Julia K.

Perry
American Military University

Mr. Adams Gets the Last Laugh

HIST 551: The American Revolution in Context

1.14.11
Dr. Mel Deaile

"… every Founding Father eventually gets his turn, even short bald ones."
Lexington/The Economist

1
 John Adams believed in commitment to your goal, to your spouse and to your Maker. He

gave this commitment freely of himself and from the time he married his wife, Abigail, through

his death he always expected commitment in return from those around him. In the circumstances

where the others around him were capable of meeting this demand, Mr. Adams was deemed to

be successful and a great leader. But in the instances where he could not find the commitment in

those around him, or if the commitment faltered, he began to waiver and a loss of respect was

resultant. The loss of respect was mutual, to be sure, a relic of a social aspect of the Lockean

theory which Mr. Adams espoused. Mr. Adams himself often recounted in his journal that he

perceived himself as a soldier against his inner desires of vice and lust, which is a mirror of

Lockean theory.1 Once the respect was lost by the majority of the nation the effect was that Mr.

Adams became relegated to the back shelf of history. "Relentlessly hard on himself, he readily

applied the same impossible standards to others…when faulted he became thoroughly self-

righteousness and self-pitying."2

John Adams was destined to stay there, dusty, sitting on that back shelf, but for the

evolution of academia in the later half of the 20th century. The latter half of the 20th century

witnessed a time when growing numbers of academically trained historians vied for an

unexpanding number of professorships. Publishing became at first a separator but eventually it

morphed into a possible source of income in place of the professorship, which led in turn to

academic type books being written for common consumption. It is in this latter state where the

1
Dienstag, Joshua Foa. “Serving God and Mammon: The Lockean Sympathy in Early American Political Thought.”
American Political Science Review 90, no. 3 (1996): 507.
2
Taylor, Alan. John Adams. In The readers companion to the American presidency, edited by Alan Brinkley and
Davis Dyer. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2000), 28.

2
new appreciation for John Adams has arisen. What started as a movement among the common

reader spread into politics, talk shows and eventually an HBO mini-series. At the benediction of

this Founding Fathers Revival was a renewed interest in the nation's "most neglected of

America's Founding Fathers"3 John Adams. Even in the first histories of the Revolution and

commentaries on his administration, Adams saw evidence that his part in the American historical

drama would be misrepresented, his motives misunderstood, his character mistreated, and his

historical image misshaped.4

Why was John Adams neglected by historians? The answer probably lies in a mix of

factors. Perhaps the two most important are the times in which he lived and his physical

appearance. Being a founding father he was naturally compared to the other founding fathers

who were often more masculine or more intellectual geniuses. Consider how one historian

describes Mr. Adams's Presidential predecessor, George Washington; "the austere and

implacable Washington radiated authority, even in his physical features. He was a head taller

than most of his contemporaries and had a powerful physique, erect carriage, piercing eyes, and

the profile of a Roman senator."5 That same historian couldn't find one good compliment to

lavish upon America's second president; "Adams…was distinctly unimposing. He was short,

rotund, and susceptible to seemingly unprovoked rages."6 Perhaps the best historical assessment

of Mr. Adams prior to the turn of the 21st century would be a summation of his historical value

in a recent edition of a guide of the American Presidents. "Congenitally incapable of

dissembling, he made a better political theorist than a politician. He (Mr. Adams) has endeared

3
Lexington. “The Cult of Adams.” Economist, January 2008.
4
Farrell, James M. “John Adams’s Autobiography: The Ciceronian Paradigm and the Quest for Fame.” New
England Quarterly 62, no. 4 (1989): 505.
5
Greenstein, Fred I. “Presidential Difference in the Early Republic: The Highly Disparate Leadership Styles of
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36, no. 3 (September 2006): 378.
6
Greenstein, "Presidential Difference in the Early Republic: The Highly Disparate Leadership Styles of
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson,” 378.

