The Thomas Jefferson Hour; #0406; John Adams

Welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, your weekly conversation with our third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The Thomas Jefferson Hour is produced by High Plains Public Radio and New Enlightenment Radio Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to the search for truth in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. Today's program is the first of a series where humanity scholar Clay Jenkinson is interviewing our second president of the United States, John Adams. Please join us as our host, Clay Jenkinson, speaks with John Adams portrayed by humanity scholar Bill Crystal. Good day and welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour. I'm Clay Jenkinson, I'll be your host today and I want you to settle in. Get a glass of wine, we are in for an interesting interview with one of the most extraordinary men of American history. I think most of you know that John Adams has agreed to make a visit to this program and he is here today. We'll only be able to begin to get a sense of this extraordinary man, but I think you're going to hear some things that you have never heard before on the Thomas Jefferson Hour. So stay tuned, welcome President John Adams.

Good day to you, sir. I must say I was a little anxious about coming on to a program called the Thomas Jefferson Hour. You know Mr. Jefferson and I had many political disagreements through the years. But you said in a famous letter of 1812, I love Jefferson, I have always loved Jefferson. And that's a subject that I will want to come back to at the end of this program and I think in another day we'll talk specifically about that famous late correspondence. And I think everybody knows you and President Jefferson died on the same day on the 4th of July 1826. Isn't that an extraordinary thing? It's hard not to view it as some sort of serendipity, certainly people living in our time did. Your son, the president, John Quincy Adams actually issued a statement saying the hand of providence must have been behind this. And I think he believed that I'm sure he did. Let's go back. Most of our listeners don't really know much about you except that you were a famous revolutionary and that you were somehow part of the Declaration of Independence and that you were the second president of the United States. If you had to give us a 30 second resume about your life, what would you say?

I think one of the things that I did was help the Declaration of Independence pass. There were when that document was finally presented to the Continental Congress a number of people who were not yet ready to vote for independence. And it was I who rose and gave probably one of the greatest addresses of my life and convinced all of them to stand on the side of liberty. And how old would you have been roughly at the time of the Declaration? Born in 1735. So I was a relatively young man. I was 40 years old. 40 years old and you had already established a reputation for being an outspoken in the mind of some hotheaded member of the Continental Congress. Indeed, sir. I gained that reputation not necessarily because I wanted it, but I was perceived by some as vain and ambitious. And I think others found me prickly on occasion. I did not see myself that way at all. But I think it's the case, isn't it? That you were one of the three or four most important floor members of the Continental Congress during this critical period.

As a consequence of the speech that I delivered in favor of the Declaration of Independence, I was later called the Atlas of the American Revolution. Atlas being the great God who held the world on his shoulders. And in a burden it sometimes was carry on with your resume. All right. You played a key role in the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence passage. I think I had as much as I've been accused of not necessarily knowing people and Mr. Jefferson, one of those who accused me of that, I seem to have been able to make wise choices along the way and to select people for certain positions that turned out to have been wonderfully correct. Isn't it the case that you proposed that George Washington of Virginia be the head of the Continental Army? I did indeed, sir. I thought General Washington would be a wonderful and necessary choice because he represented the Southern states. The Southern states would be more inclined to support a war with one of their own at the head of the Army.

And he was an admirably suited choice. He fought in the French and Indian War. He had been a Colonel. He was a wonderful choice, I think. And he belonged to that planter class who support the whole prospect of liberty needed so desperately. And in retrospect, as you look at the life and career of President Washington, do you share with the American people the deep love and respect for him? Yes, sir. I do. I think General Washington was one of the great men in American history. I do think that his influence on this country has been pronounced even to this day. Another selection that, or a choice of people that I like to point to is Thomas Jefferson himself. We were part of a committee along with Benjamin Franklin to assign to write a Declaration of Independence. And I suggested to Mr. Jefferson that if I were to write it, no one would ever pass it that I was already too controversial a character. And Mr. Franklin had no, Dr. Franklin had no intention of doing it. So I think the choice of Mr. Jefferson was an incredibly good one.

It was regional balance for one thing. You also, I think, appreciated Jefferson's capacity as a penman. As a penman, I certainly admired his learning. I think he was outside of myself the most bookish man I had ever known. And yet, I mean, I don't want us to get into any discussion really about the tensions between you and Mr. Jefferson. But I sense from reading your diaries and your letters that you did look upon Jefferson decidedly as the junior partner in your relationship. He was younger than I was at that point. I think age and really influence on a broader stage, I think, were two considerations. I had already gained a good deal of notoriety in my native New England for activities that I had done on behalf of Liberty and perhaps the better known of the two of us. And just one more question about all of that. The Declaration of Independence went on to become the central document of the revolution.

