This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, Reach for a Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry. and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavors fusion.
Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sip in season. and only for a limited time. Sprite. Obey your thirst. 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points.
You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you. We'll leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is when mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled Basketball, season 2 sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on Your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA SIPC, advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures.
A new year is on the horizon, and your 2026 savings start here. Right now, you can access the Washington Post for just $2 every four weeks. Head into the new year with six months of savings at the special intro rate. After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. Cancel anytime.
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Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to WashingtonPost.com/slash iHeart. That's WashingtonPost.com/slash iHeart and start your year informed with the post. 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.
You are to tell this remarkable story of service and courage. Is New York Times magazine writer and author of the phenomenal book, John Quincy Adams, Militant Spirit? James Troub 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 promisent minister. She was herself a much more Orthodox Christian than John Adams was, but she was also very well read. Her father and her father's brother had just put a lot of books in her hands.
And so she was a very smart, very thoughtful person. a certain kind of proto-feminist. She had befriended many of the most important women of her day. And was equally, of course, a patriot who believed deeply in the sacrifice that her husband was engaging in.
So from the very first, Adams absorbed this notion that your life Lay at the disposal of your country. That's what it was for. You were, above all, a citizen. And the ambitions that you would hold most deeply were ambitions to serve your country.
So when he is seven The Revolutionary War in 1774 begins the Battle of Lexington and the Battle of Bunker Hill. And Bunker Hill Adams grew up in Quincy, south of Boston. The Battle of Bunker Hill was in Dorchester, north of Boston, and there was a hill. Your home. that apparently you could walk up and see all the way across Boston Harbor to Dorchester.
And so his mother Took John, John Quincy, up to the top of this hill in the middle of the battle. And they could see. Smoke, flame. I'm sure they couldn't have seen very much else. Maybe they could have seen British ships riding at anchor.
But he watched, he watched this battle. And in the course of the battle, which was in many ways an incredible success. by a vastly outnumbered American.
Soldiers, his beloved family doctor and the great patriot Joseph Warren was killed. And this was something that he never forgot about his whole life. And Adams could be incredibly, dogmatically hostile to the British. And he would have told you there were many good reasons for that. But certainly some part of it.
traces back. to this early moment, the patriotism that he felt, the hatred he felt for the British who had killed this beloved family member. The lullabies with which his mother would rock him to sleep, poems from the Irish rebellion against the British, which themselves glorified sacrifice in the name of. patriotism and principle. Mm.
When he is ten, In early 1778, the revolution has now broken out. The United States is seriously outgunned. The Continental Congress decides to send John Adams to France in order to get help from the French. Because the French were the infederate enemies of the English. And so his father thought, this is the kind of opportunity that Johnny needs.
And maybe his father just thought, I need company. I need someone to be with me. And so he basically said to Abigail, I'm taking him with me, though he was 10 years old. And so this little boy grew up in a moment. And his father could not have been prouder of him.
He said later in the letters that he never, little Johnny, never whimpered.
Soon was clambering all over the ship, came to know the names, befriended all of the shipmates. and began to learn French. And once he got there to Paris, he was his father's.
Well, I mean, he was kind of his father's companion. His father sent him to school. He became completely. Francophone. His father later moved to Holland because he was trying to get loans from the Dutch.
And Johnny went to school in Leiden. I mean, he was going to, Leiden was a great university. And he was going there when he was 13. And his father would say, Tell me, who's teaching you geometry? Who's teaching you this?
Who's teaching you that? And he would write letters in which he explained all this.
So he was it was both. an extraordinary experience. and an extraordinary experience falling on an extraordinary mind. that led to this remarkable young person. When he was not quite 14, The United States sent a young man named Francis Dean to St.
Petersburg in the hope that Catherine the Great would take their side, which was really, it just shows how poor their information was. She obviously thought that any kind of republic. Was a danger to her.
So she never received him. But Dean wanted to have someone come with him.
someone who spoke perfect French. And so his father said, well, I know just the person, my son. And so little Johnny then spent a year in Russia. They didn't really do anything because they weren't received. He read enormous amounts.
He walked around St. Petersburg. He wrote long letters home. He was fascinated by everything he saw. And then he came back.
to a Paris, where his father finally came in order to sign the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War. And so what this meant is that with a very brief interval, from age 10 to age 17, this young fellow lived all over Europe, in the great courts of Europe. Uh And you're listening to author James Trub tell one heck of a story. What an adventure at the age of 10 to be hauled across the ocean and to be in on one of the great historical moments of all time. As James said, John Quincy Adams grew up in a moment.
