had him overrated ariel. rather than simply negotiate for porter, he wanted land to the west. he wanted all of this property to the west.

ambassadorspanish dueled over this. a look at maps and the spanish ambassador with the here and adams was a, no, there. this side of the river, know that one. he ultimately got the spaniards to concede a line to this pacific ocean. line.ine was a it had no geographic value but made america a specific power. it extended to the specific. that was a great achievement which america had longed for. no one expected that to happen. adams kept pushing for more territory. even at some point, munro -- munro - said he would get more. areas that went to the eastern edge of texas and then this line to the specific. -- pacific.

it was a great achievement. it was one of the greatest diplomatic achievements by one man america has ever achieved. brian: could he speak? james: interesting question. adams was a fantastic talker. that thise testified man knew every word in shakespeare. -- if we talked about dancing girls, he could talk about stories from the old testament and talk about the -- he knew everything about everything. he was not a public speaker. he was a terrible public speaker. he tried very hard to learn. in 1805 he is back

in boston earning a living as a lawyer. harvard approaches it. harvard does we would like you to be the first professor of rhetoric and oratory. a care that exists today. the oldest continuously endowed chair. adams had long studied cicero and the other great rhetoricians. withe became obsessed this. every time he went to church which you would be twice on sunday, he would note the verbal sakes up the preacher -- tick of the preacher. he put himself through this education in order to make himself a better professor and also better at this thing. ultimately, adams became a great speaker in congress as an alderman. politician, he

always felt that he would lose the thread or forget. he did not have a great voice. he was not like daniel webster. he was not a very persuasive speaker. i would say that at the end of this -- his life, the last 20 years when he was in congress, and a public speaker come he did aim a public speaker. -- he became a public speaker. daniel webster was going to speak at this place and hundreds of people would turn out. demand because of the slavery thing. in newd deliver speeches england. at one time he was asked to deliver a speech in cincinnati which is the furthest west he ever went. -- went to. he became one of the great speakers. brian: you say this is your first history book. james: correct. brian: over the years, we have learned that people with phd's

popularike part -- historic. did you come up against that and were you worried that somebody would rip this book apart because of sources? james: yes. i have only come up with -- against it recently when i was introduced giving a talk by somebody who very much is a phd and is a kind of official expert in the subject. , he lacks the one credential of our field. he does not have a phd. he then went on to say, however, he nevertheless has not been an impediment. a crackeen by people as in my lack of experience. f youan understand that i went through all the misery of writing your dissertation and the idea that somebody like me who did not have to pay that

price of admission and just comes along and says, i'm just as qualified as you, here is my book. that can cause resentment. i was incredibly relieved when the review of my book appeared in the new york times book review it was written by joseph the most is certainly popular and perhaps the greatest of our living historians of the 18th century. he said that since the guy is not a historian, he does not feel he has to pursue everything down every rabbit hole. , if nots things as much more than they need to be treated. he writes a very jargon free prose. he said many nice things. i thought, thank god. that was my one big fear. whatever else anybody says, i don't care. joe ellis said i'm ok.

brian: what did you think of this experience? james: i loved it. i was never bored. i never forget it. -- regret it. except maybe when i was reading luis's horrible story of him. i love reading his journals. i love doing the secondary research. i was fascinated by the characters around him. clay, jackson, webster, calhoun. these are great men. writing it was a profound pleasure. life. five years of my i always look forward to going to work. brian: what was the day like? when did you start, where did you work? james: i'm not old-fashioned. i sat in front of my computer all day. i think they think that may be a

little different because i'm not an academic come or so i have been told, academics tell me that they love research and they don't write -- like writing. i write stuff for a great -- living. i love it. unlike perhaps, scholar would work where you spend two or three years or whatever amount of time learning the stuff and then you sit down and write it, that is not how i worked at all. i would learn everything i thought i needed to know about a particular chunk of his life and then i would sit down and write it. then i would do the next phase at which point i learned that much of what had written before was not quite right. then i would go back and rewrite it. process -- i could never have put off the writing for that long could it would have driven me crazy. brian: fast, slow writer? james: if you are a journalist as i am, you have to produce.

idea writer's block is beginning of chapter and i cannot figure out the way in. that first word alludes me. i am atave that, anything to fast. when a few must writing too fast, i will stop because of not taking enough time. i am very recursive. begin, i will go back and read the first word i wrote before print i will not start writing anything new until i have reread and rewritten what i wrote the day before. brian: here's your first sentence. john quincy adams was a plain man. toitors who traveled massachusetts, to speak to the old man, the former ambassador to the courts of london and st. petersburg, secretary of state to james monroe and six presidents were taken aback by the austerity of his furniture

coat,e simplicity of his which seemed always to care a fine layer of dust as if from the old volumes he had been scrutinizing only a moment before. that is a long sentence. james: that is one sentence? my god. brian: how long did it take you to begin that way? james: i did not begin that way. that was my nth beginning. first stepember the at my first page. i do not think it was that. -- i wasas reading thinking about an account became by william seward one of lincoln's cabinet members. he met adams as an old man. he describes that plainness and i thought, that is what i want

to evoke. puritanck, cureton -- austerity. then it was easy enough to write. brian: your last sentence is also long and is about luis catherine adams. you say she was buried in the family pulled in the stone andle to her father-in-law she adored. her mother in law who she feared, her husband who saw she had penetrated as no other mortal had and whom she found exasperating, pendant just, and tolerant, self-absorbed and yet, magnificent. when did you write that one? was that your last sentence? james: it was not my first last sentence. i think my first last sentence hist was probably about descendents, about how he has continued on into the world.

somehow it seemed right to talk about his legacy. it is a little weird in a way to luis and not with him. ending, is not the best but i think when i thought about her knowing him as no one else knew him, that her judgment on wayshich was harsh in many , it was the right way to end because i'm talking about my own feelings about him. i'm projecting my own feelings about him. brian: another book, another history book? james: another book but not history. i'm backsliding into journalism. brian: if anyone was report policy directives, where do they go? james: foreign policy.com and

check my name under voices. brian: the name of the book is "sovereignty adams: militant adams:-- john quincy militant spirit." thank you. james: thank you. ♪ >> >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments, visit us at q and a.org. these programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >> if you enjoyed this week's q and a interview with james tra

ub, here are some other programs you might like. this book about duncan c atoms by fred kaplan. joshua kendall looking at presidents as authors and author andd stewart on madison partnerships that built america. watch these anytime or search our entire video library at c-span.org. >> c-span's washington internal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up on monday morning, a look at the latest census bureau report on poverty in the united states and reason why the poverty rate experienced its largest drop in almost 50 years. with center for law and social policy executive director olivier goldman and heritage .oundation fellow robert rector then a discussion on congressional and presidential fundraising and spending numbers with senior political reporter

for the center of public integrity. and in the elections chair will butter the security of systems and vulnerability to hacking. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on monday morning. join the discussion. next, part of prime minister questions atakes the house of commons. then remarks by uk independence party leader nigel farage and diane james. at 11:00 p.m., another chance to see q and a with author james traub. british prime minister theresa may answers questions from qwest -- members of parliament. defending her proposal to introduce grammar schools. she also talked about border control in light of the brexit decision, humanitarian aid to syria and relations between t