I have a soft spot for John Quincy Adams. Although the general public think of him, when they think of him at all, as a grumpy, irritable, one term President and the son of John Adams, I've always thought there was a lot more there. Certainly everything they say is true, and I'd be the last person to deny it, but many of the policies he fought for, and lost, as President were ground breaking; a national univeristy system? Wow. He seemed to take much of Henry Clay's American Plan to heart and then run with it. And then there was his attitude towards slavery and the south? One can't help but feel that his entire later career in the House was dedicated to making life miserable for the region that denied him a second term, and had the audacity to believe in a peculiar insitution which was morally despicable.
And so, I give you the following challange:
Make a timeline where John Quincy Adams is listed in the same breath as Washington and Jefferson. Rather than his Presidency being a dismal failture, I want you to make it amazing. JQA deserves to go down as one of the greatest, and I challange you to make it so!