When we come back, more of the story of John Quincy Adams as told by James Trowb here. on our American stories. Lee Habib here. As we approach our nation's 250th anniversary, I'd like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College. And Hillsdale isn't just a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but for you as well.
Go to Hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses. Their series on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again, go to hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses. In sports and in life, timing is everything. You can have the right talent, the right mindset, even the right team, but if you don't act at the right moment, the opportunity slips away.
That's true on the field, and it's true when it comes to your health. If you or someone you care about is facing metastatic prostate cancer, there's a treatment called plavicto, lutetium lu-177, vipivotide, tetraxetan. It's not chemotherapy, it works differently by targeting PSMA-positive cells. Including prostate cancer cells. Pluvicto is a prescription treatment used to treat adults with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer, or PSMA-positive MCRPC, who have already been treated with hormone therapy and are considered appropriate to delay chemotherapy.
Pluvicto involves contact with radioactivity. which may increase the risk for cancer and cause fetal harm. Patients are advised to drink plenty of fluids, urinate often, use contraception, and talk to their doctor about how to reduce the risk of exposing others to radiation during and after treatment. It can also cause low levels of blood cell counts, kidney problems, and infertility. If you experience weakness, pale skin, shortness of breath, bleeding or bruising more easily, an infection or changes in urination, talk to your doctor.
Side effects include decreased blood cell counts, tiredness, dry mouth nausea, appetite loss, joint or back pain, and constipation. Here's the bottom line. This isn't just about treatment. It's about making the most of the time you have. Time to be with the people who matter.
Time to keep showing up for the moments that count.
So, if you or someone you love is in this fight, ask your doctor about Pluvicto, because in sports and in life, the best players don't just react, they anticipate, they prepare, they act. Visit pluvicto.com to learn more. That's P-L-U-V-I-C-T-O.com.
Okay. Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first... There we go.
There. The last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. Yeah.
You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you. Will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled Basketball, season 2 sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on Your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member F-I-N-R-A-S-I-P-C, Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures.
And we return to our American stories and the story of John Quincy Adams. Telling the story is author James Traub, author of John Quincy Adams' Militant Spirit. When we last left off, James was telling us about what life was like growing up as the son of one of America's foremost patriots. He traveled Europe, lived through history, and eventually became his father's personal secretary at the end of the Revolutionary War when he was a mere teenager. Let's return to the story here again.
Is James Trub. At this point, he is a thoroughly sophisticated, brilliant young man. And maybe it wouldn't have been so extraordinary to have a 17-year-old doing that, but he was just an exceptionally elegant one. He was a very elegant gentleman. Completely comfortable with people far older than he.
He'd hardly ever had a friend his own age. He only knew people much older than he was. And so he and his father would talk about affairs of state, which they had been doing for all of these years. His father had become his teacher in so many ways, and he had absorbed so much. And we should bear in mind that this is the rare example.
of an extraordinarily brilliant person having an extraordinarily brilliant son. I don't know which of the two was the more intellectually gifted, but his father was a very, very brilliant man. And so what a teacher to have. And indeed, when Johnny decided, when the family decided, because finally at the very end of this period, Abigail came with the other kids and they were all together. And it was decided that when the treaty was signed, they would all go home and Johnny would, of course, enroll in Harvard, as his father had.
His father was able. to recall the calculus that he learned in high school or college many years earlier in order to tutor Johnny in calculus and in everything else so far as I can tell.
So it was a very close, very loving relationship. But then he also had to live, he had to figure out what to do with himself. You know, what kind of person was he? How was a person such as he? to make a living.
I don't think he ever thought about the ministry, for example. He was just too, I think, intellectually fiery a person for any kind of retired profession. He had this notion in his mind of glory, of greatness, of serving the infant Republic. The word ambition Would be thought of negatively as vanity and greed unless. it was channeled into the ambition to serve.
That's still ambition, of course, and we would say that's just a different stripe of it. But these men with this vision of ancient Rome in their head, thinking about Cicero and Cato, a Seneca, these great figures who would serve the Republic, This is what they aspire to do. And so the notion That this little boy would be the president of this new country someday. It didn't seem Like an unworthy or ridiculous ambition, and the presidency was a far smaller thing then, of course, than it is today. That was always in his head.