It made Jefferson justly famous. He listed it on his epitaph before his death. I think you said at one point the Declaration of Independence has carried away the revolution that in a sense it eclipse some more important things. Well, you forced me at this point to make some sort of admission that I certainly would have been love to make in my time. I felt that the revolution was carried away in other places as well. I once said that soon they will be saying that Dr. Franklin smote his electrical rod into the ground and out popped George Washington. And between the two of them all all that was done diplomatically or militarily was done that the people like me seem to have have been lost in the telling of the story of the revolution. I'm going to ask you to speak very, very candidly and I know that this is not that easy because it would require you to be self-regarding here. But is it the case that you really believe that you were the most important figure in the revolution?

All of my life sir, I struggled with what I consider the terrible weakness inside of me and that was my ambition and my desire to be known by others. And the harder I worked for it it seemed to me the less I achieved it and that was indeed a terrible thing that I that I had to struggle with. And there were times when I would have suggested that but those were not times I think when my when my life was in was in perfect balance. As I once wrote a man what he has heard a man loves to talk of his wounds and and much of what you read about me in my diaries are really me talking about the hurts and disappointments that I had known during my career. Now I don't want to linger any longer on the revolution. I want to go back and ask you about your training as a lawyer and your marriage to the perhaps the most interesting of all the first ladies in American history. But just one last thing about that what I think a lot of our listeners will want to know what exactly is your relationship with the other Adam Samuel Adam we were cousins. We were first cousins so we were related but of course in New England at that point and especially in villages the size of brain free lots of people were related to lots of people so that it was it was nothing extraordinary at that point in time.

It didn't mean that we were especially close or spent a great deal of time with one another but we were cousins. And is it fair to say that you were a legislator and he was a rabble rouser? Yes although some of what I became known for early on were pieces that I wrote in the in the Boston Gazette under a pseudonym. So I was I was a rabble rouser of a sort I suppose as well. We're talking with President John Adams this is his first appearance on the Thomas Jefferson hour I'm Clay Jenkins and keep listening. President Adams let's go back Jefferson and Washington and Patrick Henry Virginia John Jay and Hamilton New York but you are from Massachusetts. Tell us about your upbringing. My upbringing I was I was born of a father who was a New England Yoman a Yoman farmer who in the in the winter was a was a cordweiner he was a he was a shoe maker and I grew up loving farming. I truly love to put my hands in the soil in fact a story is told about me when I was a youngster that I didn't want to go to school.

I was not terribly interested in school and my parents had already decided that their first born son would actually go to Harvard that they were going to make the sacrifices necessary to educate him. I on the other hand was happy working on the farm and one day my father said well if you find farm work so agreeable and school so distasteful come work with me tomorrow. And he took me out in the bogs and he worked and worked and worked me we came in absolutely exhausted in the evening and he said to me well and how was that. And I said I like that just fine and he said well I didn't you're going to school tomorrow so his his little psychological game backfired but then force tyranny took over. Tyranny took over and then finally I got into schools with sufficiently engaging school masters so that it became a real a real joy. And I truly loved learning it was assumed in my family that I was going to become a person that I would become a congregational minister.

I thought very seriously about the ministry but at one point it dawned on me that I did not have the temperament to be a minister and as I looked at the the ministers that were in my world I saw none of them as sufficiently engaging to want to be like them. So when I graduated from Harvard in 1755 I was still undecided as to what I would pursue. I went to Worcester for a year and taught school the village in western Massachusetts. Yes sir in Worcester, Massachusetts. You were a school master. I was a school master for a year and it was there that I met some of the leading citizens of the town one of whom was an attorney and I determined then to read law with him. That was the way in which people in my time became lawyers by and large very few of us were educated as Mr. Jefferson might have been at the college of William and Mary by mentors. I read with a lawyer.

Read with a master lawyer as a kind of an apprentice. And I learned the law and I determined after my studies after several years of reading the law to go to a village larger than Worcester. I went back to my native branch and finally into Boston where I practiced law and I had a very successful practice. I was proud of myself because I had no great mentor pushing me ahead as did some many of the young attorneys that I knew. I did it all on the dent of my hard work and determination and I became a well known attorney in Boston. Let me just roll back the celestial clock for one minute here and ask you a speculative question. I think you at a later point in your life, ask Mr. Jefferson if he would agree to live his life over again. If you could live your life over again and you came to that crossroads, agriculture and obscurity or law, revolution, the presidency and painful fame. Which choice would you make? I enjoyed the years after my retirement enormously once I adjusted to them once I accepted my various feelings and made peace with them.

But I think I would still go down that path. I once wrote that public service was a journey over long undistinguished expanses only to reach an occasional beautiful vista. And I think it is those occasional beautiful vistas for which one would again take the same road. And I think you said later that living through a revolution, particularly a legitimate one like ours, a legally based revolution without a lot of social chaos and bloodshed in the streets, was one of the most extraordinary moments in human history and that people like sold and and like urges would have wanted to live in such an age. So yes, sir. And I'm really happy that I made a difference in how this country was formed. I'd like to think that my constitution for the state of Massachusetts was in part a model for the constitution of the United States that was passed and devised and passed in 1787. I think I made a difference in the form of government that Americans have and I think it's a difference based on an understanding of people that was not necessarily widely shared but I think is nonetheless a true reading not only of history but of human nature.

