John Adams
Like many of you I'm enjoying the HBO series on John Adams. My first in depth introduction to John and Abigail Adams came some forty odd years ago from Irving Stone's Those Who Love a book that does an wonderful job of capturing the very special relationship John and Abigail shared. More recently I read Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis, a book Charles recommends, a recommendation with which I heartily concur. Here is a bit of video from a recent episode.
Quicktime Video 3.6 MB | Duration: 02'28
Quicktime 7 required
This file is available for download here.
Ctrl-Click and 'Download Linked File' (Mac)
or Rt-Click and 'Save Target As' (PC) the link above.
The conversation between John and his friend and confidant Dr. Benjamin Rush was a stark reminder of the divisiveness born of party politics and of its early genesis. And now a bit of John Adams history contributed by Charles Lemos
On HBO, the John Adams series is in full swing. Based on the book by David McCullough, which is well-written and reads like a novel, the series is receiving praise. I would also recommend any book by Joseph Ellis, especially one called Founding Brothers that has a great chapter on Adams and his relationship with Abigail. Abigail and John had quite the torrid love affair (their letters form a large part of the scholarship for the McCullough book) and theirs was also a political partnership in an age where that was still far from the norm.
Before you all get carried away with John Adams' wonder, might I remind you that his Administration passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 a series of four acts aimed at internal critics of the Administration. Think of them as a Patriot Act for their times. While Jefferson would repeal three of the Acts, one remains still on the books, the Alien Enemies Act (allows for detention or deportation of foreign nationals in times of war). Jefferson thought the Acts unconstitutional because they violated the Tenth Amendment (the states are effectively sovereign).
The greatness of John Adams was not so much his Presidency, which was bitter and difficult, two characteristics of John himself, but rather his role as the main and early advocate for independence and in his diplomatic journeys on behalf of the Continental Congress to France and Holland. He was instrumental in securing French entry into the Revolutionary War and Dutch loans. Both would be critical to the survival of the American cause.
In France, Adams’ role was overshadowed by the popularity of Benjamin Franklin as well as the enmity displayed by the French Foreign Minister, the Comtes de Vergennes, towards Adams. Still it was Adams who most adroitly argued for French naval forces to blockade and trap the British army (as would come to pass at Yorktown) while Franklin seemed more pressed with impressing the French ladies.
In Holland, Adams would embark on his own mission that would secure first loans and later Dutch recognition of the nascent American republic. Protestant and tolerant Holland proved a rejuvenating experience for Adams. In Leyden, he was moved to tears when he visited the Church and homes of his Puritan ancestors who first found refugee there before their embarkation to Massachusetts. The Dutch Republic had 200 years of political experimentation for Adams to study and its politics would influence Adams’ own political concepts from then on. Still it would his ability to persuade the bankers of Amsterdam to provide critical loans that permitted the young Republic to survive.
On the home front, Abigail and John were a team in securing needed supplies and coordinating the homesteads with the war front. Adams also led the diplomatic team (or so he thought, Franklin thought otherwise) that negotiated the Peace of Paris that secured American independence and thereafter served as the first Ambassador to the Court of St James.
The rift between Adams and Jefferson is well known and lasted for well over a decade. The death of Jefferson's daughter prompted a letter of sympathy from Abigail and that led to a peace, an amazing correspondence and their ever-lasting friendship. Adams died on July 4th 1826 during his son's Presidency aged 90. It is said that his last words were "But Jefferson survives." Actually Jefferson had died earlier that same day in Virginia. The delicious ironies of history.
They were very different men. Adams was nothing but prudent though argumentative, religious, and frugal. He left a large estate. Jefferson was more daring and more conciliatory, an atheist (though many today think him a Deist his contemporaries did not), and anything but frugal. He died in debt.
It should also be noted that alone among the major Founding Fathers, John Adams never owned any slaves. While he was often critical of both slavery and the slavery trade, the need to placate the South often made him couch his words. Still he would write in a tract entitled “The Selling of Joseph”:
“All men, as they are sons of Adam . . . have equal right unto liberty.”
Abigail had no such restriction and her letters are full of her strong dislike for the inhumanity of slavery. She employed freed Negroes on her farm and in her home, treating them as part of her extended family.