Now, that doesn't mean that John Quincy Adams thought of himself as a politician. He didn't, and of course politics was a new thing. It hadn't been invented yet. And so he assumed he'd become a lawyer. Almost all of these men were lawyers.
All that first generation, not Washington but the others, had all trained as lawyers. His father was one of the most famous lawyers in America. And so Johnny dutifully went to Harvard, which, by the way, was the first time, really, he'd ever had friends his own age. And he loved it. It was one of the few times in his life.
that I think he was really happy.
So basically hung around with his friends. And then graduated and apprenticed himself to a lawyer in Havrell, which is a town. In Massachusetts, and became a practicing lawyer, which made him quite miserable. He hated doing it, he had trouble making money. Then Then he began to write.
He began to write essays. He began to write essays about the theater. You know, he had loved plays from the time he was a little boy because he would go to plays. And when he was in France, And he was opposed to the Puritan idea that theater was corrupting and theater should be closed. But then he wrote much more serious things.
He wrote a very important series of essays.
So when Thomas Paine came out with his second book, Common Sense, the Adamses and other conservative New Englanders were horrified at Paine's justification for revolution. This was right after the French Revolution. And Paine essentially took the position that whenever a people feels dissatisfied with the government, they should have the right to overthrow it. Which Adam's father and son were horrified by. And so John Quincy thought.
I think he probably thought, here's my moment. Here's the moment when I can... show my colors to the world. Although in those days one didn't Sign essays. You would give them a Roman name, and people would come to know who it was, but you wouldn't sign them.
And so a series of essays under the name Publicolo. or publico um my uh my latin's no good um uh appeared attacking, brilliantly attacking Payne's Essay, which everybody thought were written by John Adams. Jefferson thought they were written by John Adams, but in fact, they were written by John Quincy Adams. This kind of established him. As an important thinking young person, a gifted young person, so that when George Washington, in his second term, was looking to appoint an ambassador to the Netherlands in 1794, he chose.
A young John Quincy Adams, then age 27, and this was the beginning of Adams' diplomatic career.
So Adams. Is already a senior member of what was a very tiny diplomatic corps and really becomes the most senior member.
So even when he is young, His dispatches home are so brilliant because they're not only about Holland, they're really about Europe and above all about the gathering threat of France, especially as Napoleon gains power. Everybody wanted to read them.
So, first, Washington read them when he was president, and then his father, who became president in 1797. Would read them, and Adams would write these diplomatic dispatches, and then he would write private letters for his father only, which are more. They're more personal, but they also have sharper observations about the European scene. And so he got a series of appointments. He was appointed the ambassador in Berlin.
And he got married, he had his first child. He then came back home. and decided a first to run for the Massachusetts state legislature and then became a senator. In those days it was the state legislature that appointed you a senator. That came to an end very quickly.
If you read JFK's Profiles and Courage, You would find that the first chapter, which is about political courage, is about John Quincy Adams. And the thing that Kennedy cites is the moment in 1807, 1808. When President Jefferson was imposing an embargo on the British because British ships in American territorial waters were aborting American ships and impressing sailors, which is the word they used for basically taking, kidnapping those people, and impressing them into the British Navy. And so Jefferson felt he wanted to avoid war. He had no choice but to impose an embargo in order to persuade the British to stop.
Well, this was a catastrophe. For New England, whose economy depended on merchant ships, and every single member of the New England delegation to the House opposed the embargo. Except for atoms.
Now Adam's new. that this is politically suicide. You can't do that. But he said I will do it. And he said, it is my responsibility not simply to listen to my constituents, but to save them from their own delusions.
Now imagine a politician saying that today. It would be unthinkable. But it was actually pretty shocking even then. And indeed, Adams was subject to a recall by the Massachusetts state. Legislature: an event that would have been humiliating for almost anyone, for Adams.
It was a badge of honor. And he wore his own In fact resignation, his B as B was fired with pride. That's the way he was. I think he. felt that he he knew that he was doing right.
When everybody was telling him he was doing wrong, this wish to have. A noble, solitary, embattled position, a kind of ego, a weird kind of egotism. was very deep in him, and I think probably imbued by his father, who in turn was channeling the Romans. Our first generation of leaders was all very imbued with the example of noble Roman martyrs. And Adams had a kind of yearning.
for heroic martyrdom. And you've been listening to author James Troub. When we come back, more of the remarkable life story. of John Quincy Adams here. on our American stories.
