A Historiographical Essay

On

Various Works Regarding the Life and Presidency of

John Adams

Albert Whittenberg

HIS 501

University of Illinois - Springfield

November 20, 2003

 John Adams 2

John Adams once predicted "mausoleums, statues, monuments will never be

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erected to me."} Until recently, Adams' prediction would setmct:ue. Historians have
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periodically turned to the second president but the vast number of books dedicated to
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Washington or Jefferson easily eclipses them. The past decade has seen a revival • .t wert" \cos. '

celebrating the "Father of American Independence.,,2 Two Pulitzer Prize winning books,

Founding Brothers and John Adams, stand as testimonies to this renewed interest. Why

did it take so long? Why are Americans looking towards John Adams with renewed

interest? How did historians view Adams before as compared to now?

The first biography I ever read on John Adams is probably one that several started

with. Catherine D. Bowen's John Adams and the American Revolution is a traditional

biography that chronicles his life from birth to the signing of the Declaration of

Independence. It is a colorful account detailing his boyhood on the farm, his education at

Harvard, his experience as a school teacher, his training and first steps as a lawyer and his

courtship of Abigail Smith. Bowen uses a lively style that makes one think more of a

work of fiction than a historical work. Book reviewer L. H. Butterfield remarks that this

"violates the first principle of historical biography" which states "invention shall not be

mingled with facts.,,3 Bowen defends her writing style by calling it a "portrait of John

Adams.,,4 This is a book more concerned with the setting than the subject. It is a work of

a master storyteller trying to get the reader to see what a young John Adams saw.

It is also interesting to point out that this book was published in 1949, and Bowen

only referenced 14 written biographies of John Adams (from 1827 to 1940). One ofthese

was the biography beg~ by John Quincy Adams and finally finished by Charles Francis
 John Adams 3

Adams in 1871. Another was a volume that tried to detennine the true religious leanings

of John Adams. None were focused on his presidency.

A few made mention of i~like Gilbert Chinard's Honest John Adams. Two

chapters out of twelve cover the presidency (almost as many pages are dedicated to his

tenn as vice-president). The first speaks to the XYZ Affair, the Alien and Sedition Acts

and Adams)attempts to keep the new United States out of war with France. A favorite

target of historians, the Alien and Sedition Acts, gets a great deal of attentioI) including
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Adams' justification. &inard calls it "a very weak defense of his attitude on the matter
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of the most detested legislation ever passed by American Congress."s The

President blamed everything on Hamilton and the rising possibilities of war.

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The final chapter on the presidency focuses ~ore on him realizing)te is going to

lose the next election. He had been given "unequivocal indications that the time had

come for him to retire.,,6 It ends with his retirement to Quincy. Between these two

books, a theme seems to be developing about John Adams. He was a man successful

before and during the Revolution but a failure in many ways after he was e1ected~-
president and president. It is perhaps far easier to focus on his early life than after.

Chinard also seems to begin another tradition as well. Before writing his work on

John Adams in 1933, he had already published a work called Thomas Jefferson: The

Apostle ofAmericanism. These two friends (and sometimes foes) seem to be forever

linked together. Several other historians would follow and continue to compare these two

time and time again.

In Peter Shaw's book, The Character ofJohn Adams, he talks !:lbout the history of

biography on Adams. He reduces the work on Adams in the 1800s to his grandson'S
 John Adams 4

biography of him, The Works ofJohn Adams. Shaw criticizes this work by stating "the

judicious Mr. Adams of this edition resembled the obscure Charles Francis rather than his

embarrassingly hotheaded ancestor.,,7 He mentions Bowen and Chinard, but also warns

that writers from the 1920s to the 1940s largely ignored Adams and focused on Hamilton

or Jefferson. The 1950s would bring about a change since "for the first time the great

cache of Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, containing

unexpurgated texts of John Adam's diary, autobiography, and personal letters, was

opened unconditionally to researchers."g Suddenly there was more primary source

material about John Adams available than all the other founding fathers (the papers take

up 608 reels of microfilm, which is "more than five miles of microfilm.,,)9 Suddenly new

works start appearing that study Adams "as a diarist, political writer, diplomat, president,

and as a letter writer and sage in his letters to Jefferson during retirement.,,10 ~ach

decade brings new works which help lead to his version of John Adams in 1976) _~:;o...e.

Shaw's work is a study of the man himself. What makes him tick? He shows how

John Adams struggled with his ambition, his vani~s desire for self-improvement and
the price he paid for all of it. John Adams' life was a series of the same process repeating

itself. He "began with a desire accompanied by a scruple over the purity of his motive,

and this delayed his decision. "II Gregg L. Lint called it a "recurring cycle" where "first

came effort and sacrifice in pursuit of an objective" which was "followed by

disappointment over the recognition that the effort and sacrifice had been received.,,12

John Adams wanted fame, but it always seems to float to everyone else.

