This is partially due to his misfortune in having to follow Washington. He took over the Executive Office at a time when the split between the Federalists (particularly Hamilton) and the Republicans (in the form of Jefferson and Madison) was exposed at last. With Washington in office, his legendary figure kept the spirit of the Revolution alive. When Adams took over, it was time to have the public debate about the form of government and, ultimately, what he Revolution had been about. Adams was on the Federalist side of the divide, but he was led, along with the Federalist faction itself, into ruin by the strong will of Hamilton and his increasingly far-reaching plans for Federal power (e.g., the controversy over the New Army).
His failure to find the immortality of Washington and Jefferson also seems to have been a matter of personality. Adams seems to have been both blessed and cursed with a kind of perverse contrarian streak. This certainly liberated his thinking and made him clear-eyed about many popular subjects (unlike Jefferson, he saw that the French Revolution was headed for disaster), but it could also make him small, combative and overly angry at the world. Where Washington was aloof and serene and Jefferson ethereal and complex (and self-contradictory), Adams was more direct and acerbic and this could make him an object of scorn and ridicule.
Unlike, say, Jefferson, Adams was at every major Revolutionary event, from the Stamp Act Congresses to the Second Continental Congress to the Constitutional Convention and played a major role in all of them. In later years, Adams was particularly vexed by the fame accorded to Jefferson for the Declaration of Independence, arguing that Jefferson had been chosen as a mere prose stylist to memorialize ideas that had been put forward by men like Adams himself over the previous years. Jefferson had barely spoken a word during the Second Continental Congress. Indeed, he was far ahead of most in his vision of independence from Great Britain as the way forward. In old age, Adams raged against the increasing reverence accorded to July 4th as the seminal date in the Revolution. The fact that this trend tended to elevate Jefferson also irritated him no end. He saw history as a messy affair, filled with uncertainties and contradictions, and he disliked the tidy narrative of inevitability that was developing around the Revolution. Sadly, his own acerbic personality and his periodic rages tended to render his attempts to set out his account of the era almost unreadable.
Which is a shame, because not only is Adams worthy of a place among the great marble leaders we revere today, he also holds the unique distinction among the early Presidents of not being a slaveholder and being an abolitionist. In that respect, his moral compass was a good deal more precise than Jefferson's or Washington's.
2 comments:
Well done...
Had my folks over last night for the first two of seven episodes of HBO's 'John Adams'. Giamati is better than I'd had hoped. His arguments at the trial of the Boston Massacre soldiers were at testament to the guys acting ability. The 2nd Continental Congress arguments were really something else (what's up with those pussy delegates from NY?) Very powerful stuff.
The scene in which they inoculated his family against the pox was tough to watch though.
The series is going to inspire wigs to come back in fashion.
I watched it too. I was kind of lukewarm on it, mostly because of the intrusive camera work and the very odd lighting. Despite the immense detail in the sets and costume, it was lit and shot like a soap opera.
Also, I was disappointed with the guy they chose for Washington. He seemed kind of stiff and doughy, whereas all contemporary accounts of Washington described him as physically impressive and athletic.
I will continue to watch, but there is a reason why I have started to avoid McCullough on the 18th century. It's all grand opera and rarely critical or complex.
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