You know what I always say? Pressure makes diamonds. Whether it's on the court or in life, when things get tough, you've got to step up. That's right. And if you or someone you love is dealing with metastatic prostate cancer, stepping up means knowing your options.
There's a treatment called Plavicto, Lutetium, LU177, Vipipatide, Tetraxetan, and it's worth talking about. Plavicto isn't chemo, it's a different kind of treatment that targets PSMA-positive cells, including prostate cancer cells. Pluvicto can be used before chemotherapy for some people. Pluvicto is a prescription treatment used to treat adults with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, or PSMA-positive MCRPC, who have already been treated with hormone therapy and are considered appropriate to delay chemotherapy. Pluvicto involves contact with radioactivity, which may increase the risk for cancer and cause fetal harm.
You've got to drink plenty of fluids, urinate often, use contraception, and talk to your doctor about how to reduce the risk of exposing others to radiation during and after treatment. It can also cause low blood cell counts, kidney problems, and infertility.
So if you're feeling weak, short of breath, bleeding or bruising easily, or notice changes in urination, tell your doctor. Side effects include decreased blood cell counts, tiredness, dry mouth, nausea, appetite loss, joint or back pain, and constipation. Look, this isn't about being tough. It's about being present. It's about being there for the moments that matter, both big and small.
So if you're in the fight or know someone who is, ask your doctor about Plavicto. Because when the pressure's on, you don't fold. You find a way. Visit pluvicto.com to learn more. That's plu vi cto.com.
Okay. Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first Everything is done. There.
The last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that Are you freshes? 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000.
This is when mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more are back to redefine the game. Unrivaled Basketball, season 2 sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tits off January 5th on TNT, TrueTV, and HBO Max. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on Your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA SIPC, advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures.
And we return to Our American Stories and the story of John Quincy Adams. Telling the story is author James Traub and his book John Quincy Adams, Militant Spirit, is a must-read. Go to Amazon or the usual suspects wherever you buy your books. pick up John Quincy Adams again, militant spirit. When we last left off, John Quincy Adams had gone into politics despite not considering himself by any standard a politician.
Actually, there was almost no such thing at the time. This was an early type of career. This mindset ended up getting him recalled from his seat in Congress. Nevertheless, he'd end up becoming Secretary of State under James Monroe. Let's return to the story here again.
is James Trow. In those days, the way you became president is you were Secretary of State. That had been true of almost all of his predecessors.
So this was now, he was now one step away from the presidency. He was, I think, without any question, the most qualified Secretary of State in history, not only until then, that was very short history, but after then.
So Adams was this really preeminent diplomatic figure. And the presidency was the inevitable Only really next step. And so atoms You can't say ran. In those days, you said stood. Adams stood for the presidency.
And the reason you didn't say ran is because that implies, of course, that you're doing something. and at that time it was considered wrong to do anything, at least in public. And Adams being Adams, he wouldn't even do anything in private.
So his friends would fan out across the country. They would buy the services of sympathetic newspaper editors, things like that. That was a done thing in those days. Adams gave them no help whatsoever. And in 1824, he was Elected president.
His presidency failed in a way that is absolutely connected to this. political courage that John F. Kennedy talked about. It's worth noting. That John F.
Kennedy would himself never have committed suicide, political suicide, in the name of his principles. And for that matter, neither would any practicing politician, because your job is to get something done. And so it's admirable in a human way, but really not very admirable for a politician.
Well, Adams wasn't a politician. And he didn't accept the idea of compromise. And so In his very first inaugural address, he laid out a profoundly ambitious agenda. Of what he called internal improvements. We would say things like infrastructure.
But they included the national university, they included scientific innovations, they included the creation of a naval university to go along with West Point, all sorts of things for which there was no constituency. That's not why he had gotten. Ewetted. And Clay and others said, don't do this, you have no chance of winning. And Adams said, well, I don't care because if it's not for this moment, then it's for future generations.
Well, he was right. And so Adams accomplished virtually nothing. as president. Really, he had never had a time when he had been so ineffective and probably had never had a time when he'd been so miserable. And so when the election came around again, Jackson just annihilated them.