I want to come back in the second portion of this program to your core philosophy of life, of humanity, of society and government. Let me ask one more question to tie up another loose end. You might have been a congregational minister. You come from a Calvinist tradition in New England. And yet I think it's the case that by the end of your life you were something of a unitarian. Well, my church became a unitarian church. I'm buried in a unitarian churchyard, cemetery, but my church was always a congregational church. I think I am not orthodox in any stretch of the imagination. Some might see me as an absolute free thinker like Mr. Jefferson, except I always believed in life after death. Do you believe in Christ crucified?

I believe, as I said to people, my theology is pretty simple. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Do you believe that Jesus rose on the third day bodily to heaven? I have trouble with the creeds of Christendom as have so many people throughout history. I don't feel that that's necessary to live one's life in faith. I was a church-going animal from cradle to grave. I heard sermons about Christ crucified with great regularity, but for me the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount were enough. Does the Trinity befuddle you? Indeed, sir. And I read theology habitually and as a hobby. Do you share Mr. Jefferson's view that if we only would follow the simple precepts of the human ethicist, Jesus, that we would thrive? Well, I think that's what the Sermon on the Mount is. However, I do not share Mr. Jefferson's optimistic view of human beings as perfectable creatures. I think Calvinism would say that man is depraved. I never thought that, but I do believe he is weak and he will inevitably succumb to his own weaknesses as over against all of the virtues of life. I think that the necessity of life is that we should try as hard as we can to be virtuous, but our weaknesses will doubtless affect us.

And you know that view came across in my understanding of what government needed to be with checks and balances. One more question along those lines. What do you take to be the core message of the Sermon on the Mount? The Sermon on the Mount is that we transcend what is with something that is higher and more sublime. That our behavior as it exists, that human beings as they live their lives, can move to another level if they will, but make the sacrifice and have the understanding. Sir, I'd like to return to one more appointment that I think was extraordinarily important in my life. We passed that stage of the discourse too quickly. I was the one who was responsible for appointing John Marshall. I was trying to avoid that subject. I know it's a rankles Mr. Jefferson's spirit that it was a midnight appointment, was it not? It was indeed. I appointed John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and many would agree that that is the most important appointment of my entire life. I just have to ask why that appointment is so significant in American history?

Well, I think from the standpoint of your time, the judiciary is activism in a way that I could have never imagined, but it has turned out to be the truest of the checks and balances on the excesses of the legislative and the executive branches. And John Marshall plays a big role in judicial activism. In fact, his Marbury versus Madison, which had such a disappointing effect on Thomas Jefferson, turns out to have been the basis for much of what follows in American history. In some sense, I think it could be argued that you perpetuated your own presidency by placing a life tenured person of Marshall's stamp in the judicial branch. It's interesting. My presidency has never viewed as a terribly successful one, and yet one would have to argue that the appointment of Marshall did carry on for many years afterward. And people in my time in 2003 and 2004 believe that John Marshall is arguably the greatest Chief Justice, the greatest Justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court. That appalled Jefferson for several reasons, midnight appointment and broad construction and nationalism, and the fact that he was his cousin, and that he felt personally disrespectful to Jefferson, but I think historians disagree with Jefferson's view of Marshall.

And Marshall was enabled diplomat as well. He actually was the one who was successfully able to negotiate the treaty, which resolved the XYZ affair. And we'll come back to the XYZ affair after our break here in a minute, and so we can explain just what that was. So you're a young lawyer. You are rising into certain prominence. You write some articles for newspapers. You're being noticed as one of the promising young man of Massachusetts. I think Jane Austen would say all that you require now is to find a wife. And I found a wonderful wife, sir. I found a life companion of the sort that very few people are blessed to find. We are going to come back after a short break to talk about Abigail Smith, later Abigail Adams, the first lady to the second president of the United States. Some people believe the most extraordinary woman of her time. Some people believe the greatest of all of the first ladies with the possible exception of Eleanor Roosevelt. We'll be back in a minute. I'm Clay Jenkinson. Stay tuned.