3
himself to historians, as he offended contemporaries, with his blunt, relentless, and tactless

honesty."7 In the end that turns out to be a question even Mr. Adams himself couldn't adequately

come to terms with, the dichotomy of measurements among the founding fathers. "How is it that

I, poor, ignorant I, must stand before Posterity as differing from all the other great Men of the

Age?"8

An examination of two scenes in Mr. Adams's life will allow us a closer inspection at his

commitment. First, consider the eventual rekindling of communications with Thomas Jefferson

later in life. Though partly due to the involvement of Benjamin Rush, it is important to also

consider another important factor. His daughter's breast cancer and the death, within two days of

each other of two of his and Abigail's oldest friends, the Crunchs, brought about consider

change. The events of 1811 had so ‘‘lacerated’’ John’s bosom that he, like Abigail, constructed

an avenue of hope as a coping mechanism to allay the fear and pain that encompassed their

lives.9 A separate instance is apparent when Mr. Adams leaves office. He leaves office and rides

out of town in the early morning missing Thomas Jefferson's inauguration. This however is less a

result of his electoral defeat and more a result of the death of his son Charles.10

Mr. Adams and Abigail's letters serve as the means for the true understanding of this

founding father. Their enduring love and commitment as relayed in letters and notes preserved a

place for both them in the hall of American history. "These letters…were his ticket into the

American pantheon as the original postmythical hero. And he was the only one who would be

admitted with his wife alongside him."11

7
Taylor, Alan. John Adams. In The readers companion to the American presidency, 28.
8
John Adams as quoted in Ellis, Joseph J. “Hate Love.” American History October (2010): 48.
9
Gelles, Edith Belle. “The Adamses Retire.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4, no. 1 (2006):
13.
10
Gelles, “The Adamses Retire," 13.
11
Ellis, Joseph J. First Family: Abigail and John Adams. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 248.

4
 Comparing Mr. Adams to Thomas Jefferson draws a unique distinction between two of

the Founding Fathers. Consider what each concluded from reading Milton's Paradise Lost,

"Adams unfailingly regards Milton’s Satan as evil; Jefferson consistently regards him as

admirable."12 Being able to see Milton's work, as removed from the man himself,13 demonstrated

a deep intelligence; so what shaped Mr. Adams ideals, whom did Mr. Adams consider a mentor

and to whom did he seek advice? By the time he became president Franklin had died and he

usually sought advice from his wife Abigail. For his mentor Mr. Adams looked to Cicero. "In his

anguish, and during other times of indecision and despair, Adams looked to one of his personal

heroes for consolation. Marcus Tullius Cicero had been Adams's foremost model of public

service, republican virtue, and forensic eloquence..."14

How has Mr. Adams been viewed by historians until this newest revival? Somewhat

unfairly, but he is most often negatively associated with the Alien and Sedition Acts which he

and Congress pushed through. This infringement on public rights is constantly noted as poor

judgment on Mr. Adams part during his presidency. Contemporary scholars have suggested that

perhaps Mrs. Adams had a direct involvement in the decision to push for passage of the Alien

and Sedition Acts, thereby allowing Mr. Adams to share the blame somewhat. But, is that a fair

criticism? Abraham Lincoln did much the same thing during the Civil War and if you consider

the Alien and Sedition Acts merely as an expansion of federal government power then you must

accept that Washington was equally guilty of this abuse during his presidency. "…President

Washington sent troops to crush protests in western Pennsylvania, much as the British had done

12
Tanner, John S., and Justin Collings. “How Adams and Jefferson Read Milton and Milton Read Them.” Milton
Quarterly 40, no. 3 (October 2006): 212.
13
According to Tanner, Adams admires Milton the individual, but does not consider Paradise Lost a great work.
14
Farrell, James M. “John Adams’s Autobiography: The Ciceronian Paradigm and the Quest for Fame.” New
England Quarterly 62, no. 4 (1989): 506.