Adams never had a chance, and he really wasn't a popular figure. It's not as if there was an unfair outcome. America was a Jacksonian country. And atoms was um He was an intensively self-scrutinizing person. And I don't mean that in our modern sense.
Analyzing his own motives as we would all do in a post-Freud world. It was much more moral than that. He was constantly holding himself up to a standard. of honesty and clarity and truthfulness, and holding up everybody else, they all failed, his rarefied standards.
So the journals are full of harsh judgments, but also of himself, of himself as a failure, of himself as unable to reach the high standards his parents had set for him. Adams represented the spirit of old New England, the line back to the founders.
Well, that wasn't America anymore. That country didn't exist anymore. And so Adams was a kind of defunct figure. He went back home. And he wrote poetry.
I mean, amazingly, he wrote a poetic epic about medieval Irish resistance against English tyranny, obviously a kind of metaphor. for the American Revolution. He wrote in his diary and planted his trees and thought, all right, this is the rest of my life. He was not a young man, he was already. Let's think, 33, he was already 62.
And so people came to him and said, you know, there's an open seat in the house. And we think you should run. And Adams basically said, Well, I'll do it as long as there's not really going to be any competition. And they said, We'll make sure there isn't. And there wasn't.
And so he ran.
So he rejoins the House in 1833, and it's not Queer to him. what large enough task there is. to justify the President of the United States becoming a member of the House. And then there is. And then there is because of slavery.
There were many other things. That he did in the Congress. For example, he was one of the leading voices opposing the Mexican-American War. Many things he did. But, the thing that made him.
a great man. in the eyes of people who previously Had considered him a relic, you know, just a kind of admirable but irrelevant figure. was slavery. And so that is where he made his his great mark. It was very easy.
If you were a Northerner in the 1820s and 30s, to not think about slavery. Any decent person thought it was monstrous. But you would just say, we don't live that way, we don't have slaves, that's the South. And so there was a widespread willingness to essentially put the issue of slavery aside. in order to deal with the nation's business.
And atoms could very well Have been such a person, but he wasn't. And the first time this really comes up is when he's Secretary of State in eighteen twenty. And this is the first time when the United States faces the problem of admitting new states as to whether they will be slave or free. and each one of these provokes a kind of Donnie Brook. And so in 1820, there was what was called the Missouri Compromise, which had many elements, but the central one was Missouri was let in as a slave state and Maine was let in as a free state.
And so this led to a lot of conversation in the cabinet. The minister of war was John Calhoun, who of course later became the great champion of the state's rights. justification for slavery. And so they had a debate. And afterwards, Adams and Calhoun walk away and talk at great length.
And Calhoun was a brilliant man. He was the only person in Monroe's cabinet who Adams regarded as an equal. He was a much younger man than Adams. And Adams writes in his diary afterwards: he describes his long walk and the conversation he had with Calhoun. And he says, that he had never understood until then.
How slavery corrupts the master. as well as debasing slave, that for him to listen to Calhoun, justify slavery. in language that Adams found appalling and also probably illogical. made him think that this thing was a disease that was eating away at the vitals of the Republic.
So that thought was there. And then it... Went away. As president, he had nothing to do with it. In his early years of Congress, he had nothing to do with it.
The issue didn't present itself. But I never did. And you've been listening to James Traub tell one heck of a story: John Quincy Adams' rise from Secretary of State to the presidency. and then to return to Congress. because there was an issue lurking.
in American life. That was slavery. and Adams would rise to the occasion. When we come back, more of this remarkable story, the story of John Quincy Adams here. on our American stories.
In sports and in life, timing is everything. You can have the right talent, the right mindset, even the right team, but if you don't act at the right moment, the opportunity slips away. That's true on the field, and it's true when it comes to your health. If you or someone you care about is facing metastatic prostate cancer, there's a treatment called Plavicto, Lutetium Lu177, Vipivotide, Tetraxetan. It's not chemotherapy, it works differently by targeting PSMA positive cells.
Including prostate cancer cells. Pluvicto is a prescription treatment used to treat adults with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer, or PSMA-positive MCRPC, who have already been treated with hormone therapy and are considered appropriate to delay chemotherapy. Pluvicto involves contact with radioactivity. which may increase the risk for cancer and cause fetal harm. Patients are advised to drink plenty of fluids, urinate often, use contraception, and talk to their doctor about how to reduce the risk of exposing others to radiation during and after treatment.