Considering Adams' presidency, Shaw felt it was largely failure after failure. He

felt John Adams looked at the job as an independent office. A good president was a
 John Adams 5

"man of integrity who stood above contending factions in the Senate and House of

Representatives, and above parties as well.,,13 Shaw warned how Adams made too many

mistakes such as keeping Washington's cabinet and not seeing for two years how they

were working against him. Shaw mentions how Adams felt trapped in the position while

his family was not well (Abigail had diabetes, his son Charles was in financial ruin and

drinking himself to death and John himself was painfully losing his teeth). This is not a

story of what happened during the presidency but how the presidency affected the man.

Also during this decade, a new biography came out on John Adams that attempted

to use his many writings to tell the whole story. It was a series by Newsweek that

focused a volume on each of the Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin, George

Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and, of course,

John Adams. James Bishop Peabody, Secretary of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,

was the editor/author. Peabody chronicles Adams' life using actual letters related to the

topic at hand. An example would be Peabody briefly states that Congress passed the

Alien and Sedition Acts and then uses a letter from Adams to Jefferson to tell how the

president really felt about the legislation. Adams justifies it by writing "French spies

then swarmed in our cities and in the country" and "was there ever a government which

had not authority to defend itself against spies in its own bosom?,,14 Peabody gives very

few opinions himself but lets the volumes of letters speak for themselves. He shows how
'7
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Adams pulls no punche~ as when he was referring to Hamilton as "a man devoid of every
.)~ H~ Vle..ve...r lo...be..ts Ad..c:...vn.:' 'f' Y'e..'- :cL.hc....r a..r
moral principle, a bastard.,,15 The presidency of Adams is never mentioned as being
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good or bad. The reader is supposed to make his or her own opinion~ on this "Founding
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Father". As biographers before him, the vast majority of the book is dedicated to the
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 John Adams 6

years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Another weakness is most of the letters are

focused more on Adams' personal life than his career.

Another Adams biography, which appeared in the 1970s, was written by former

Columbia and Kansas State professor Robert A. East. This short biography comes almost
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entirely from the Adams Papers and(other works oefote)(Hke Chinard and Bowen). East

spends only seven pages talking about the Adams Presidency (with three of those pages

detailing how his family suffered during this time). The XYZ Affair is given less than a

paragraph. The greatest highlight of his presidenc\> ~eping the country from war with

Franc:,is reduced to Adams complaining about not getting credit for it in Mercy

-
Warren's History of the American Revolution. It ends with his statement of "I think you

ought to give me credit for it instead of charging me ofpride.,,16 East justifies his short

take on this period due to "that there is almost nothing in John Adam's diary or in his

autobiographical recollection about his presidency.,,17

Like many before it, the East book is a character study. He calls John Adams a

"bundle of contradictions" and "one who could rejoice in the size of his manure pile and

enjoy a tankard of hard cider each morning before breakfast.,,18 It focuses on how he
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viewed himself and\how he would change from one opinion to anotherJEast also

mentions how impossible it is for us to truly understand John Adams since "a person

should be judged by the standards of his or her own time.,,19 It is shame that he did not

try to incorporate this logic in looking at the XYZ Affair or the Alien and Sedition Acts.

John Adams has also popped up in a number of works that focus on a group of

"Founding Fathers" or the Presidents in general. Since these are comparison pieces, it is
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also worthwhile to glance at them to see how authors rank ev
Adams to his
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 John Adams 7

contemporaries. One early work is(aul Wilstach's 1927 book Patriots OfJTheir

Pedestals. The author wishes to show eight Founding Fathers "not merely aloft on

granite bases, buttoned-up, head rigidly tilted as ifin a photographer's clamp, hand in

bosom or brandishing a sword, frozen in pose, mute effigies without heart or blood but as

human beings in the actualities oflife.,,2o When talking about Adams, Wilstach refers to

his strengths and weaknesses alike as "positive, turbulent, energetic and fearless.',2l He

shows a man dedicated to writing (over forty-one years of writing in a journal and diary)

and other means of self-expression (mainly his mouth). His love of reading is discussed
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as well as the volume of knowledge he accumulated over law, government, religion and a
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variety of other topics.~~e speaks of his jealousy of Washington and Franklin and the

great love affair between him and Abigail. For someone trying to show an actual human

being behind the statue, Wilstach paints a picture of many positives with few failings.