5
in Boston."15 If we are to accept that Washington and Lincoln are two of the United States best

presidents even given their protest squashing and limiting of public rights then is it really fair to

blemish Mr. Adams's Presidency for a similar deed as historians generally have? Anti-Federalists

used the papers to portray the Alien and Sedition Acts (A&SA) as overt attempts by the president

and Congress to stifle the anti-federalist movement. In response to Thomas Cooper, an Anti-

Federalist tried under the A&SA, and his impact on the A&SA Lehman concludes, "…such

writings effected orderly regime change and restored the free discussion of political ideas that,

although central to our contemporary notion of democratic society, the Sedition Act had been

designed systematically to repress."16 That opinion, while commonly shared, is a bit narrow-

minded.

How did the Federalists of Mr. Adams's time perceive the A&SA? The Internal Security

Acts were designed to address the presence of enemy and friendly aliens in the country if war

occurred with France, and the prevention of what the Federalists considered slanderous and

seditious actions designed to bring the Adams administration into disrepute, which they believed

was synonymous with attempts to bring down the government of the United States itself.17

Ridiculing the president was the same to the Federalists as ridiculing the Republic, the sanctity of

the government itself. "To the Federalists, opposition to policy was, in fact, opposition to the

structure and process of the constitutional governmental system, a threat to order, and a call for

anarchy. To oppose the government was to oppose the people."18 The Federalist feared chaos

15
Unger, Harlow Giles. “The Once and Future Conflict Over Big Government.” American History 44, no.5
December (2010): 39.
16
Lehman, Forrest K. “"Seditious Libel’' on Trial, Political Dissent on the Record: An Account of the Trial of
Thomas Cooper as Campaign Literature.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 132, no. 2 (2008): 139.
17
Garrison, Arthur H. “The Internal Security Acts of 1798: The Founding Generation and the Judiciary during
America’s First National Security Crisis.” Journal of Supreme Court History 34, no. 1 (2009): 5.
18
Garrison, “The Internal Security Acts of 1798: The Founding Generation and the Judiciary during America’s First
National Security Crisis.” 5.

6
brought about by the people to undermine the natural aristocracy while the Anti-Federalists, or

Republicans, feared oppression of the people by the natural aristocracy. "Under Republican

theory, an election was a statement of public opinion at one point in time. That support for and

confidence in those elected to government could change between election cycles, and the

questioning of elected public officials demonstrated not evidence of disloyalty to the

Constitution, but fidelity to it, by requiring those elected to maintain public confidence and thus

maintain the sovereignty of the people over the government."19 To the Anti-Federalists political

struggle strengthened the Republic, the Federalists feared it would destroy it.

During his presidency Mr. Adams was also easily misunderstood, or blatantly

misrepresented. Newspapers, like one called the Aurora, would try to label Mr. Adams as a pro-

aristocratic leader, one who was trying to usurp the will of the people. "The Aurora could

manipulate these "affections" to rally the support of the Republican rank and file behind Adams

and gain political leverage for the Republicans with "His Rotundity."20 Did Mr. Adams actually

believe in the development of an magistracy? "Adams identified three broad sources of social

hierarchy: inequalities of wealth, birth, and ability. These were the constitutive components of

what he famously referred to as the ‘natural aristocracy,' a term which, unlike Jefferson and

others, Adams did not intend normatively but rather as a description of every society’s inevitable

tendency to produce elites, an empirical conclusion that he believed was borne out by history."21

The establishment, or presence, of a social elite was actually an ideal held by both the Federalists

19
Ibid., 6.
20
Scherr, Arthur. “Inventing the Patriot President: Bache’s Aurora and John Adams.” Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography CXIX, no. 4 (1995): 375.
21
O’Neill, Daniel I. “John Adams versus Mary Wollstonecraft on the French Revolution and Democracy.” Journal
of the History of Ideas 68, no. 3 (2007): 456.

