This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

Up next, the story of our sixth president, John Adams' son, John Quincy Adams.

Here to tell this remarkable story of service and courage is New York Times magazine writer

and author of the phenomenal book John Quin Quincy Adams, Militant Spirit,

James Traub. Take it away, James.

His father, of course, is John Adams.

And John Adams, from the time that John Quincy was very, very young,

from the time he was, oh, I don't know, five, four,

his father was a man who lived in the nation.

His father was one of the leaders of the forces that ultimately rebelled against the British.

And so conversation at home, when his father was home, which he often was not,

was not just about family matters as it would be elsewhere, but national matters,

the great struggle to first gain autonomy and then of course ultimately to break away from England.

So he absorbed this atmosphere of high-mindedness, heroism, patriotism,

struggle from his father.

But his mother was also quite extraordinary.

Abigail, John Adams' wife, was the daughter of a very promised minister.

She was herself a much more orthodox Christian than John Adams was, but she was also very

well read.

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