Crude Myth

John Quincy Adams and the Union, by Samuel Flagg Bemis. 565 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $8.75

The concluding volume of Professor Bemis’ elaborate and well written biography of our sixth President is the product of meticulous research largely vitiated by a want of historical perspective and objectivity. As a member of Congress after he left the White House, Adams was increasingly involved in the controversies between North and South. The Sterling Professor of Diplomatic History at Yale assumes that the noisy crew of Abolitionists were the Children of Israel engaged in close cooperation with God, whereas the “Southern capitalists” were the Canaanites, whose vileness is conclusively shown by their presumptuous endeavor to defend themselves and their country. This crude myth is still useful to rabble-rousers, but as sober history is simply grotesque.

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John Quincy Adams and the Union, by Samuel Flagg Bemis. 565 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $8.75

The concluding volume of Professor Bemis’ elaborate and well written biography of our sixth President is the product of meticulous research largely vitiated by a want of historical perspective and objectivity. As a member of Congress after he left the White House, Adams was increasingly involved in the controversies between North and South. The Sterling Professor of Diplomatic History at Yale assumes that the noisy crew of Abolitionists were the Children of Israel engaged in close cooperation with God, whereas the “Southern capitalists” were the Canaanites, whose vileness is conclusively shown by their presumptuous endeavor to defend themselves and their country. This crude myth is still useful to rabble-rousers, but as sober history is simply grotesque.