Mr. Adams's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress

Following his single term as President of the United States (1825-1829), John Quincy Adams, embittered by his loss to Andrew Jackson, boycotted his successor's inauguration, just as his father John Adams had done (the only two presidents ever to do so). Rather than retire, the sixty-two-year-old former president, U.S. senator, secretary of state, and Harvard professor was elected by his Massachusetts friends and neighbors to the House of Representatives to throw off the "incubus of Jacksoni...