We'll be back in a minute. Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson Hour. I'm your host, Clay Jenkinson. Usually I'm on the other side of the studio on the 22nd floor of the New Enlightenment Radio Network

Tower, but today I have the enormous pleasure of interviewing one of the greatest men in American history, President John Adams, the second president of the United States, and the first portion of this program we talked about his upbringing, his role in the American Revolution, the choices that he made about profession. We touched a little bit about some of the key influences he had on American history, but we stopped just before the break with the thought that Abigail Smith really was the greatest choice of all the choices that you made in the course of your life. Tell us how you met Abigail Adams and how you came to marry her. As a young attorney I rode the circuit as do all young attorneys or did in my time and on my travels I was I was able to meet her. My father was a was a congregational deacon I was I was certainly within the womb of congregationalism and Abigail's father the Reverend Smith was the congregational minister in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and I became a fixture in the home I loved the

Smith girls they were lively well educated as you know in my time women were not educated outside of the home that many of them were content with with what were called house arts they would they would sow and do calligraphy well Abigail was different I I believe she'd read every book and her father's library and she was a strong willed woman with a with an excellent mind and I I was it sounds frightening to me I was attracted to her I I thought she was a wonderful woman we married before she was 20 years old and we remained married for for 54 years until she died and I think history will record her as you've already suggested as a as a woman who was of extraordinary main now mr. Jefferson of Virginia said he liked his women to have a softness of disposition that doesn't sound like your Abigail no but Abigail did what I don't know of any other woman doing she actually chided mr. Jefferson for his for his hiring of James calendar to to smear my character and

when when the stories emerged about Sally Hemings she later on wrote that the serpent that you nurtured turned and bitch you we digress her yeah now Abigail you were married to Abigail for a long time 54 years and you buried her she died while you were still an elderly man and I took great consolation in the fact that I would see her again someday could I be a unitarian of the sort who believed only in that which was here never never because I would I would never have the opportunity to spend eternity with my dear Abigail now just quickly tell us about your children I had four children four children Abigail naby naby my my daughter was the oldest John died of breast cancer I believe died of breast cancer in my home it was a it was a terrible thing just shortly not too long after I'd retired from the presidency John Quincy who until George Bush in my time in your

time was the only father son presidential combination an extraordinary young man a young man who should have written an autobiography because he saw things that the rest of us could only imagine he was he was in Moscow Russia when Napoleon entered he saw things that I just would have given anything to have seen a great diplomat possibly the most gifted secretary of state in American history and the president of the United States John Quincy Adams and a man who provided a model for service that I think it's not has not succeeded him after being president of the United States he served for 30 years in the house of the rep and the house of representatives what president among you would do something like that and yet both of you one term presidents one term presidents well he he uh like me I think tried to do what was right I wrote George Washington when I was president pro tem when I was about to be the president succeeding him and said if my administration

is honorable I will be happy and I think that was true for my son and he did honorable things that did not necessarily endear him to the populace I think I did the same thing I think not going to war with France is what cost me a second term as president of the United States and yet I once said if I could have an epitaph only this it would be that I kept the United States out of war with France in the year 1800 and you had two other children Thomas and Charles Thomas and Charles both both sorry cases to some degree one one actually committed suicide the other was was an alcoholic I think as as any parent knows one one sends one's children off with the highest of hopes one gives them every advantage that one can possibly give them and yet some of them thrive and some of them don't I think it comes down to this whole notion that I've already expressed a weakness I think

weakness will keep us from realizing our fullest potential about the time you left the presidency in the spring of 181 your son Charles died of complications from being acutely alcoholic and my sense is that that broke your heart it did indeed sir it did break my heart and then losing Navi broke my heart but the fact that Thomas was never able to to realize his potential was something else that broke my heart but the one child who was of course a stellar success in life was John Quincy Adams and yet you and Abigail pushed him very very hard indeed today in my time it might be considered abusive I think Abigail once wrote to him and said with the advantages of birth and education that you have had and the illustrious opportunities for travel in Europe that you have seen if you do not do something very remarkable with your life it would have been better that you had died in infancy we don't talk that way anymore no no I I think Mr. Jefferson wrote his daughter and said if you will learn a living in the original in the original Greek I will love you which

he didn't say it'd be better if you were dead but but you get my point yes the hard harsh parenting especially in Crabby New England with those thin soils and the Calvinist background but but Jefferson was a tyrant at home too I think it was a model of parenting that was very very much the the norm for the time let's go back to Abigail Adams you know there's a famous incident when you were at the Continental Congress and it was clear that you were going to push the country into into revolution and she she brought you up short with a letter from Massachusetts tell us about that is that the letter in which she says remember the ladies yes yes people in your time uh look to that letter or at least that one sentence as an indication that Abigail was something of a proto-feminist I think you have the letter before you and if you read it perhaps your listeners will get a different sense of what it is she was saying this may I refresh your memory sir this is from Abigail who was in Massachusetts to you who are in Philadelphia and the letter is dated March 31st 1776 since a long letter but I'll just cut right to the the the essence of it I

she says I long to hear that you have declared an independency in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands remember all men would be tyrants if they could and she says by way of threat if particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation a strong word sir indeed indeed a strong woman and I think what she was saying by remember the ladies was not grant us the franchise allow us to vote what she was saying was grant us some rights vis-a-vis our husbands at the time in which I lived a woman had no rights she could be tossed out on her ear essentially she could be beaten insensible and no there was no redress