7
and the Anti-Federalists (Republicans). The Anti-Federalists also believed there are orders in

society, the "natural aristocracy" and the "natural democracy."22

Even the use of "His Rotundity" when referring to the sitting Mr. Adams was meant not

as an endearment but as an attack. Behind these republican attempts to undermine Mr. Adams

were two other founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Both Madison and

Jefferson were willing to print libel materials against Adams, and vocally denigrated his

leadership. Another founding father who also openly criticized John Adams was James Monroe.

"He [Monroe] bitterly described Adams as an unsexed, grandmotherly persona, feebly playing

with submissive "children" --- the puerile, apathetic American people, who blindly followed their

senile president."23(emphasis mine)

As we consider John Adams and his service to the United States it would be appropriate

to discuss his lack of military service. This is a subject which was important to Mr. Adams

personally and which was used in attacks against him as president. For example James Monroe

ridiculed then President Adams saying that he decided not to call him to a duel because he was

too old, he was a sitting president. Then he continued to redress Mr. Adams; "…chagrined by the

Adams Administration’s measures to increase the army and navy and suppress political

opposition, Monroe blamed the president for “multiplying the causes of irritation daily” with

France. He mocked Adams’ military inexperience and puerile eagerness for a disastrous conflict

that even Washington had resisted."24 Monroe was picking at an issue that was dear to Mr.

Adams's heart. "He yearned to wear a uniform, to march off to battle. Yet he never became a

22
Ellenbogen, Paul D. “Another Explanation for the Senate: The Anti-Federalists, John Adams, and the Natural
Aristocracy.” Polity 29, no. 2 (January 1996): 249.
23
Scherr, Arthur, “James Monroe and John Adams: An Unlikely 'Friendship'.” The Historian 67, no. 3 (2005): 413.
24
Scherr, “James Monroe and John Adams: An Unlikely 'Friendship',"412.

8
soldier."25 "Although Hamilton and other Federalists wanted war, President Adams did not. In

October 1797, he sent a delegation to France in an effort to negotiate a peace."26

Mr. Adams was also unyielding in instances where he had decided that he was morally

right. He stated that he would be willing to "quarrel with both parties and every individual in

each before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either."27 The

moral undertone of his personality was also blatantly demonstrated in his presidency. The John

Adams administration was more in tune with the wishes of…tradition-minded Christians.28

Though it may have come from sources within his administration covertly from Alexander

Hamilton, Mr. Adams called for "the first national fast requested by an American president by

arguing that the American republic ought to acknowledge its dependence upon Almighty God,

especially in dangerous times."29 Even the great men whom John Adams admired, and who

equally admired him provide biting endorsements of their compatriot, "Benjamin Franklin

famously remarked that Adams was “always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and

in some things absolutely out of his senses.”30

One of the most interesting times to examine Adams is during his presidency and the

quasi-war with France. Following Hamilton's urging and spurring the nation toward war would

have been the easier course, however Mr. Adams truly feared placing the United States into

another war so soon on the heels of the War for Independence. Yet as easy as the war path might

25
Ferling, John E. “"Oh That I Was a Soldier": John Adams and the Anguish of War.” American Quarterly 36, no. 2
(1984): 259.
26
Garrison, “The Internal Security Acts of 1798: The Founding Generation and the Judiciary during America’s First
National Security Crisis,” 4.
27
Taylor, Alan. John Adams. In The readers companion to the American presidency, edited by Alan Brinkley and
Davis Dyer. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 27.
28
Dickson, Charles Ellis. “Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in the John Adams
Administration.” The New England Quarterly 60, no. 2 (June 1987): 192.
29
Dickson, “Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in the John Adams
Administration,” 194.
30
Greenstein, "Presidential Difference in the Early Republic: The Highly Disparate Leadership Styles of
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson,” 378.