In time, many of the Founding Fathers would come to see slavery as John and Abigail did as “foul contagion in the human character” and as “an evil of colossal magnitude,” but in the 1770s few saw slavery as such. Franklin who by 1774 opposed slavery had in his younger days owned two slaves but even after setting them free, Franklin continued to trade in slaves from his Philadelphia shop until at least 1760. Washington was one of the largest landowners in Virginia and thus one of its largest slaveholders. Jefferson owned about 200 slaves employing them on his various plantations. On the occasion of his daughter’s wedding, he provided them a gift of 24 slaves. The other strong opponent of slavery among the Founding Fathers was Dr. Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania. Rush, however, had once owned a slave but by 1773 he was, apart from Quaker and Congregationalist preachers, the fiercest opponent of slavery.
From of John Adams’ life, there is little doubt that it is the relationship with his wife Abigail that mattered most and provided the anchor in all the tumult of life in the late 18th century.
He was nine years older than Abigail Smith. He came from a reputable family; she came from Puritan and English royalty, the Quincys of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of their courtship, not much is known. John failed to pen in his dairy a word the year of their courtship. Of their marriage, their letters tell a romance any human being would be lucky to share. It is hard to imagine one without the other. Abigail soothed the tempestuous temperament of John and in she he found solace. They had a love that held no bounds, an understanding of the plight of the other and their own collective duty and individual responsibility. She was simply his "Miss Adorable" and he her "My Dearest Friend." This is from a letter from Abigail to John dated October 16th 1774:
I dare not express to you at 300 hundred miles distance how ardently I long for your return. I have some very miserly Wishes; and cannot consent to your spending one hour in Town till at least I have had you 12.
One wonders why she would want her husband a full half-day before allowing him out of the house. The romps they must have had. The banter back and forth. So much for the theory of Puritans being uptight. John is 40 at this point and Abigail 31 and they had been married 11 years. Their letters are simply electric. Bombastic John is but a kitten in the hands of Abigail. I have been known to cry reading them and steal from them liberally. Beyond the romance, there is hard politics, the harsh realities of war and human life in the late 18th century. There is advice and encouragement flowing both ways and an equality in a partnership. Abigail's feminist qualities shone brightest in her famous "remember the ladies" letter dated March 31st, 1776:
I long to hear that you have declared an independency -- and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make. I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.
That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
He was more prolific than she (he wrote more letters but hers were generally longer often taking a week or more to write) but he was often lonely and bored in Philadelphia and more so later when abroad while she raised children, ran the farm and made the business decisions during his long absences. She was no less eloquent. And as First Lady, she set the model for an activist role in politics earning her the title of "Mrs. President."
While theirs was wedded bliss, theirs was not an easy life. They knew the sorrow of losing a child in infancy and another stillborn. Between 1774 when John left New England for the first time to go to the Continental Congress in the "country" of Pennsylvania and 1785, they rarely saw each other hence the frequency and length of their letters. They are available online: hyperlink . Their separation is our joy.
Comments
An excellent contribution by my arch-rival, Mr. Lemos. I especially appreciate you bringing attention to the Alien & Sedition Acts, and the rise of the Federalist party.
I will argue that the proper description of Jefferson's religious views are neither Deist nor atheist, but rather, that of a Freethinker. Considering the state of French philosophy in the late 18th Century, it is only natural that the France-loving Jefferson would adopt more than their cuisine and style of dress.
The rise of Jefferson's presidency set two concurrent precedents, one wonderful, one terrible. The election of Jefferson (the rEVOLution of 1800) firmly established that the will of the people held ultimate authority, even over a sitting President. However, the split of Federalists v. Democratic Republicans would inevitably doom future generations of Americans to partisan politics.
To better understand the rise of the Federalists, we must also consider the ill-fated Articles of Confederation, and the Constitutional Convention of 1787, of which Patrick Henry once stated: "I smell a rat". Ironically, the Ron Paulians, who have devoted their mission to a smaller, "constitutionally-bound" Federal government might be shocked to learn that "Cato", the anonymous co-author of the anti-Federalist papers (believed by most to be NY Governor George Clinton), once described the U.S. Constitution as coup d'etat. This just goes to show how far this statist v. libertarian paradigm has shifted these past 200 years.
If given the chance to travel back in time, in a heartbeat my choice would be Jefferson's white house. So began America's manifest destiny, as a self-crowned Emperor Napoleon laid waste to the French treasury. And what a finale! In the mist of early morning, at the side of the Hudson river in East Jersey, Aaron Burr, VP of Jefferson and future ill-fated "Emperor of the American Southwest" draws his pistol, and mortally wounds Alexander Hamilton, ideological origin of Federalism, father of the National Debt, first Treasury of the Secretary. More dramatic that a Star Wars lightsaber duel: the chairman of Federalism stands paces away from the soon-to-be leader of a new (ultimately doomed) "rebel alliance". Cue "Mars, Bringer of War" and cast Brad Pitt in the lead, and you have just earned yourself $200 million domestic.