It can also cause low levels of blood cell counts, kidney problems, and infertility. If you experience weakness, pale skin, shortness of breath, bleeding or bruising more easily, an infection, or changes in urination, talk to your doctor. Side effects include decreased blood cell counts, tiredness, dry mouth nausea, appetite loss, joint or back pain, and constipation. Here's the bottom line. This isn't just about treatment.
It's about making the most of the time you have. Time to be with the people who matter. Time to keep showing up for the moments that count.
So, if you or someone you love is in this fight, ask your doctor about Pluvicto, because in sports and in life, the best players don't just react, they anticipate, they prepare, they act. Visit pluvicto.com to learn more. That's P-L-U-V-I-C-T-O.com.
Okay. Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first There. The last one.
Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. Yeah. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you.
will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Becker, Snafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season. This is Unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher, and every athlete shines. Unrivaled Basketball, Season 2, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max.
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member F-I-N-R-A-S-IPC.
Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. And we continue with our American stories and the final portion of our story on John Quincy Adams.
Telling it is James Traub, author of John Quincy Adams Militant Spirit. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Now by 1835, there was a real anti-slavery movement in the United States. And so the way that the anti-slavery movement tried to move public opinion is they sent petitions to Congress. And the Constitution guarantees the right of petition. They would send them to their congressmen, and most congressmen would just dispose of them because they knew that the South would never allow them to be introduced. Adams, however, who was passionately opposed to slavery, but maybe even more passionately a defender of the United States Constitution and its principles.
Said, how can we deny people the right of petition? It's a fundamental right. We don't think about it today because we have so many other means of making our voices heard through lobbies and political contributions and so forth. In those days, there was no other means where citizens could have their voices heard. And so Adams would insist.
on presenting these petitions. And the Southerners would shout him down because they would have a vote at the beginning of each term that would say, we will not allow petitions about slavery to be received by the House. And Adams knew that, and so he would find some sly way of presenting a petition as if it were not about slavery, when in fact it was. And when that became clear, there would be an uproar and a hubbub. And if you read the congressional record from that time, you can hear the Speaker of the House telling Adams to sit down, and then Adams sitting down, and he pops up again after a minute and says something else, and the uproar starts again.
This went on and on until Adams so enraged the South that they moved to have him censured. And Adams could not have been happier. This was what he dreamed of, this is what he loved. himself standing alone against a slaveocracy, as he called it. And He beat them.
He beat them. It was Adams by himself. Nobody else would take his side. He defeated the censure motion. And this was the first time, but not the only time, it happened again when he, knowing full well what he was doing, he introduced a petition.
He was just reading a petition, and he read the petition from citizens of Massachusetts, his constituents. which called for a dissolution of the Union. Of course what happened when the South seceded twenty years later.
Well, this was a provocation, it was intended to be one, and it worked. And so, even though the South they all knew six years earlier they had humiliated themselves by taking on this man, it happened again. And once again, this time Adams had plenty of assistants. There were lots of other anti-slavery people who stood with him and helped him do research and stood by his side and tried to keep him fed. And the chief prosecutor of the Southern case made the terrible mistake.
of accusing Adams of uh treason. This was just catnip for Adams. He loved this because he knew very well that He hadn't committed treason. Actually, I'll just read a little passage because Adams is standing up there after this guy has said, You know, I've accused you of treason. And this guy, Thomas Marshall, was the Attorney General of Kentucky.
He was the nephew, I believe, of John Marshall, the great Supreme Court justice. People thought that he was a very important figure. Adams viewed him with utter contempt. And this is just to give you a sense of the way Adams talked. He said, the Constitution of the United States says what high treason is.
And it is not for him, meaning Marshall, or his puny mind. to define what high treason is, and to confound it with what I have done. He then suggested that Marshall attend some law school in order to learn a little of the rights of the citizens of these states and the members of this House.
Well, Very soon, the South realized they'd made a terrible mistake again, and they withdrew the censure petition.
So the Amistad was a slave ship. It was an illegal slave ship because slavery had been the slave trade. had been eliminated as of 1817. But it kept going in a clandestine way. And so in this case, these were slaves who had been taken from West Africa, brought to Cuba, where slavery still existed, rebranded.
as Cuban slaves, as Cubans. and then sent to the south. The slave's mute deed? They killed several people. And then they told the captain who was still around to steer them to Africa, which he didn't do.