and I think what Abigail was hoping for was that in our code of laws that was devised women would have rights under the law just as mended and let me ask the obvious question did you and Franklin and Jefferson and Washington and Patrick Henry and Madison and Monroe and George Mason and John Marshall in fact remember the ladies in a word no I wrote the following to Abigail and this gives you a sense I think of our relationship the good nature that existed between us you're about to quote from your actual response I'm about to quote from my actual response to Abigail and her suggestion that we remember the ladies as to your extraordinary code of laws I cannot but laugh we have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere that children and apprentices were disobedient that schools and colleges were grown turbulent that Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insulin to their masters but your letter was the first

intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful in all the rest were growing discontented depend upon it we know better than to repeal our masculine systems we we only have the name of masters we only have the name of masters and rather than give this up which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petty coat I hope general Washington and all our heroes would fight may I just respond to that I mean are you nuts you're laughing at your wife's earnest requirement that you attend to female rights and and dignities in the revolution and saying well a new tribe more numerous than all the rest is saucy wenches coming forward to what are you doing here I think Abigail understood well what I was and I was saying by way of humorous illusion that only one battle for independence at a time and this was the time to battle the British not to tear our

masculine system asunder you you are in favor of the continuation of a patriarchal system I think I knew what we could do at that point in time and what we couldn't and I truly believe that if we had proposed something like women's suffrage we would have had a hard time raising an army but I know I want to scold you unnecessarily there's clearly a playfulness on both sides of this your relationship was noted for its playfulness and the teasing and the flirtatiousness of your letters sometimes quite erotic letters exchange between you and your wife Abigail you were separated for long periods in your life so we don't want to make this too serious on the other hand Mary Walston craft in England was writing the vindication of the rights of woman at this time saying why not extend the the American and the French revolutions to women women are human beings women deserve the same equality and dignities if we're going to talk about the rights of humanity why would we keep women subordinated in their historic place I mean there has to be some answer to that isn't there well I'm sure there is and just to you know extend your argument

further why not why not grant to slaves freedom and liberty well indeed why not why not because we couldn't do it at that point in time we knew that it was perhaps possible to separate ourselves from England and to formal republic which would be hopefully the kind of place that eventually would write all wrongs I'm not sure that in my time we saw patriarchy as something totally wrong and I'm not sure that Mary Walston craft ever had a very wide audience in her own time that anyone really really agreed with her that when Aaron Burr thought she was terrific by the way mr. Jefferson's vice president yes this is one of your friends Colonel Burr Colonel Burr was no friend to me sir you hated him I think almost as much as you hated Hamilton I think Hamilton and Burr were ideally suited to duel with one another you speak ingest you can't be you can't be in favor of duly I never was called to a court of honors sir I you were never challenged never challenged that would have been quite a spectator

New Englanders look upon that sort of thing as as trivial and beneath beneath content with the stuff of Virginia Cavaliers indeed sir when I'll stick with this for the moment would you if you could have done it would you have proposed the abolition of slavery in your time we knew that that was not possible but if you could have done it I think I was one of the first to understand that New England with its strong antagonism toward England needed to gain favor with Virginia and the leaders of the Virginia delegation and that the two of us these two groups would be able to persuade therefore the central Atlantic people and the people living further south to to follow us into the quest had we discussed the abolition of slavery no such union whatever have been possible all right one revolution at a time and you know the need for for a national consensus meant that it was politically inexperient to address the question of slavery we understand this that the politics is the art of the possible and that there could have been no union

if slavery had been the central issue and to be perfectly honest with you sir that was not really on anyone's mind at that point in time it was a desire on the part of of us who were essentially yeoman who were free free citizens we thought within within the British Empire it was a desire for us to achieve the rights that were being denied us by the crown and yet let me ask you a very careful and candid question when you heard these Virginia Cavaliers Jefferson chief among them Patrick Henry George Mason general Washington James Madison James Monroe talking about the inalienable rights of humanity and you knew that every one of them owned scores sometimes hundreds of human beings and bought and sold them and whipped them and sometimes bred them for profit did it strike you as gross hypocrisy yes I think if I had allowed myself to think along those lines I would have to see it that way indeed when mr. Jefferson and I would exchange letters talking about what we were doing on our farms I was putting my hands in the soil and mr. Jefferson

was directing others to put their hands in the soil I don't think that was ever lost to me I was always terribly terribly opposed to slavery I thought it was an institution that that served no one but let me ask again I mean and I'm trying I'm really trying to be careful here because these are issues that are easily over politicized but when you thought of Jefferson this extraordinary remarkable human being one of the greatest dreamers in human history and yet you knew that he was a slave holder and there were all these suspicions about Sally Hemings and so on did that actually make you lose respect for him I wrote him once and I I truly meant what I said in this letter I said this is something that I cannot conceive slavery is not something that I am able to understand from my perspective I leave it to you people who live in the midst of it but I did have a vision in my head I wrote in this letter of slaves revolting against their masters someday of there being terrible