For my fellow humorists: Is this iconic battle fought over these passionate political disagreements? No. Burr cracked-wise about Hamilton's baby's mama, and then, like now, an early morning shoot-out was the only possible solution. Comedy gold! You couldn't write a better script if you tried.
Just an incredible time in history. Kudos to HBO for an entertaining miniseries, and Kudos to Mr. Lemos for expanding the discussion.
America, land of hypocrisy and contradiction, a land where slave owners penned the rules of freedom. A land where those determined to change the world inevitably will- for better or worse.
Re: Jefferson the "atheist"
I see here a truth greater than the Church and Mr. Dawkins combined. I see a description of Einstein's god, a force I myself believe in, while validating it in conjunction with science, not despite it.
We must not allow ourselves to be divided and conquered. We are allies in the fight.
And, whether or not god exists is a moot point- we need all the help we can get, fictional or otherwise.
Charles,
This is the first time I have enjoyed one of your articles.
However, the link does not work!
As an aside, glad the first commentor brought up the Alien and Sedition acts; too bad David McCullough didn't. In his entire biography of John Adams, he spends a page and a half on the acts. The acts which McCullough himself wrote: "... their passage and his signature on them were to be rightly judged by history as the most reprehensible acts of his presidency." The most reprehensible acts, in a book presented as an unbiased biography, gets two pages.
As for Joseph Ellis, he has had some issues of his own. He lied repeatedly about his involvement in Vietnam, as well as his involvement in protesting the war, fighting for civil rights, etc. I know he was cleared of wrongdoing, and his books showed no errors... but then there is something else to consider.
In 1998, Ellis published "American Sphinx," and wrote after examining the evidence, the chances Jefferson and Sally Hemmings had a relationship was remote. That same year, Annette Gordon-Reed published "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings;" her evidence led her to the conclusion there had been a relationship. Sure enough, DNA testing was done that same year that showed Jefferson fathered Hemmings' children.
Same evidence, different conclusions, Ellis was 100% wrong on the issue. All I say, between Ellis and McCullough, is consider the sources, and the motivations behind their writings. Biographies can be great, and bring individuals to life, but authors can also fall into becoming fanboys, and forgetting about dispassionate inquiry.
Brett, if you want to read the letters, try the link again. You'll still get an error, but go up to the url and clear everything past "letter," including the slash. Then you can go to the link.
This can be a problem when linking in html. We copy the link in the window and enter it in code, but the last slash in the url gets in the way.
You might want to inform Charles that his quick history mistakingly confuses the books of Wolf and Klein. Naomi Klein wrote "The Shock Doctrine". A simple mistake easily corrected.
You can try this link:
http://www.masshist.org/welcome/
Not quite sure when I confused the two Naomis but Wolf wrote the End of America and Klein the Shock Doctrine. It is possible since I tend to write articles late at night when I am tired and sometimes on the road.
I don't disagree with the assertion of Jefferson as freethinker. The reference to him as an atheist is from a sermon by the Reverend John Mason I think entitled A Warning to Christians written during the campaign of 1800. I'm travelling now so I don't have access to my books.
Someone mention Sally Hemings and I can add this: Sally Hemings is the only slave that ever slept in the Adams household. Jefferson sent Sally with his daughter Martha to London circa 1786-7 when John was Ambassador to London. Sally was approx 14 at the time. Abigail notes the visit in a letter to Jefferson. McCollough notes the visit his book.
Her letters are really quite a great read. Check out the Massachusetts Historical Society website and browse through them. They are arranged by date and you can actually follow events as they progress.
A couple quick remarks:
(1.) Until quite recently, "atheist" was a common term of abuse in religious polemic, amounting to the charge "you don't share my beliefs." (Martin Luther, for instance, was accused of being an "atheist"). That Jefferson was charged with such is unrevealing.
(2.) Allusion to the "Law of Nature" and "Nature's God" as the foundations of authority are almost proforma, and unrevealing. (Although, the French declaration of 1789 is more revolutionary, eschewing both).
(3.) I am not clear on the distinction between 'free-thinker' and 'deist', because I thought free-thinker implied (at the time) mostly enlightenment notions predicated on skepticism, free-inquiry, and naturalism borrowed from the French Encyclopedists. Not all deists are free-thinkers, but many free-thinkers were 'deist' (or agnostic or atheist). Yes?
