Episode 864: Founding Fathers – John Adams

The lives of these men are essential to understanding the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played key roles in the securing of American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
On this episode of This World. The lives of these
men are essential to understand the American form of government
and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played
key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and
in the creation of the government of the United States
of America. And now the life of John Adams, we're

(00:33):
going to talk about probably the most misunderstood of the
Founding Fathers, John Adams. Adams is a little bit of
an odd duck, partly because he's from New England, which
at that time was just very different from either New
York or Virginia. Partly because Adams himself was really really smart,

(00:54):
but he was very argumentative and he was very blunt.
He also had enormous courage. Adams had really developed over
time a view of British as a tyranny. He didn't
arrive at it immediately. He was also, of all of
the Founding Fathers, probably the one who believed the most

(01:16):
deeply in the rule of law, and in fact, one
of the most creative and courageous parts of his life
was his willingness to defend the British soldiers who were
charged with murder during the Boston Massacre. It was very
unpopular in Boston because there was sort of a lynch
mob desire to just you know, hang them, and Adams said, no,
I mean, this whole thing is about the rule of law.

(01:37):
He ultimately wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, which served as a
model for the US Constitution, and he worked very, very
hard to knit together the country. He understood that Virginia,
as the biggest colony and then biggest state in population
and wealth, had to be at the center. But at
the same time he also realized that bringing all of

(01:58):
New England and really really mattered. And it's important to
remember that in this period, the idea of America is
a really sort of vague idea to most people. Most
people think themselves in terms of their colony, or later
on in terms of their state. On Adam's case, he
was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. So it's again

(02:19):
hard for us to look back and realize, but his
early life, starting in seventeen thirty five, he was born,
you know, he was English. He thought himself purely as
a colonist. He didn't think it was a nationalist. He
was educated at Harvard, the first university created the United States,
and gradually came to believe that the British were behaving
in the manner of a dictatorship. And the real fight

(02:41):
here is overpower. It's not over money. The stamp tax
and other kinds of things are points they fight over,
but what they're really fighting over is the core question,
can the British Parliament sitting in London pass laws that
affect directly people in the colonies. The colonies had become
increasingly independent and they were increasingly wealthy. By seventeen ninety

(03:06):
they would have about three million people where Britain had
about five million, so they were really pretty big already,
and of course, given their geographic size, they were rapidly
going to pass Britain in size and ultimately in power.
So they're looking around thinking, wait a second, why is
this parliament sitting in London telling me what to do?
And why are they taking money out of my pocket?

(03:29):
And why are they rigging the trade laws to favor
the British and to hurt the Americans. So all these
things began to build a momentum of criticism in a
place like Boston, which had a very very busy port
and which had a trade which included the West Indies.
The fact is that they were subject to British regulation

(03:50):
in ways that very much disadvantaged the Boston sailors and
advantaged the British sailors. And so there was a resentment
both about regulations that was resemblent about Texes. But most
of all there was resembment about power, but where the
center of power ought to be. Adams is one of
those who comes to believe that in the end the

(04:11):
colonies have to become independent, and they recognize that to
become independent they need all the colonies on the same side.
Massachusetts by itself isn't big enough, isn't strong enough to
take on the British. So I think it's important to
recognize that Adams and his cousin Samuel Adams, who is
more radical than John Adams, more of a populist, rabel rouser,

(04:35):
the kind of guy who would dress up like an
Indian and pro tea in the harbor, very very different.
John Adams is a scholar, he's an intellectual. He's a
man who operates in a law court. He doesn't operate
out in the street for arousing people. The other thing,
by the way, is that Adams's wife Abigail Adams is
the most famous, certainly the most literate, of the founding mothers,

(04:59):
and her letters to John are just amazing, and it's
very clear that she is sort of the archetype of
a modern woman. She operates independently. He is gone for
a long time, She's running the family farm. She is
sending him advice on everything. She's very well educated. She's
just such a remarkable woman. Adams himself, born in Massachusetts

(05:21):
October thirtieth, seventeen thirty five, was the oldest son to
John Adams Senior and Susannah Boylston. His father was a
deacon in the Congregational Church and earned a living as
both a farmer and shoemaker in Braintree, Massachusetts. John wanted
to become a farmer, but his father said no, he
had to get an education and hoped he'd become a minister,
which in that period was a very very prestigious position.

