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 but doll, of course. course., of an eminent american. not quite of the significance of mark twain or charles dickens. still, distinctive american and a distinctive character. of deep andof -- conflicting tendencies. he can be generous and loyal. ng andld be backbiti demanding. a controlling personality. this.ch a little of let's give people a chance to t he looks like. had the distinct feeling that we live in a revolutionary time. the rich are becoming richer. the hatred of those inside the outside is those creating a true hatred on the who of the many for the few 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 their? -- there? >> i saw him at his witty and perceptive best. was, gore, as so often he assertive and incisive. he was more often wrong than right. fascinating,er is riods of ourthe pe history that he lived through with hiselationship 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. author.yist and i got the sense that this was someone who was victorian. he brought up residences of a personal sort. ances of a personal sotrt/ a victorian gore but all -- vida l. he was witty and caustic like vidal. a more elaborate prose writer than vidal. 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. biography ofodern carlisle that i felt represented him well. >> what year did you do that? >> a long time ago. i am kind of old, at this point. what 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. ion, -- by profession, i was a victorian missed. -- victorianist. i began to defy myself as a biographer -- define myself as a biographer. i said that i could immerse 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? 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. how can their talents interface with the challenge of writing a biography? what kind of biography suits them best? write anto 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? the attraction was that i could combine my love respectrch and amends for knowing things and knowledge. respect for knowing things and knowledge. to, my tremendous commitment knowledge. my subjects were great writers. and committedelf 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 once. -- 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. had why keep track -- how do i keep track? the computer. i start with -- 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. -- our culture, i concentrate on the writing 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. quotationsthat file that i have selected that seem to fit the overall vision of the book. and, quotations from the secondary material. 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. dickens.o charles if you are trying to explain him as a person, what would you say? nergetic.ely e a 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 phdg man, i wrote a 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. 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 recites and therecise and magnified qualities and characters that he wanted to capture. he went through various stages and his prose changed. the late henry james is a difficult writer. i don't think he is. teacher,t down with a mentor, or someone who really wants to read henry james, i can claim he is lucid. >> what about mark twain? >> the genius of colloquial language and satire. he had the capability to look at the american scene with painful and evoke theely, nature of american culture and american life in the 19th and 20th century. from tom sawyer and huckleberry finn to later more painful satirical ofk about the corruption american life. vidal.s go back to i have a quote from you that says that he put a lot of pressure on me. does that change anything you are willing to say about gore? into suing me. >> why? rejectede -- because i vet my manuscript , in the faceation 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. when the manuscript went to the publisher for process a year before obligation, -- publication, i got a call. was warm ande 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. 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. fiction increator of the presence to suit the reality that he wanted it to be. 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. 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. , 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 i spent aip in which lot of time with him in the united states and italy, interviewing and taping. >> did he cut you off after that? >> yes. indeed. gore's call and it was 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. television, watch when journalists and politicians talk nonsense. no problem is ever addressed. there is a lot of talk about process and meaningless words. d the director of the budget, novak. what to do about the budget? the defenseent, 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. manhe same time, he was a who made substantial and interesting contributions. on,f all you have written if you had to pick one to have dinner with or a conversation a? --r know, who would've 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 commenced -- immersed in his life, i would be delighted. i would be delighted to have dinner with dickens, james, or twine. -- 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. put the microfilm end to end, it would go nine miles. >> there are 600 microfilm reels at the historical society. library in america has a full set. >> how did you tackle it? son, only surviving charles francis, went on to have a distinguished career in politics and law. charles francis edited in of hisn -- an edition 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. it is what i did -- that is what i did. 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' han dwriting. 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. biographers who deal with material, i have my tricks. i have ways of moving through the material that allow me to be efficient. >> telecentric -- tell us a tr ick. >> dare i do that? of course i do. to make useicks was 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 did not haveds things happening that would concern my interest or the kind of biography i was writing. i can move along more efficiently. have done a lot on john quincy adams and charles francis adams. i want to show you video of jqa 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 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 state,nt, secretary of minister to england, russia, senator,united states and a representative for 17 years. >> and 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. as theeer can be divided 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. that we'reyears .alking about career asd his to ther and ambassador 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. his twoost proud of major accomplishments in this stage of his career. signed again and finished in 1821. and, that established the boundary for louisiana territory. territory american all the way to the pacific and northwest. -- it pushed american territory all the way to the pacific and northwest. 