And instead he actually wound up steering them to Long Island, where the ship was sighted and taken. And then this is 1839, then a very complicated set of court cases ensued. And Adams learned about this and of course immediately took the side of the slaves. Wrote to the anti-slavery people who were funding the defense of the slaves. But that was it.
And then they came to him. And they said, We need you. to take up the defense of the Amistad slaves in the Supreme Court. The case had gotten to the Supreme Court. And Adams, who hadn't appeared before the Supreme Court in 30.
I think three or four years. Agreed. The moment he agreed, Adams was a Awe-consuming person. He would never do something halfway. And so he threw himself into this.
And it was a very complicated case because the slaves were, from the point of view of slave owners, they were not people, they were things, they were merchandise. And even though... It was clear and admitted. that they had been brought there illegally. They were not Cuban, they had violated the law.
Nevertheless, they were still being claimed as merchandise and the owners of the ship wanted to be compensated. If the slaves were going to be free, they were going to be compensated. They kept insisting that the slaves really were chattel. And so Adams immersed himself in the Precedent. of the case.
And the facts of the case.
Now, today, when you argue a case before the Supreme Court, You start speaking, and after 10 words, one of the justices interrupts you. You know, and you never get to say what you planned on saying, but you do your best to. Get your argument out. And most of the important stuff is really in the written material that's submitted to the court. It didn't work like that in those days.
The justices didn't ask questions. You stood up and you presented the case. Adams presented a nine-hour case. over the course of two days. about the facts and about the law.
and about the history So here he was. He was A 73-year-old figure. He was the last living wink. To the Founding Fathers, a president. and the son of a president.
And so he addressed the justices. As an equal, and perhaps in certain respects almost superior of theirs. And so maybe I'll just read the very end because it's again, you get a feeling of his language. He spoke of Justice Marshall, the very first Justice, and all of the figures whom he had known w as a young man. And he said, Where are they all?
Gone. Gone, all gone, gone from the services which in their day and generation they faithfully rendered to their country. And now he's standing in the well of the Supreme Court, and there are tears pouring down his face. There's a gallery that's sitting there in dead silence. And he says from the excellent characters which they sustained in life, so far as I've had the means of knowing, I humbly hope and fondly trust that they have gone to receive the rewards of blessedness on high.
In taking, then, my final weave of this bar, and of this honourable court, I can only ejaculate a fervent petition to heaven, that every member of it may go to his final account. with as little of earthly frailty to answer for as those illustrious dead. And that you may, everyone, After the close of a long and virtuous career in this world, be received at the portals of the next with the approving sentence.
Well done. good and faithful servant. Enter thou. into the joy of thy Lord. That's how he ended.
And this Court. Virtually all of whose members were slave owners. who had been appointed by slave owners. ruled Unanimously. for the Amistad slaves.
It was the greatest victory. To date of the anti-slavery movement. It was galvanizing. It was national and international news. It was an astonishing and thrilling moment.
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to James Traub, author of John Quincy Adams' Militant Spirit. And by the way, they say that history can inspire or that history is boring. And we disagree, that's why we do this show. It's people like James Traub who can bring history alive.
The remarkable story of John Quincy Adams returning to the well of the Congress after being the president to champion anti-slavery and the highest moment of his life in his 70s in a nine-hour two-day argument before the Supreme Court. wins the case. in favor of the slaves. on the ship Amistad. What a story, what a life John Quincy Adams's Life Story here on Our American Stories.
This is Eva Longoria from Hungry for History with Eva Longoria and Maite Gomez Rejon. Like the song says, it's the most wonderful time of the year, and also a wonderfully busy one. All that merriment can weigh down even Santa Slay.
So keep it wonderful by keeping yourself wonderful with a crisp, cold Coca-Cola. Um Pause for a fizzy joy. Look out for yourself and then look out for everyone else. And together we'll make this season as wonderful as it's meant to be. Enjoy a Coca-Cola.
Refresh your holidays. Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is when mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Beckers, Nafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season. This is Unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher, and every athlete shines. Unrivaled Basketball, Season 2, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max.
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member F-I-N-R-A-S-IPC.
Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. A new year is on the horizon, and your 2026 savings start here.
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Guaranteed human. Mm-hmm.
