John Quincy Adams served one miserable term as president — widely considered a failure — and then did something no other former president has done: he went back to Congress. For the next seventeen years, he waged a one-man war against the gag rule that silenced antislavery petitions, argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court, and became the most consequential ex-president in American history, doing his best work after the job most people consider the pinnacle.

This episode traces Adams from his childhood alongside his father during the Revolution through his diplomatic career, his unhappy presidency, and the remarkable Congressional career that defined his true legacy.

• Growing up as John Adams’s son during the American Revolution and the education it provided
• His distinguished diplomatic career and the presidency that disappointed everyone including himself
• The unprecedented return to Congress and the seventeen-year war against the slavery gag rule
• The Amistad case, the collapse on the House floor, and the legacy of a president who peaked after office