terrible bloodshed because this institution was clearly against as Thomas Jefferson might say all natural law no just one one final question about that you were a principled abolitionist but a very careful one your son really became one of the great creatures in the history of the abolitionist movement I was very proud of John Quincy in fact he was one of the people who led the defense against the the Negroes who had revolted on the slave ship Amistad he was one of the people who at trial was able to acquit them I was very very proud of him he was a principled abolitionist yes sir but you're just to wrap this up your concern for the rights of Negroes in some sense was closer to the bone than your concern for the rights of women when I went to Philadelphia I didn't know much about Negro slavery I had lived all of my life in a patriarchy indeed the Bible was patriarchal I I was so much a part of a world in which in which men were the apparent rulers

that that was an accepted worldview on my part but yet as I said in my as I suggested in my letter to Abigail I knew that men are are the rulers in name only and that all good relationships between men and wife I think would be a lot like my relationship with Abigail in which her her freedom to provide input and to to direct me was unlimited and in fact it was Abigail who caused us to prosper financially I was gone for many many many years and it was her management of our farm that really placed us in a in a wonderful financial position I certainly did not think women the lesser of human creatures no and I think it's arguable that you had one of the few truly equal partnerships marriage partnerships of your of your time but let me just quickly say and ask are you arguing that even though women don't have constitutional power bases that they have a great deal of power because they have influence as women on their men they have influence on their men

they have influence on their children who they raise and supervise their education would it surprise you that in our time women vote whole public office whole judgeships are professors of science and might one day be the president of the United States and and still complaining that they are not being treated equally or seriously what it's a prize you not terribly not terribly I think that would be the way of things that once slavery was was abolished that would be the next that would be the next injustice that would loom ahead that the the very women who would participate in the abolitionist movement would themselves later on demand the franchise thank you very much John Adams we appreciate your candidness on this I think you know that you will not have a great number of sympathizers in our time for your view of that famous letter we'll be back with our scholar William Crystal in just a minute stay tuned you're listening to the Thomas Jefferson Hour I'm Clay Jenkinson

welcome back everyone to the Thomas Jefferson Hour I'm your host Clay Jenkinson normally I'm the

voice of Thomas Jefferson today I've had the pleasure of talking with the second president of the United States John Adams and seated across from me now on the 22nd floor of the new enlightenment radio network tower is my friend William Crystal a Congregational Minister a historian of the history of ideas bill congratulations a very very fine first John Adams I survived being thrilled but from a Jefferson perspective no no I kept I tried to keep my own politics and my own love of Jefferson out of it although there were a couple of moments there was barely able to get the name of John Marshall into this let's let's start at the beginning here you have always been kind of fascinated by the Adams family because they come from your part of the world New England and because they were principled abolitionists and you like I think you admire that independence of character of John Adams where are you with your research what are you learning about this man what's what's happening in your own development as you take on this character

well I think I think Adams is a terribly misunderstood person I mean I I assume we have a soundbite's worth of information about him and that soundbite is it's pretty negative I don't think it really conveys a sense that he was one of Joseph Alice's founding brothers that he was one of those people who truly made a difference in the beginning of this country and are you finding Adams to be more complex less complex more fun less fun I mean where you came in with with some knowledge but not a great deal here you are now immersing yourself in this man I think Adams has been his own worst enemy historically he said too much as I quoted him him saying you know when a person's hurt he or she talks about his or her wounds and Adams was wounded frequently and he speaks often I think from the standpoint of of being hurt or being forgotten or being neglected and so there there are a lot of a lot of things that can be quoted about John Adams that do not really

serve him very well I think from the standpoint of it and historical record and yet I do think he made you know he made some extraordinary contributions to the history of this country I think that proposing Washington as the commander in chief and that one seemed to come out of nowhere there were other people looking at George Washington John Marshall Thomas Jefferson their roles in the in the Declaration of Independence and Marshalles in the judiciary and how it unfolded extraordinary extraordinary appointments and I think keeping the United States out of war with France out of out of a war with Napoleon's France was a was a really notable achievement it was achievement of diplomacy you know we barely touched on Adams presidency from 1796 to 1800 one term president he had been the vice president to George Washington he was bitterly disappointed when the people retired him I don't know that the people retired him he was a victim of political intrigue within his own party and intrigue within the the Republican party as well we'll do of course