Even his jealousy is explained as being logical considering how he helped Washington

get his post and Franklin with diplomatic work.

Another author set out to do the same task as Wilstach. Kenneth Umbreit wrote

Founding Fathers: Men Who Shaped Our Tradition in 1941 with the intent of looking at

"a few of these men, to take them apart, to try to find out what made them tick. ,,22

Umbreit focuses far more on Adams .lactual political career than his personality traits. He

credits Adams as the first President to believe in a "strong, individual executive, and the

American Presidency is the direct result of his influence.,,23 The author focuses on

Adams' determination to not become a party leader (that the President should be above

such things) and how a better cabinet would have turned Adams' presidency around.
 "rlJ} John Adams 8

(Whatever the case~dams could be proud of two accomplishments: keeping America out

of a war with France and keeping Hamilton from gaining more power.

A final compilation work that studies the character of John Adams as well as his

presidency is James M. McPherson's To the Best ofMy Ability: The American

Presidents. He begins by stating that "no man was less suited by temperament to be

president when he occupied the office than the abrasive John Adams of Massachusetts.

Yet no man's character better suited the nation's particular needs at the time. Such is the

great paradox of Adam's presidency.,,24 Adams wanted America free from Europe and

wanted to prevent any political parties from getting too strong (including his own). This

is one of the few works to show that Adams helped create "a separate Department of the

Navy, put the army on a surer footing, and left a solvent treasury.,,25 It also mentions one

of his greatest accomplishments was appointing of John Marshall to the position of chief

justice of the Supreme Court. The author is also quick to point out that it is not easy to be
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the man who followed Washington's footsteps.
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lBefore we jump into the present,)it is interesting to note how everyone so far has

looked at John Adams and his time in the highest office in the land. Catherine Bowen

created an almost historical fiction type account of what this man might have been like in

his early career up to July 4, 1776. Gilbert Chinard shows Adams as a good and honest

man who ultimately fails due to the people around him. Peter Shaw describes a man

stuck in a never ending cycle of sacrifice, success and failure. The cost John Adams paid

for success was always too much. James B. Peabody does not try to form his own

opinion on Adams but lets the second president's writings tell the story. Robert East

barely mentions the man as president due to the lack of primary sources. Umbreit,
 John Adams 9

Wilstach and McPherson give us a brief glimpse of Adams as compared to other

revolutionaries or presidents. Even though this does not represent all the work done on

Adams in the twentieth century, it does show that there are some holes in researching the

time John Adams spent as the President of the United States. It is no/wonder that the

nineties and beyond saw some work finally appear that told more of the story.

Like Chinard, Mount Holyoke College professor Joseph Ellis wrote a best selling
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biography of Thomas Jefferson but discovered an interest in John Adamtb~ his research.

This led to the creation of Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy ofJohn Adams.

Ellis pulled no punches as he stated his hope that his work (and the work of his fellow

researchers on Adams) would 19d to some great memorial perhaps in Washington, D.C.
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His book actually began with the presidency and continued on through Adami retirement

and famous correspondence with Jefferson. Continental Congresses, Paris and Sons of

Liberty are rarely mentioned. Ellis seems to recognize that this is a well worn path and
.,
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an older Adams needs to be explored.

Ellis admits that Adams' presidency can be seen as a failure but gives reasons why

this result was doomed to happen. Washington was "fortunate to get offjust as the

bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag.,,26 Problems had been developing for

some time, and Washington had left the scene at the right time. Ellis covers how difficult

it is to follow a national hero, how Hamilton worked against Adams within his own party

and how Jefferson politely worked against him in the opposing party. Ellis is one of the

few to point out that the Alien and Sedition Acts were but a symptom of the overall real

problem of France. War was taking place at sea so a navy had to be created and an army

improved (all the while knowing that Hamilton had his sights on taking over the
 John Adams 10

military). Ellis succeeds in showing both John Adams' personal side as well as his public

career.