This was a fun article, Charles.
If I recall correctly John Adams was a dick. He didn't want normal people to be able to vote and he didn't want to extent the freedoms of the bill of rights to anyone other than those in the ruling class, which he was conveniently a part of. His disdain for human rights and freedoms is why he pushed for the alien and sedition acts. Abigail thought that the press had too much freedom and was completely on board with the sedition act.
Adams might have made amends with Jefferson, but he never made amends with Thomas Paine. Thomas wanted everyone to have the freedoms afforded under the bill of rights.
In the feud between Paine and Adams, Adam's was quoted as saying: "I am willing you should call this the Age of Frivolity as you do, and would not object if you had named it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Brutality, Daemons, Buonaparte, Tom Paine, or the Age of the Burning Brand from the Bottomless Pit, or anything but the Age of Reason. I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine. There can be no severer satyr on the age. For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine."
I think that if someone were to partake in hero worship, which I feel might be happening, that Thomas Paine might be the better founding father.
Adam:
Although I agree fully with your analysis of Adams and the other proto-Federalists from the Hamilton wing, I disagree with point (2) in your post above.
Due to the influence of the Declaration of Independence, this concept has become "proforma" in the modern day, however, at the time of the revolution, the concept of a sovereign colony, rejecting the authority of a western Europe Monarch was quite radical.
The French Revolution(s) brought these concepts to new extremes. On the plus side, the philosophical definitions of Liberty were more fully explored, and on the other hand, they ended up with a brief de-facto military dictatorship, as Napoleon marched around Egypt for awhile.
By comparison, the USA was more willing to "compromise" on the ideological side, for example, the inclusion of religious influence to appease NE puritans, and the acceptance of slavery, to appease the southern plantations. Credit where credit is due: the USA was less willing to compromise on the ppractical side: Maddison and Jefferson ultimately prevailed re: the Bill of Rights, and Washington stepped down after 2 terms. A lesser man (Napoleon) might have crowned himself Emperor.
As for Jefferson's personal beliefs, I'm not sure we'll ever know. Jefferson was a man of paradox. He wrote that all men are created equal, and meanwhile, owned slaves. He rejected the banking institutions of western Europe and the Hamiltonian federalist, and yet, he died in debt. He was a vocal critic of Christianity, and yet, was quick to call upon the "higher power" when it suited him politically. He demanded a strict interpretation of the Constitution, that is, until Napoleon went broke and offered him a deal on Louisiana.
My interpretation of Jefferson has always been that of a bi-polar genius, fueled by his intense idealism, resentful of the political process, but in the end, doomed to embrace it. A perfect, deeply flawed, American hero.
Zaphod: Jefferson was a pragmatist, and never let his idealism get in the way of that. Witness the previously referenced Sally Hemmings, or the Louisiana purchase. Jefferson really, really wanted to buy Louisiana, but could find no constitutional authority to do so... but being a believer in the Manifest Destiny, he did the deal anyway- becoming, possibly, the first president to throw the Constitution overboard when it suited him to do so. :)
Zaphod:
This is correct--in the context of how "rights" talk was understood in the actual practice of nations. (Burke famously complained about the French declaration that he knew what the rights of Englishmen were, but hadn't the foggiest what these airy notions of 'the rights of man'). I meant 'proforma' for certain intellectual circles at the time, in Britain and France, and gleaned from--whatever their differences--reading of Pufendorf, Grotius, Beccaria, Locke, Hobbes, and Burlamaqui, among others.
We agree on the French declaration, which is the important caveat: it is a direct assertion of secular authority. (Granted, there an avowal made "in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being," but this does not, as Article 3 makes clear, vest the foundation of political authority in the deity: "The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body or individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation").
I watched the first few episodes, but quickly lost interest. One big issue is the ridiculous way they overplay Abigail Adams' importance. She is given an unbelievable amount of screen time - the episode with Adams in France actually spends almost 20 minutes of running time just showing her doing household duties and crying, and of course making the odd feminist remark about how men can only cavort about because women let them. Grrrrrrl power!
The first episode was particularly inane, with Abigail (who never received formal education) supposedly reviewing and re-writing John Adams' courtroom speeches. It used to be fine to say that behind every great man there is a great woman. Now we have to pretend that every great man had a greater woman secretly pulling his strings. It's asinine.
Other than that, the show is just too boring. I expect the material is quite good for a book, but as a TV show it really plods along.
That reminded me of the highlights on Letterman. LMAO!!!
Post a comment