(05:45):
But Adams at fifteen, and it's useful to remember, by
the way, that back then people went to college at
a much younger age. They also went to work at
a much younger age. In Adam's case, at fifteen. He's
off to college now from Braintree to Cambridge's own twelve miles,
but it's a very big twelve miles from rural farming
to the center of learning in America. At that time,

(06:07):
Adams was so anxiety written he almost went home, and
his diary he wrote quote, I at first resolved to
return home, but foreseeing the grief of my father and
apprehending he would not only be offended with me, but
my master, to whom I sincerely loved, I aroused myself
and collected resolution enough to proceed. Also gives you sort

(06:29):
of a flavor. This guy's a little bit pompous. He
thinks about himself, he thinks about life. He is perfectly
at home. Once he gets used to Harvard, he excels academically,
graduates in seventeen fifty five at the age of twenty.
But he doesn't want to be a clergyman, so he
decides instead to teach in a Latin school term tuition
fees to study the law. Now, back then, you usually

(06:52):
studied the law by working with a lawyer. When they
talked about reading the law, that's what they literally meant.
You were in a law office and you were reading
all these law books. You were learning about the process
and Adams becomes a lawyer. Now, he's not a very
good lawyer. He only had one client in his first year,
didn't win his first case until three years after he
opened his practice. And part of it is being a

(07:15):
lawyer in a small town requires a pleasing personality. Well,
Adams wasn't very big on pleasing anybody, including himself. These
represented sort of that curmudgeonly New England kind of religiosity
and as long as God was happy with him, what
does he care about the rest of us. But he
ins to had drawn into the politics of the time.

(07:35):
He spoke very much against the Stamp Act of seventeen
sixty five, which was the first effort by Parliament to
get money out of the Americans. I mean, here's what
had happened with the help of the Americans, the British
one what they called the Seven Years War, what we
called the French Indian War. Now, the upside and downside
of that was they drove the French out of Canada.

(07:57):
It was an upside obviously because in Britain was dumb
it in all of North America. It was a downside
because it meant the Americans no longer looked to Great
Britain to protect him because there was no overt threat
from France, and so the Americans kind of relaxed and thought,
you know, everything's peaceful, Why are you bothering us. The British, however,
had run up a huge debt and they were trying

(08:18):
to figure out a way to pay off their debt,
and they're thinking was, wait a second. You know, we
saved you from the French and the Indians. You owe us.
And the Americans are going, no, we don't. We volunteered,
we fought in the war. It's not our fault. You
guys are stupid, and it took longer than it should
have because of you. And the result was that the
Americans were unhappy to pay it and the British were

(08:40):
unhappy not to get paid. Well, that's sort of like
a bad marriage. By seventeen sixty five, Adams is writing
an anonymous essay in the Boston Dezette entitled A Dissertation
on Cannon and Feudal Law. And this is what he wrote.
It seems very manifest from the Stamp Act itself that
a design is formed top us in a great measure

(09:01):
of the means of knowledge by loading the press, the colleges,
and even an almanac in a newspaper with restraints and duties,
and to introduce the inequalities and dependencies of the feudal
system by taking from the poorer sort of people all
their little subsistence and conferring on a set of stamp officers, distributors,
and their deputies. This is, by the way, the attitude

(09:24):
Americans will take to the Internal Revenue Service, and the
general attitude of Americans have had ever since, which is
why has the government bothered me? I made the money.
I want to keep the money. Why are you putting
your hand in my pocket? Now? Adams went on to
write the brain Tree Instructions, which were in opposition to
the Stamp Act. He presented it on September twenty fourth,
seventeen sixty five, at the brain Tree Town Meeting, which

(09:47):
unanimously approved it. And this is a key thing, he says,
I notice this is about power. The tax itself is
just what they're fighting over. But the underlying core question
is where does power lie? This is what Adams wrote.
This is seventeen sixty five, now more than a decade
before we would declare independence quote, and we have always

(10:07):
understood it to be a grand and fundamental principle of
the British Constitution that no freeman should be subjected to
any tax to which he has not given his own consent,
in person or by proxy. The paper was published in
Draper's papers and in newspapers across Massachusetts. More than forty
towns endorsed and adopted it. Then, in October seventeen sixty five,

(10:30):
representatives from Massachusetts and eight other colonies met in New
York for what was called the Stamp Act Congress. Using
Adam's brain tree instructions and other resolutions across the colonies,
Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson drafted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances,
which was sent to George the Third. Now this again
is eleven years before we will declare our independence. In in

(10:52):
December eighteenth, seventeen sixty five diary entry, Adams called the
Stamp Act quote an enormous engine fabricated by the British
Parliament for battering down all the rights and liberties of America.
Notice again, this is not about money. It is I
want to repeat this, an enormous engine for battering down

(11:12):
all the rights and liberties of America. This is an
attitude about our rights and liberties which continues up to today.
It's why the Second Amendment fight is so deep. It's
why the whole fight over the rule of law is
so deep. It's why the intrusion of government spying on
us aroused of such rage. The fact is Americans have
now for three hundred years, had this deep sense that