Where does one go after creating a best selling biography of Thomas Jefferson
wt'Je."t!!.d his ~~
and then following it with one about John Adams? Ellis turned his focus wider and wrote

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. The "founding brothers" are George

Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (and one "founding sister" in Abigail Adams). The

final chapters focus on Adams and Jefferson. The first tells how they worked against one

another while the last focuses on the friendship in their retired years. The final chapter

was perhaps a rehash of what Ellis did before in his biography of Adams but the other

(called appropriately the "Collaborators") deals mainly with the rocky relationship

between Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison. Hamilton has his own personal

agenda while Jefferson and Madison worked together (all against Adams to some

degree). Ellis even mentioned that "Jefferson and Madison even managed to persuade

themselves that Adams had concocted the entire XYZ Affair to mobilize popular support

for a declaration of war.',27 Ellis also showed how Adams turned more from his regular

cabinet to his one woman cabinet of Abigail. Time and time again, her advice proved

right. She called the competition between Adams and Jefferson as "the oak versus the

willow.,,28 a.~e... 'j~ a.~suVVli~

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These series of books on the Founding Fathers by Ellis were very successful!2. a ~ ?
number of new works started appearing on shelves. One of the more interesting ones

(and perhaps more negative works) was Richard Brookhiser's America's First Dynasty:

The Adamses, 1735-1918. Brookhiser did not look at just John Adams but John Quincy
 John Adams 11

Adams, Charles Francis Adams and Henry Adams. Each one of these men had touched
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history in their own way, and each had fallen into the same traps as tlieir father.

It is interesting to compare Brookhiser's book with the ones of Ellis. They are

almost complete opposites in dealing with John Adams' presidency. He "stirred up war
..... err-'
fever that he decided later must be broken.,,29 He did so to build up his popularity, it was ~>(\

noted that "Adams' lifelong insecurity about never having bourne arms fed his rhetoric

now.,,30 Abigail was not even spaqid as Brookhiser called her advice "noxious" and as

building on Adams' own prejudices. In making peace with France and avoiding a costly

war, Brookhiser said Adams "did the right thing in the worst possible way" and became

the "first loser in American presidential history.,,31

In an interview with Brookhiser for the National Review Online, you get an even

more complete picture of his feelings. When asked who his favorite Adams was, he

replied "none of the Adamses are likeable. They are proud, envious, self·pitying and

generally unfunny.,,32 As a president, he considers John Adams a "bust" and "overrated".

Both John Adams and John Quincy Adams are viewed ~as writers. The

four Adamses covered struggled with vanity, alcohol, political careers and being good

fathers/sons.
0/
Another author wotld see potential from Ellis' work. David McCullough, who

had already written successful biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman,

was inspired by Passionate Sage to write his own book on John Adams. The result was a

national best seller and a Pulitzer Prize for a book titled simply John Adams. In effect,

McCullough's work was almost returning full circle back to Bowen. Like her, he wrote

in a very lively style but carried his subject from childhood to death instead of stopping
 John Adams 12

with July 4th. Like Peabody, he would often let Adams' writings speak for itself. He

would attempt to focus on what made Adams tick like Gilbert and Shaw, and he would
oV\
agree with more of Ellis' conclusions of Adams' presidency than Brookhiser.

After all the other authors mentioned, McCullough seems to be the only one

determined to spend a great deal of time with Adams 'work as a diplomat and a president.
!-lie;
( H9 is the only one of the books mentioned that tries to explain the setting as well as the I

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subject (to fully understand the decisions that John Adams made). Much criticism is

made over the Alien and Sedition Acts, but McCullough also states that "there was

rampant fear of the enemy within. French emigres in America, according to the French

consul in Philadelphia, by now numbered 25,000 or more. Many were aristocrats who

had fled the Terror; but the majority were refugees from the slave uprisings on the

Caribbean island of San Domingo.,,33 He explains that there were "French booksellers,

French schools, French boardinghouses, and French restaurants. The French, it seemed,

were everywhere, and who was to measure the threat they posed in the event of war with

France?" 34 (Mccullough, 505) McCullough is not saying the Acts were right (they were

surely unconstitutional) but trying to show the mood of the times.

If any complaint might be made about McCullough's work, it is that he~l in

~ e.rl4\o'W<..d "?
love with his subject. Many of the mistakes of Adams' administration are dropped and

never brought up again. Victories like the appointment of Marshall as Chief Justice are

discussed in detail. Adams comes across as too perfect ~mpared to the other works
where he was considered a flop.

In reviewing these works on John Adams, a pattern certainly appears. Each one

builds on the other. It is certainly not strange that McCullough's biography uses many of
 John Adams 13

the other texts mentioned before. Each decade has seen someone else taking a different

look at the complicated individual of John Adams. It started with the man himself since

he wrote ft::: everything"'ili-;;;er happened eo~ His writings are huge and are now
easily available. His grandson tried to write the story in the 1800s, and that version has

been referenced in every work on John Adams since (even though several like Shaw have

found it flawed). The twentieth century has seen new people come forward almost every

decade to produce a work on Adams. The books might focus on his early life, his work

as a revolutionary, his beliefs, his character, his work as a political scientist, or the

relationship with his wife (Abigail has ~o become a frequent subject of biographers
~~
through the years ~l). These twelve books represent/progress towards knowing

every side of John Adams. Some may focus on the failures wQ.ile others focus on each

success, but the result is perhaps an almost complete story. In my opinion, McCullough's

work is the closest we have come to knowing John Adams the man and president, but I

also know he could not have produced such a work without the other titles before him.