9
have been to take, Adams knew full well that to choose such a course would be to surrender to

ambition and self-interest, to sacrifice what he believed was the nation's best interest to his own

monumental selfishness.31 Mr. Adams's commitment to the nation as its president would not

allow him to conceive of making that choice. Adams’s insistence on American naval strength

proved decisive in achieving peace with France in 1800.32 Although Jefferson is given credit for

the Louisiana Purchase, and rightly so, "were it not for John Adams making peace with France,

there might never have been a Louisiana Purchase."33

If we were to ask John Adams himself to respond to this simple perspective of analyzing

his entire service as president he might reasonably reply, that historians and their analyses should

be analyzed against each other. John Adams scholar, C. Bradley Thompson explains how Mr.

Adams drew the methodological understanding for analyzing history from Bolingbroke. For

example, Mr. Adams posited that "it is important…for statesmen to examine and compare the

works of different historians. Some obviously would be preferable to others in that they

illuminated a deeper level of the human experience."34 Paynter, reviewing two of Mr. Adams's

seminal works on government, calls into question past histories and historical analysis of Adams

Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America and says that to be

properly understood it be examined along side Mr. Adams's other work, Discourses on Davila.

Paynter concludes that when examining the two works together, historical interpretation of Mr.

Adams's works has been misjudged by historians. "Such a search into the Defence and Davila

discloses a coherence and depth of understanding of humankind and of republican government

31
Ferling, John E. “"Oh That I Was a Soldier": John Adams and the Anguish of War.” American Quarterly 36, no. 2
(1984): 275.
32
McCullough, David. John Adams. (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2001), 566.
33
McCullough, David. John Adams. 586.
34
Thompson, C. Bradley. “John Adams’s Machiavellian Moment.” The Review of Politics 57, no. 03 (1995): 404.

10
which belie much of the criticism they have received."35 Though the time to fully appreciate Mr.

Adams and his political thought far out stretched his life, it would finally come. It turned out to

take more than a century and a half for history to rediscover him.36

Mr. Adams would through time endure blazing reproach and fettered disdain from the

majority of historians. One historian concluded, "if the illness that afflicted Washington in his

first year in office had been fatal, the new political system might well not have taken hold. It was

one thing to have an Adams presidency after eight years of Washington’s leadership. It would

have been quite another to have had that irascible and politically inept New Englander at the

helm from the start."37 However, this new look at John Adams has sparked a modest re-

examination of the true place of the man to American History. One of the current historians of

Adams, Joseph Ellis, closes his book Founding Brothers telling the story of Jefferson's and

Adams's deaths both on July 4th and both 50 years after the signing of the Declaration for which

Mr. Adams fought so hard. Mr. Adams's (and Jefferson's) deaths were used by the public to

demonstrate the hand of Providence upon the Republic for decades after 1826. God had arranged

things so that Adams and Jefferson gave up their lives on the fiftieth anniversary of the

Declaration, indeed, it was maintained that he [sic] continued to watch over the world's only

republic, having in earlier times looked benignly upon the first settlers.38 For a man that saw

little justice to his character or leadership, Mr. Adams took considerable efforts to leave this

world, and especially this nation, better off than he found it. Though raised and personally of a

protestant faith, in his final days Mr. Adams drew less comfort in the vision of heaven as a time

35
Paynter, John E. “The Rhetorical Design of John Adams’s Defence of the Constitutions of… America.” The
Review of Politics 58, no. 03 (1996): 532.
36
Ellis, Joseph J. First Family: Abigail and John Adams. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 248.
37
Greenstein, “Presidential Difference in the Early Republic: The Highly Disparate Leadership Styles of
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson,” 388.
38
De Bolla, Peter de. The Fourth of July. (New York: MJF Books, 2007.) 153.

11
with God and more as place of eternal happiness for himself. "Gazing upon God was less

interesting than embracing Abigail and resuming his arguments with Franklin and Jefferson."39

Indeed, Mr. Adams is getting the last laugh.