(11:34):
we are a free people and we deeply distrust any government.
The British passage of the towns in Acts in seventeen
sixty seven led to mob violence throughout the comments. On
March fifth, seventeen seventy, a group of British soldiers were
struck with snowballs, ice and stones. In the chaos, they
opened fire and shot five civilians. A few days later,

(11:56):
Adams received a note from Captain Preston, who was in
jail and on trial for murder of several Boston citizens
during the massacre. Preston asked Adams if he would defend
him in court since no one else would agree to him.
He says, not let me go to Adams because he's
the best lawyer around. He's let me go to Adams
because he's the only lawyer. Dumb enough to defend the British. Adams,

(12:16):
believing in the rule of law and the right to trial,
agreed to defend not only Captain Preston, but the eight
other British soldiers charged with murder. Now think about this.
You're the guy who's not a very successful lawyer anyway,
but he's a great political writer. He's already having an
impact all the way across America with his writing. And now,
even though he's a patriot, even though he's been very,

(12:38):
very opposed to what the British are doing, he does
something which confuses the average person, he agrees that he
will defend these soldiers. During the week long trial, Adams
argued that it was impossible to prove that Captain Preston
had ordered his soldiers to fire. He brought in over
twenty two witnesses. Adams during the trial said quote, facts

(13:03):
are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations,
or our dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the
state of facts and evidence. It's a very powerful moment
because in the rule of law, the jury's job is
to determine the facts, not to determine the emotions. Adams

(13:23):
later around to say, quote, it is more important that
innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished.
For guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world
that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself
has brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die,
then the citizen will say whether I do good or
whether I do evil as immaterial, for innocence itself is

(13:45):
no protection close quote. There's seldom bit of better explanation
of why the rule of law matters. It is the
law which protects us from ourselves. It is the law
which protects us from the mob. It is the law
which protects us from a sudden wave of emotion. During
the trial of the a British soldiers, Adams argued that
they acted in self defense. Adams argued that since it

(14:08):
was unclear as to which soldier fired, quote, it's of
more importance to community that innocence should be protected than
it is that guilt should be punished. The jury acquitted
six of the eight soldiers, while two who fired directly
into the crowd were convicted of manslaughter. This is not
an outcome anyone could have predicted at the beginning. What

(14:29):
Adams took on the trial on the third anniversary of
the Boston massacre March fifth, seventeen seventy three. Adams wrote
in his diary, quote, judgment of death against those soldiers
would have been as foul as stain upon this country
as the execution of the Quakers or witches. This, however,
is no reason why the town should not call the
action of that neither massacre, nor is it any argument

(14:52):
in favor of the governor or a minister. Now notice
his reference back to executing quakers and witches. Remembered that
Massachusetts had been the scene of the Salem Witchcraft trials,
a period of people allowing emotions to run amok, to
create threats that did not really exist, to prosecute people
who clearly, in retrospect were innocent. There was a deep

(15:15):
feeling that controlling passion and doing what the law required
in a calm and reasonable way was essential to avoid
the kind of injustice that the sale of witchcraft trials
had led to. Adams himself, hardly a shrinking Violet, later

(15:49):
called his defending of the British soldiers quote one of
the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my
whole life and one of the best pieces of service
I ever rendered my country. As you can tell, Adams
is not a man of modesty or what we might
have called somebody who was hiding his talents. He was,

(16:09):
in fact quite cheerful about telling you how great he was.
He lost about half of his Boston law practice by
defending the British soldiers, but I think he looked back
and thought that was exactly right. Now. This did not
mean he was pro British, and then he was pro
the rule of law. And you can tell that because
shortly after this period he ends up in April seventeen

(16:32):
seventy six writing Thoughts on Government in response to a
resolution of the North Carolina Provincial Congress. In it, he
outlined why he believed three branches of government was necessary. Quote.
Representation of the people in one assembly being obtained. A
question arises whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive,

(16:53):
and judicial shall be left in this body. I think
a people cannot be long free, nor ever have whose
government is in one assembly. Close quote. It's important remember
that the founding fathers were very skeptical of the rule
of the mob. They thought that the lesson of Athens
had been that when you have a pure democracy, that

(17:15):
passion influences it, that no one is safe, and then
the moment of passion, anyone can be killed, or anyone
can have their property taken away. And as a result,
there had been a constant effort to try to find
a structure to think themselves sort of as architects of
self government. And they had taken a great deal from
Montesquieu the French. Theatician's Spirit of the Laws and the

(17:37):
Spirit of the Laws Monusque outlines the idea of dividing
power into three separate agencies, an agency for the judicial,
an agency for the executive, and an agency for legislation,
with the thought that by dividing power into three, they
will balance each other and it will be much harder
to threaten the freedom of people, because there will be