What do we think about John Adams now? If I was to go to any bookstore or

browse a store like Amazon online, I would find hundreds of titles on John Adams.

Some of these would be the ones already mentioned, but there would be a number of new

works as well. Would some of them be a rehash of what has gone on before? Of course,
'-fu.'1
there would be. Would some of them offer new insight? ,There is certainly a chance.

Presidents and so-called Founding Fathers have always been popular topics for historians

and biographers. John Adams is both and a true individual. It is almost a guarantee that

more will be written on him. • ~¥:J'<>~

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 John Adams 14

Endnotes

lRichard D. Brown, "The Apotheosis of John Adams," The William and Mary
Quarterly 59 (Jarmary 2002): 308.

2Catherine D. Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution, (Boston: Little,
Brown & Company, 1949),675.

3L. H. Butterfield, "John Adams and the American Revolution," The William and
Mary Quarterly 7 (October 1950): 609.

4Ibid., 610.

50ilbert Chinard,. Honest John Adams, (Boston: Little, Brown & Company,
1933),275.

6Ib id., 294.

7Peter Shaw, The Character ofJohn Adams, (The University of North Carolina
Press, 1976), 7.

8Ibid.

9David McCullough, John Adams, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 653.

IOPeter Shaw, The Character ofJohn Adams, (The University of North Carolina
Press, 1976), 8.

II Ibid., 17.

120regg L. Lint, "The Character of John Adams," The New England Quarterly 49
(September 1976): 479.

13Peter Shaw, The Character ofJohn Adams, (The University of North Carolina
Press, 1976),247.

14James Bishop Peabody,. John Adams: A Biography in His Own Words, (New
York: Newsweek, 1973),363.

15Ibid., 364.

16Robert A. East, John Adams, (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979), 80.

17Ibid., 119.

18I bid., 11.

 John Adams 15

19Ibid.

20Paul Wilstach, Patriots Off Their Pedestals, (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1927),
13.
21Ibid., 118.

22Keneth Umbreit, Founding Fathers: Men Who Shaped Our Tradition, (New
York: Kennikat Press, 1941), 7.

23 Ibid., 149.

24James M. McPherson, To the Best ofMy Ability: The American Presidents,

(New York: DK Publishing, 2001), 22.

25Ibid., 26.

26Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy ofJohn Adams,
(New York: Random, 1993),27.

27Jospeh J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York:

First Vintage Books, 2000), 196.

28Ibid., 202.

2~chard Brookhiser, America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918, (New

York: The Free Press, 2002), 50.

30Ibid.

31Ibid.,51.

32 Kathryn Jean Lopez, (February 2002), National Review Online: The Adams
Family, Retrived November 17,2003, from
http://www.nationalreview.comlweekendlbookslbooks-brookhiser021602.shtml.

33David McCullough, John Adams, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 505.

34Ibid.
 Howen, Cathenne U. Jonn Aaams ana lne Amenc:un l\t:VUtUHUfI. JJU"~UH. J...dUH., .v'un.......

Company, 1949.

Brookhiser, Richard. America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918. New York: The
Free Press, 2002.

Butterfield, L. H. "John Adams and the American Revolution." The William and Mary
Quarterly 7 (October 1950): 609-612.

Chinard, Gilbert. Honest John Adams. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1933.

East, Robert A. John Adams. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.

Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: First
Vintage Books, 2000.

Ellis, Joseph J. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy ofJohn Adams. New York:
Random, 1993.

Lint, Gregg L. "The Character of John Adams." The New England Quarterly 49
(September 1976): 479-480.

Lopez, Kathryn Jean. (February 2002). National Review Online: The Adams Family.
Retrived November 17,2003, from
http://www.nationalreview.comlweekend/books/books-brookhiser021602.shtml.

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

McPherson, James M. To the Best ofMy Ability: The American Presidents. New York:
DK Publishing, 2001.

Peabody, James Bishop. John Adams: A Biography in His Own Words. New York:
Newsweek,1973.

Shaw, Peter. The Character ofJohn Adams. The University of North Carolina Press,
1976.

Umbreit, Kenneth. Founding Fathers: Men Who Shaped Our Tradition. New York:
Kennikat Press, 1941.

Wilstach, Paul. Patriots Of/Their Pedestals. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1927.

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