John Adams
Fri., February 26, 10:58 AM
—George Santayana
I think that, the more I learn about history, the less I know about it. Occasionally, History Channel runs a series about the presidents of the United State, and I enjoy listening to it. Using what I know about the presidents gives me a, um, call it a timeline, against which the various events of the last two hundred plus years make more sense to me. The television series prompted me to buy a book about the presidents.
To my surprise, the book was often different from the series. History Channel explained the number of good things some presidents had accomplished; the book dismissed some of these same men as “party hacks.” I am well aware that there are often different versions of what is going on — there were half a dozen conflicting biographies of John Kennedy in the months after his death — but wouldn’t you think they would get their stories straight after a hundred years or more? Apparently not.
Recently I have been wading through David McCullough’s John Adams. It is excellent writing — Pulitzer Prize, 2002 — but I am not as good a reader as I once was. By the time I was only about halfway through, I learned that some things I had suspected were real.
From junior high school on, I had been taught that “John Adams was an unpopular president,” or even a bad president. I had taken it as true for years because, after all, a teacher told me so.
Eventually, I began to realize that Adams had a couple of strikes against him. First of all, he was not George Washington. He was not tall and dashing, he spoke up when Washington would have listened. That leads me to the second strike, Adams was probably much smarter than most of the men he worked with. He was a self-righteous man, never afraid to speak up (or write) if he was sure his opinions were valid. A third strike, I think, which I don’t completely hold against him, was that he never learned to tone down his erudition — quietly! — to avoid offending those less fortunate.
Nothing I had read previously told me about his foreign service before the Revolutionary War was over. He not only was in France (which I knew), but in England and the Netherlands. Had he not done those things, not only would the new country have been in deeper financial straits, but his son John Quincy, even smarter than his father, would not have been available for some of the foreign service that he did. Remember the difficulties involved — the dangerous trip across the Atlantic, the hardships of overland travel (especially if your ship came ashore in the wrong country!), and the time it took for communications to get to and from one’s home government.
Letters between John and Abigail illustrate their love for one another, despite the often stilted language that was used in letter-writing. (Not to mention the silence in that department when they were together!) But Abigail wrote to everyone, including friends and relatives, in an effort to keep the family together no matter where they happened to be. I really came to admire Abigail — what a life women led back in the eighteenth century.
Fortunately, I missed two bookmobile stops before I had to return the book. (They automatically renew my books if I’m not there.) Some of the most interesting stuff occurred after Adams became president.
The nasty politics — Jefferson and Hamilton, I had thought better of you both — the secret intrigues, the “ever-splenetic William McClan” — who could have been Rush Limbough — even Hamilton’s adulterous affair. Need I go on? It could have come out of today’s newspapers.
I really like David McCullough. I read the first of his books — for me the first — when I still had an infant. It was about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and I remember propping the book against a nursing baby (though I don’t remember which baby!). I learn so much from his writing, I wonder if McCullough ever did a book on John Quincy Adams. According to my teachers, he was an “unpopular” president too.
Our local weather has been very uncertain this week, bad enough that I begged off a meeting with our lawyer until next week. It had been raining, without a noticeable pause, for the better of two days. I scheduled a Peapod delivery on Wednesday, because I knew I would not want to be out. Though it was warm enough here just to stay liquid and wash away any vestiges of snow, I was beginning to wonder if I should consider getting an ark. I drove the block to the bookmobile yesterday. The clerk pulled out lots of biographies from which I could choose, although I am sure that much of the next two weeks I shall be concentrating on Anne Perry’s newest book. (I’ll let you know.)
After one other errand, I came home. The rain and wind were not pleasant. When U.D. came home from work, we went out again — manicure, Trader Joe’s, pharmacy. We were out for maybe three hours, though for the last stop, I did ask U.D. to get the car and pick me up at the door.
After supper I went to sit in the recliner and promptly fell asleep. I woke up briefly around eight when I felt U.D. removing my shoes… I woke up again around three, realized I needed some Tylenol, and went back to the recliner. I fell asleep again, listening to the sound of the rain against the windows. I woke up late, after eight a.m., and yelled for U.D. And yelled again, because I looked out the window to see snow. My deck, which was clear yesterday, has a couple of inches on the rails. It is exactly 32 degrees right now; we may or may not have a snow emergency, but the schools are closed. Last time I looked, it was still snowing. Maybe I shall just stay in the house till Monday.
