David McCullough is a master at what he does. This was not the first book by him that you had read, and it likely won't be the last, but it might be the longest. It is a complete and expertly told biography of Adams' life, not just an account of his revolutionary or presidential activities. Writing a brief review of such an expansive work is problematic, to say the least. Hitting the high points of the man's life would still result in far too long a review for one little blog. So you decided to try to write down some of the things you most wanted to remember from the book, impressions of the ideas, of the events, and of John Adams himself.
Anytime you read of anyone who was constantly reading, you always feel a deep kinship with that character, real or fictitious. Adams was one of those characters. As a boy, he was an avid reader and a student of human nature. He observed and studied everyone he could, not just those he admired. He searched for what inspired famous thinkers and what had motivated great men. Throughout his life he maintained an extraordinary quality of discernment. A young John Adams was a bit self conscious and tended to look for rivals when none need exist. He was adept at finding the weakness in others but made up for this by honing a knack for finding others' hidden strengths as well (in Adams' eyes, a quick wit covered a multitude of sins). It was this discernment that eventually led him to nominate Colonel George Washington as the commander of the Continental Army and Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence.
John Adams was never interested in gathering wealth. Instead, he longed to leave his mark on the world. He developed a vision of the future of Western Civilization with a clarity that seems remarkable today. "Creation is liable to change," he wrote in 1755, "Perhaps this... may (eventually) transfer the great seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves (as the greatest nation) is to disunite us."
John Adams was honest to a fault, hard working to the extreme, dedicated to his country and to its future. A Harvard graduate and practicing lawyer, he was one of the most brilliant and well read of his generation, a generation marked by brilliant and well read people. He was eloquent when he needed to be, quick with a joke and quicker with a laugh. He was loyal, tenacious, and dedicated to his passions. He recognized his own faults, and so was quick to forgive the faults he found in others. He had the rare ability to imagine other people with a complexity that was (and still is) sorely lacking. Adams trusted his discernment, but was never afraid to change his mind when new evidence was presented. He was a true child of The Enlightenment.
But, having listed all of these attributes, this would not be a proper review of the man's biography if you did not mention that John Adams' greatest strength was his wife, Abigail. Throughout their marriage, they were often separated for long periods, but they maintained a passionate romance and a prolific correspondence. Abigail was equally as well read as her husband. In fact, she was his equal in every way except the public accomplishments her sex and her society prevented her from attempting. Her literary tastes tended towards the poets more than the social philosophes. She quoted poetry in face to face conversations and in her writings. Abigail quoted poetry from memory and always seemed to fit her stanzas perfectly to the moment. She kept herself abreast of current events around the world and she voiced her opinions to people whose response mattered most. While her husband was President of the United States, Abigail was widely known to be the better politician among the two Adamses. When it became clear to him that his entire cabinet (left over from President Washington's administration) was likely politically opposed to him, and his Vice President Thomas Jefferson most certainly was, Adams called for the wisest and most loyal adviser he'd ever had to race to the capital to help him in his hour of need. He called for Abigail. It is fair to speculate that the United States of America would not be the same country had one of its most influential founding fathers not been married to such and extraordinary woman.
Abigail Adams has always reminded you a lot of your own wife. Liz is also a woman who is much smarter than you, much wiser, and whose advice not enough people listen to simply because she is a woman. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It is often forgotten (or maybe ignored) that John Adams was actually the defense attorney for the British soldiers (officers and enlisted men) who were charged with the murders of the infamous Boston Massacre. He felt that in a nation of free men, a nation of laws, anyone accused of a crime was entitled to a robust defense. At the time, King George still trusted American courts to try British soldiers. That trust soon evaporated and the king decreed that any accused British soldiers were to be returned to England to stand trial for the crimes they had committed in the American colonies, an affront to Adams' efforts that would not be forgotten.
With the Stamp Act of 1765, British taxes actually affected Americans for the first time, and Adams began to find his voice to oppose the British. He wrote a document espousing the principle of No Taxation Without Representation that was adopted by an unprecedented number of cities and towns throughout Massachusetts. It was but the first of many incredibly influential writings he would create over the course of his life. In fact, when "Common Sense" spread throughout the 13 colonies in 1776, and popular sentiment began turning towards independence, it was speculated by many that Adams was the pamphlet's real author. Adams, however, was troubled by the ideas on government ensconced within the popular pamphlet. He was worried that the author of "Common Sense," Thomas Paine, was far better at tearing down rather than building up. This worry prompted him to shape his own ideas on government as a counter to Paine's. Even though he had become the de facto leader of the 2nd Continental Congress in Philadelphia, he took time and drew on his (and his wife's) extensive study of history and human nature and outlined for a few the delegates a system of government based on mutual checks and balances, one built on a framework of a powerful executive, a legislative brach consisting of two houses, and an independent judiciary. If he had never written anything else in his life, Adams' "Thoughts on Government" would have made him worthy of lifelong fame in American history.
McCullough reminded you of a detail you tend to forget when you think of that extraordinary 2nd Continental Congress. The delegates all gathered together in Philadelphia that summer came from such different worlds, almost alternate realities, that it is a miracle that they could agree on anything, let alone the idea that they should all form a single nation together. The aristocracy from Virginia bore almost nothing in common with the farmer stock of New England. In your mind, the obstinate but hard working Adams seems much more admirable than the sensitive and brooding Jefferson, for example. Next to stalwart John Adams, Thomas Jefferson seems prissy, affected, and snobbish. Jefferson's whole life was a hypocrisy; he hated cities but insisted on staying in the heart of Paris when he was the ambassador there (the Adamses stayed in a much more modest home some way from the nucleus of the city), he abhorred debt and praised frugality while living a lavish lifestyle and owing money to lenders the world over until the day he died, he praised humanity's self evident equality but owned and traded human slaves. All humans bear their own contradictions, but Jefferson's seem more glaring to you, especially when viewed through the lens of such a plain and straightforward character as John Adams.