programs a number of them on the the Adams presidency we'll also talk about the famous correspondence between John and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson beginning in 1812 the may argue with the most famous correspondence in American history we haven't begun to look at Adams in Europe where he played a very important role diplomatically after the revolution and during that period when the United States was gaining credit financial credit and reputation in the in the world's arena I must say if ever there was a man who was not suited by temperament to be a diplomat it was John Adams though it would seem to me he could have been of a far greater value had he stayed at home and and been an administrator he was an extraordinarily gifted administrator and a constitution writer among other things yes sir he took his son John Quincy Adams with him I think he was 12 wasn't he when he first went to Europe who who had the advantage of educational opportunities that no other American child did I mean it was it was extraordinary and and he went to Russia as a

as a secretary to someone else when he was a teenager it's suited him to be the minister to to Russia later on and as I said when Napoleon's troops entered enter Moscow there he was watching one of the great moments of modern warfare I marvel I think John Quincy was an extraordinary human being I'm far more fascinated by him if I could admit than by his his father well do this for a couple of years and then you can go and take on John Quincy Adams perhaps your son John can take on John Quincy Bill let me read you a passage from Adams himself this is my you know he wrote so many wonderful things he's quotable in a way that Jefferson isn't Jefferson is quotable because he's noble Adams is quotable because he's funny this is what he said of his own political career he likened it to quote an animal I have seen take hold of the end of a cord with his teeth and be drawn slowly up by pulleys through a storm of squills crackers and rockets flashing and blazing around him at every moment and though quote the scorching flames made him

grown and mourn and roar he would not let go of the rope so here's this picture of a circus with a pig or a dog gripping a rope in its mouth with firecrackers and Roman candles being shot at it from every direction it's being nearly electrocuted and burned up by gunpowder and it won't let go I think Adams truly believed that people would get on the wrong path and that it was his job that the heavens had appointed him to try to get him back on the right path and that was the role he played it certainly was not a role designed to gain him popularity and I think it was it was he who said prudence is a rascally virtue what does that mean I think he's saying that he was not a prudent man that he was he was a man who nonetheless tried to do what he thought was right and you know we didn't have an opportunity to mention his defense of the of the British officer and soldiers who had a Boston massacre been tried in the Boston Boston massacre you think that would be political suicide for a young up and coming man and yet he did it because he believed

in the rule of law and he believed that they were entitled to the very best defense they could possibly have so we'll come to this in another program but just quickly so people understand he as a young lawyer defended the British redcoats in a rifle assault on a mob in Boston and you would have thought that a young revolutionary would side with the mob but no Adams said the rule of law is the rule of law and these people deserve a proper defense that's our system and I'm going to give it to him and and people were predicting that would be the end of his career now Abigail you know we we spent some time talking about this first of all characterized as a scholar and in humanities scholar how you see the Abigail John relationship I've suggested that they may be the first modern political couple and by that I mean this may have been one of the first relationships where the wife was giving to the husband advices to how he should run the government I don't know that Martha Washington was doing that for George perhaps she was I don't know but I do think that

in Abigail's case she felt that she was not only entitled but that she owed it to her husband to to offer him whatever whatever insights she felt that she could that might be of use to him and she was certainly one of his political allies no question about it extremely well read one of the great letter writers in American history deeply in love with her husband and fiercely loyal I mean when Jefferson even scratched the possibility that Adams had done him wrong Abigail responded with fury in 184 I think that had to have been a moment of great sadness for for both Abigail and John because their friendship with Jefferson had had gone through you know such difficult experiences and that they had to weathered so much together I think it had to have been really heart wrenching for them to feel that that was lost well there is passion in this relationship I mean if you there are more than 1100 letters extant between them I read these and I occasionally find streaks of of eroticism that I would not have expected in an 18th century document

scholars have noted that one suggests that their their degree of openness was almost unheard of for this point in time and I I think perhaps it may be a positive take on the New England tradition that you know sort of warts and all I think their relationship was awfully honest that it could stand even talking about what one might want from the other and so interestingly you know Jefferson destroyed the letters between himself and his wife Martha Adams made no attempt to destroy that correspondence and we are the richer for it I think the Adams were willing to let the record stand they had no desire to to prune it or to shape it as I think Mr. Jefferson clearly did now we've got the famous letter remember the ladies march 31st 1776 and I have to say John Adams response is pretty pitiful you you put up a noble defense as Adams but you it's it's from our point of view it seems a little weak from our standpoint it seems weak that women would not be

considered equal to men in every respect and that a suggestion such as the one Abigail is making would not be jumped upon by every rational human being aha Eureka of course but remember this was not the time to to free the slaves nor was it the time to emancipate women as they said as Mr. Adams I don't think we could have raised an army had men thought they were fighting for the emancipation of their wives but still I'm thinking about this in purely personal terms Abigail takes a big risk and writes a letter to her husband saying yeah I understand there's going to be this big revolutionary moment and I ask you to you know really take seriously the possibility of the rights and dignities of women and what's his first sentence she cannot but laugh he says she's not taking a big risk why not I think she knows precisely how he's going to respond but she's planting the suggestion nonetheless you wouldn't have I would have hoped that he would have said like Madison what an extraordinary suggestion this is maybe the smartest thing ever proposed in the history of

