Procrastination

The term surfaces in John Quincy Adams as Adams’s own diary verdict on President James Monroe’s decision-making style. Monroe — described as an extraordinarily good but not brilliant man whose mind was “neither rapid nor rich” — moved slowly and warily, laying every issue before his cabinet and waiting patiently for consensus. This did not sit well with his decisive secretary of state. Adams wrote: “There is slowness, want of decision and a Spirit of procrastination in the President which perhaps arises more from his situation than his personal character.” In context, the word marks the temperamental clash between a deliberative president and an impatient subordinate.

Where this appears

• John Quincy Adams — Adams’s journal characterization of James Monroe’s slow, consensus-seeking decision-making as “a Spirit of procrastination”