39
Ellis, “Hate Love,” 51.

12
 Bibliography

De Bolla, Peter de. The Fourth of July. New York: MJF Books, 2007.

Dickson, Charles Ellis. “Jeremiads in the New American Republic: The Case of National Fasts in
the John Adams Administration.” The New England Quarterly 60, no. 2 (June 1987): 187-
207. http://www.jstor.org/stable/365605?origin=crossref.

Dienstag, Joshua Foa. “Serving God and Mammon: The Lockean Sympathy in Early American
Political Thought.” American Political Science Review 90, no. 3 (1996): 497-511.

Ellenbogen, Paul D. “Another Explanation for the Senate: The Anti-Federalists, John Adams,
and the Natural Aristocracy.” Polity 29, no. 2 (January 1996): 247-271.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3235302?origin=crossref.

Ellis, Joseph J. First Family: Abigail and John Adams. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.

---. Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

---. “Hate Love.” American History October (2010): 47-51.

Farrell, James M. “John Adams’s Autobiography: The Ciceronian Paradigm and the Quest for
Fame.” New England Quarterly 62, no. 4 (1989): 505–528.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/366395.

Ferling, John E. “"Oh That I Was a Soldier": John Adams and the Anguish of War.” American
Quarterly 36, no. 2 (1984): 258–275. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712727.

Garrison, Arthur H. “The Internal Security Acts of 1798: The Founding Generation and the
Judiciary during America’s First National Security Crisis.” Journal of Supreme Court
History 34, no. 1 (2009): 1–27. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-
5818.2009.01196.x/full.

Gelles, Edith Belle. “The Adamses Retire.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary
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http://muse.jhu.edu/content/crossref/journals/early_american_studies_an_interdisciplinary_j
ournal/v004/4.1gelles.html.

Greenstein, Fred I. “Presidential Difference in the Early Republic: The Highly Disparate
Leadership Styles of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.” Presidential Studies Quarterly
36, no. 3 (September 2006): 373-390. http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1741-
5705.2006.02553.x.

13
Lehman, Forrest K. “"Seditious Libel’' on Trial, Political Dissent on the Record: An Account of
the Trial of Thomas Cooper as Campaign Literature.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History
and Biography 132, no. 2 (2008): 117-139.

Lexington. “The Cult of Adams.” Economist, January 2008.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771894?origin=crossref.

McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2001.

O’Neill, Daniel I. “John Adams versus Mary Wollstonecraft on the French Revolution and
Democracy.” Journal of the History of Ideas 68, no. 3 (2007): 451–476.
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_the_history_of_ideas/v068/68.3oneill.html.

Paynter, John E. “The Rhetorical Design of John Adams’s Defence of the Constitutions of…
America.” The Review of Politics 58, no. 03 (1996): 531–560.
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0034670500020179.

Scherr, Arthur. “Inventing the Patriot President: Bache’s Aurora and John Adams.” Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography CXIX, no. 4 (1995): 369-399.

---. “James Monroe and John Adams: An Unlikely 'Friendship'.” The Historian 67, no. 3 (2005):
11-38.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle:James+Monroe+and+Joh
n+Adams:+An+Unlikely+Friendship#0.

Tanner, John S., and Justin Collings. “How Adams and Jefferson Read Milton and Milton Read
Them.” Milton Quarterly 40, no. 3 (October 2006): 207-219.
http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1094-348X.2006.00141.x.

Taylor, Alan. John Adams. In The readers companion to the American presidency, edited by
Alan Brinkley and Davis Dyer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2000.

Thompson, C. Bradley. “John Adams’s Machiavellian Moment.” The Review of Politics 57, no.
03 (1995): 389–417. http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0034670500019689.

Unger, Harlow Giles. “The Once and Future Conflict Over Big Government.” American History
44, no.5 December (2010): 39.

14