John Adams was one of America’s founders and his son, John Quincy Adams, followed his father into the presidency. Heirs of an Honored Name begins with John Quincy’s unique post-presidential career—18 years in the House of Representatives, during which he drew anger from his Southern colleagues for opposing slavery. But the author is more concerned with the next two squabbling generations of Adamses. Although they continued to serve in Congress, the military and corporate board rooms, their pessimism over America’s evolution eventually left them behind events. They stood for a republic of honorable men, not a democracy encompassing the entire population. Worse still, some became well-read advocates of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Rather than follow the lead of their illustrious ancestors, they behaved like secondary characters in the novels of Henry James.