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. 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. difficult and was painful in his life because he came into office under a mutual -- 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 made problemsburr 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? 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 for vision -- provision that allowed for extra electoral votes, john quincy adams would have been elected in the initial election. agreementause of an with henry clay. it became controversial. initially, it was excepted. -- acceptieded. >> there were -- they were not going to allow him any kind of achievement in office. house and the 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. was the secondms adams to be elected to the white seconde was the northerner to be elected to the white house. of twoonly one anti-slavery presidents to be elected to the white house. >> he was the sixth president. 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. of thepaganda machine 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 inntually bore fruit 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. thisver left and because campaigning for 1828 began almost instantly, wheeze to feel very personally the attack on ,er 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. a accurate comment, it is not full comment. it doesn't describe the totality of what they are feeling and what they're going through. 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 andnce her husband's career 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? and always. our contemporary emphasis on how politicized the country is, how should beshington is understood in the context that this is all what -- this has always been the case. when the constitution 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, .ut 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. divided.ry 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. a daughter who lived for year and died in st. petersburg, something that louisa never got over. >> st. petersburg, russia. >> russia, indeed. sonlways hoped his eldest would be to him what he had been to his own father. student that he would look up to his father, that he would be disciplined and have a great future. int he would be an ornament 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. in a verytempted 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. -- 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 'side.l adams john quincy adams brother was an alcoholic, it was the shame of the family. feared thealways 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? story is ant interesting story of competition between brothers, but also a very provocative and flirtatious 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. adams, that is john the young ladynd became intimate and married. , this write in your book is again a personal thing, about 'daily walkeddams 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. 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 ,he 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 to -- for these young men, can you just imagine seeing our president swimming either naked or just in some small and thenn the water 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. 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. nasty volatile and 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. of -- the fact that i of theertain views 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 in presentingair even andrew jackson. if i immersed myself in andrew jackson, i would be withhetically identifying 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 your neck structure, with values of come from his environment and his culture, and every human being is worth anding at and studying 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? 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. us. if it stands before truth has been driven from this case like a slave. from court to court, wretched and destitute. 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. performance in spielberg's best film, for me. and839, a group of captured 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 crewaptured members of the 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. administration, -- slavee slave dr. c ocracy -- 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 ,ourse 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 .uincy adams the decision written by justice , 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. 'argument is brilliant. at the end of his speech which i , there's angth 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. adams as quincy relatively young man was offered 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 'life after heams had been in congress and after your dinner president. assist -- 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 -- 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. anday there for two days then died. die isom where he did boggs room.dy walks >> what was most successful. and john quincy adams life, in your opinion? >> for american history, the most successful. is the. 1814he treaty of ghent in of 1819adams treaty -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 , thoseall of those instances together resonate most for us today, when we are so aware of what happened between 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, ,oger tawny who was proslavery dred scott decision, appointed by andrew jackson, that man was 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. 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 e.on 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 1862, right up to late 1862, still believe then -- believed in and >> from new york city to booth bay maine, how many years did you teach? >> i taught in wisconsin at appleton college from 1962 to 64 and then cal state l.a. from 64 to 67. then i returned to new york. from 1967 until my retirement in 2005 i was a professor at queens college. >> the name of the book is john quincy adams an american visionary. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2014] >>

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Louisiana , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , Russia , Amistad , Provincia De Mayabeque , Cuba , Washington , District Of Columbia , Connecticut , New Orleans , Maine , Netherlands , Nebraska , Petersburg , Sankt Peterburg , Massachusetts , Havana , Ciudad De La Habana , George Washington , Villa Clara , Italy , New Yorker , Americans , America , American , Huckleberry Finn , Charles Dickens , David Cameron , Thomas Carlyle , Tom Sawyer , Fred Kaplan , Andrew Jackson , Charles Francis , Abigail Adams , John Quincy , Charles Francis Adams , Thomas Jefferson , John Quincy Adams , Abraham Lincoln , Anthony Hopkins , Henry Clay , Aaron Burr , John Quincy Adam Han , Henry James , Gore Vidal , John Adams , Amanda Matthews , James Monroe ,