humanity but we who live in a lesser world must attend to the practicable well perhaps when one is married to a woman a foot taller one has to approach it that way I don't know please that's such a that's a lame answer all right well you're saying that there is a historical context that makes this less appalling to modern sensibilities than it seems there are those among scholars who argue that what Abigail was really asking for was that women be granted more more of a standing under law that this is certainly not an attempt to emancipate women now constitutionally does that happen in the continental congress now of course it doesn't does it happen in the United States constitution not particularly it remains for you know another century plus to see the emancipation of women bill what are you reading tell us some of the books that our home audiences might want to consult on John Adams there's so many wonderful books about John Adams the biography by John Firling very nice Joseph Ellis's passionate sage page passionate sage a wonderful title passionate

sage right here on the 22nd floor of the of the new enlightenment radio network building I have a small collection of Adams looks including one of your favorite authors page Smith page Smith John Adams is an interesting book and I the more I learned about John Adams the more I appreciate what Dr. Smith said to you after you had performed page Smith yeah after you had performed as Thomas Jefferson he walked up to you and what did he say well the page Smith is an eminent historian he wrote a ton of very fine books on the the founding generation and he came up to me after hearing me do Jefferson and say that was a very fine performance as Thomas Jefferson and now I know why I dislike him so much and I think the more I learned about John Adams the more difficult it is to brook Thomas Jefferson well hang on but now one other book that people should hear about we've mentioned it many times before but the Jefferson Adams letters edited by Leicester Kappen C-A-P-P-O and I understand it's out of print at the moment but it's available in libraries and

you can go to ab.com abbooks.com which is a great use books searching site on the internet and the Adams Jefferson letters the complete correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams edited by Leicester Kappen that's an indispensable book there's the book of Abigail and John which is a set of their letters somewhat edited with introductions I forgot from the editor Joseph Ellis is the passionate sage which is a great sort of after the presidency analysis of Adams rehabilitation page Smith's two volumes on Adams furlings one volume and of course David McCullough's biography of John Adams I really am grateful to Mr. McCullough because I think he more than anyone else has really released John Adams from this sort of buffoon image that has held him captive and and I think in his book McCullough has attempted to take him perfectly seriously what in so far in your research what perplexes you most what do you really want to still try to figure out about citizen Adams I'm not sure I don't think he's all that hard to figure

out I think if your background is New England Congregationalism if you've grown up in a secularized kind of Puritanism as I have he's really pretty easy to understand now I think to make that palatable to 21st century Americans is a different story I think there have been Adamsites in American history I think Reinhold Niebuhr was one I think his his theology really suited John Adams and and it was really translated into terms of of a political philosophy just in a nutshell we're almost out of time but we we promise to talk a little bit about Adams view of human nature sum it up in a sentence sentence or two I think for Adams man is incapable of perfection his weakness will always lead him astray and that the systems of government that human beings develop have to take that into consideration so rather than being a pessimist some might say he was a realist I think Adams was a realist I think he's accused of being a pessimist but I think he's a

realist I think given centuries of human history I think his was a better reading than Thomas Jefferson's now does it sound so good in our ears no of course it doesn't we must have looked on Jefferson's utopianism all that the rights of man and those golden sentences he must have just thought it's all fluff it's all who he well and he had to listen to these sentences coming from the lips of somebody that he really knew I mean he knew Jefferson's relationship to slavery and he knew what a political intriguer Thomas Jefferson really was could be not always was could be frequently was was certainly against Adams I think well for good reason he was ruining the country from goodness sakes you mean by not going to war with France he was ruining the country we'll talk about this the critical period where the friendship broke down and Adams had to go it alone not only alone with respect to Jefferson his vice president but his own party was intriguing to destroy him politically Hamilton went out of his way to destroy John Adams for no adequate purpose thank you very much Clay it's good to get this opportunity to speak as John Adams thank you Bill

I hope we will have Madera here next time take care music for the Thomas Jefferson hour was provided by Stephen Swinford of Reno Nevada you can visit mr. Jefferson's home page on the worldwide web at www.th hyphen Jefferson dot org again our website is www.th hyphen Jefferson dot org to donate nine dollars and we see the copy of today's program on CD or to ask mr. Jefferson a question please call one eight eight eight four five eight eighteen oh three again our number is one eight eight eight four five eight eighteen oh three Thomas Jefferson hours produced by high planes public radio and new enlightenment radio network a nonprofit organization dedicated to the search for truth in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson thank you for listening and we hope you join us again next week for another entertaining historically accurate and thought-provoking commentary through the eyes of Thomas Jefferson