John Adams, the workhorse of the Congress, chaired more than 20 committees in Philadelphia, including the Board of War, more than any other delegate. He made sure that the 2nd Continental Congress was a revolutionary one. Where other delegates fell ill or returned home to convalesce, Adams stayed and attended the urgent business of his new nation. But he didn't simply sit around passing legislation and writing influential papers. In his role as a Founding Father, Adams was a man of action. Putting his life on the line, he was part of the first peace delegation to cross battle lines at the British request to meet with admiral Howe to discuss peace terms. He was chosen to cross the Atlantic to join Franklin as ambassador to France (his ship traded shots with a British merchantman and Adams was in the thick of it all with musket in hand). He traveled to Amsterdam and secured the first of many loans for his nation from Dutch banks. After the War for Independence was over, John Adams was chosen as the U.S.'s first minister to the court of St. James and presented himself before the very king from whom he had made damn sure his fellow countrymen had declared independence.
As the war dragged on, Abigail and John Quincy, as well as Thomas Jefferson joined him in France. The spring of 1785 might have been the best time in the Adamses' lives. The three revolutionaries, Franklin and Jefferson and Adams, were the toast of Paris. They drank deeply of the culture and history of the country that was soon to dissolve into revolutionary chaos. They all enjoyed one another's company and their own considerable fame. But Jefferson and the Adamses were no Jacobins. In fact, they seemed far more conservative than the notoriously morally loose French aristocracy, far more humble and circumspect. The juxtaposition this image posed for you proved charmingly memorable.
Back in the states, Shay's Rebellion (against high taxes) soon illustrated the need for a stronger federal government. Congress was considering how to do that. This afforded Adams and Jefferson the opportunity to spar over their opinions of the best form the new government should take. Jefferson, Adams wrote, was "apprehensive of monarchy" and favored a weaker executive branch while Adams was afraid of "the aristocracy" he had seen arise from too powerful a legislative branch. Both however, favored a new Bill of Rights to be attached to the new Constitution. Their debates were to continue for decades to come and shaped the crux of today's modern political party platforms.
In 1789, Adams became the first Vice President of the United States and, therefore, the first President of the US Senate. After President Washington decided to limit his administration to just two terms, John Adams was elected President with Jefferson as his VP. The Adams administration was consumed with avoiding the gathering storm of war with revolutionary France. The Massachusetts farmer turned Commander in Chief championed peace through engaged diplomacy backed up by a powerful navy. He passed controversial (and likely unconstitutional) laws barring derogatory speech against himself and the government in general, and allowing for the expulsion of suspicious immigrants. The Alien and Sedition Acts are the darkest black eye on the face of Adams the historical figure and likely the reason his face is not on Mt. Rushmore.
His entire cabinet was arrayed against him politically and his own Vice President actively campaigned to undercut his political goals. Unlike almost all of the other politicians of the day (especially Hamilton and Jefferson) Adams refused to vilify his adversaries in the newspapers. He refused to use the press as a weapon against his political enemies. It is not surprising therefore, that John Adams only served one term as POTUS. It is important to remember though, that only 250 votes in New York would have won him the entire state and given him a second term. Remember that tidbit the next time someone tells you that your vote does not count.
Adams ended up doing more for the cause of revolution and more to shape the modern United States than any of his fellow Founding Fathers, but has received far less credit. Jefferson had his Declaration, Revere had his ride, Washington his cherry tree, and Madison the authorship of the Constitution (heavily influenced, of course, by Adams). But at the end of their lives, none of the members of that extraordinary generation would have as many achievements in the American cause under their belts than John Adams.
Above all, Adams was obsessed with serving his country, with securing the future for his posterity. But his devotion to duty never dimmed his vision of a nation that could one day prove to be a beacon of freedom and hope and culture to a world shackled by monarchy and tyranny. In a letter from Paris to his inimitable wife, Adams wrote;
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architacture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children the right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."John Adams was a man of many controversies and contradictions, but quotes like this show that he had his priorities right. Reading his biography made you wish that his posterity could see the world through his eyes more often.
On to the next book!
P.S. Adams' "Thoughts on Government" in April of 1776, his response to build up the tearing down that "Common Sense" was doing, should be required reading for any high school government class. It is public domain and easily accessible on the internet and it is outstanding.
http://www.constitution.org/jadams/thoughts.htm
P.P.S. In the winter of 1761, Adams witnessed, first hand, what he considered to be the birth of American independence. James Otis, Adams' political hero and legal example, argued before the five British judges of the Massachusetts court that the search warrants which had been used by the British government for years, even in England itself, were null and void because they violated the natural rights of Englishmen. This reminded you that great events never spring into existence fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. History is filled with nameless, forgotten people who toil away in obscurity, always bending the arc of human civilization towards justice. That those people are unsung today does not mean that their actions were meaningless. Actions build upon actions and inspiration is built upon inspiration until sometimes the whole world stops and notices. You may never know what the end result of your choices might be. This anecdote served as reminder to make sure that you act in a way that will shape the world to the form you want to see. Not all of us can be John Adams, but none of us is an island.
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