(17:58):
no way to gather all that pass from all three
at the same time. Now, Adams, taking that model, became
the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution in seventeen eighty,
which is four years after the declation independence, but right
in the middle of the Revolutionary War. The Massachusetts Constitution
included many of the themes of the US Constitution. It says,

(18:21):
partly drawn from the Declaration of Independence, quote, all men
are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential,
and unalienable rights, among which we reckoned the right of
enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, that of acquiring, possessing,
and protecting property, and find that of seeking and obtaining
their safety and happiness. Every subject has a right to

(18:45):
be secure from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person,
his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. The people
have a right to keep and bear arms for the
common defense. Original purpose of the Second Amendment, growing straight
out of this line in the Massachusetts Constitution, is simple.
The people have a right to keep and to bear

(19:07):
arms for the common defense. And what did that mean?
It meant both defense against foreigners and defense against their
own government. And they got to this because in seventeen
seventy five, in April, when the British army marched to
Concord and Lexington to seize the American weapons, if they

(19:29):
had not had a militia, if they had not been
prepared to fight, if they had not been able to
bear arms, the British would have won instantly. The Revolution
would have been over, and it was the fact that
the Massachusetts farmers did have weapons, did know how to
use them, were training as a militia that enabled them

(19:51):
to drive the British back into Boston, suffering substantial casualties.
Every one of the founding fathers understood that every one
of the Founding fathers believe that you had to have
the right to bear arms remain free, and that if
you gave up the right to bear arms, sooner or later,
you'd be faced with a dictatorship that would take away
all of your rights. And Adams in that sense is

(20:14):
an explicit direct statement of that. He goes on to
say in the Massachusetts Constitution, quote, the people have a right,
in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble, to consult
upon the common good, to give instructions to their representatives,
and to request of the legislative body, by the way
of addresses, petitions, or remonstrances, redress of the wrongs done

(20:38):
them and of the grievances they suffer. No subsidy, charge, tax, imposts,
or duties ought to be established, fixed, laid, or levied
under any pretext whatsoever without the consent of the people
or their representatives. In the legislature. Now, if you listen
carefully in the Massachusetts Constitution in seventeen eighty, you see

(21:02):
the forerunner of the Bill of Rights. And while Jefferson
has given credit and Madison actually offered it in the Congress,
it's clear that their concept of the Bill of Rights
was deeply shaped by John Adams, who gets almost no
credit for it. And it's one of Adams's great problems
that he was, in fact a remarkably important person. He

(21:24):
was extremely thoughtful, but at the same time, he didn't
have a very good publicity machine. He wasn't a very
attractive personality. He was always in Washington's shadow. And then,
as you'll see, he's also in Hamilton's shadow. And so
Jefferson gets great press as a great propagandist, and he
and Madison get the credit for things that in fact

(21:47):
John Adams did. Now, after the war and after the
Constitution is adopted, Adams comes in second to Washington. Washington
has elected unanimously. They had not thought this through, and
so you actually voted for the president vice president at
the same time, and whoever came in first got to
be president, whoever came in second got to be vice president,

(22:08):
and so you cast both ballots. This would really lead
to a mess with Jefferson because Jefferson and Aaron Burr tie,
and so they have a huge fight because everybody understood
Jefferson was supposed to be president, but Aaron Burr, who's
a total snake, tries to steal the presidency, something which
of course permanently estranged him from Jefferson. Well, and the

(22:28):
very first election we ever had with people voting twice,
Washington is elected president unanimously, and in the second ballot,
Adams comes in second, but he only gets thirty four
votes to washington sixty nine. Now Adams is kind of
humiliated because even though Washington clearly was the giant who
had won the Revolutionary War and the man who had

(22:50):
presided over the continent Congress, adams ego is such that
he thought he should be the first and just go home.
But he then decided that he would accept it and
become vice president. His job was to preside over the Senate.
He was not allowed to debate, which he had done
in the content of Congress, and so in a sense
he has this job that is symbolic, which is not
exactly what Adams wanted. And Adams doesn't quite get populism.

(23:15):
When they're debating over what's the title for the president,
Adams suggests his Highness the President the United States of
America and Protector of the rights of the same. This
is not a country which says his Highness very easily.
And it just gives you a flavor that Adams is
never quite the common man and never quite has the

(23:36):
common touch. And part of Jefferson's genius was that while
he was an intellectual and had no more interest in
commoners than Adams did, he nonetheless was able to pretend
with great skill, and Adams just couldn't it. It wasn't worth
the effort to him. He had a reasonable relationship to Washington,
but he was never a close advisor. He didn't help

(23:56):
shape policies. So for eight years he's just sitting around
and has a very similar attitude towards the vice presidency
that a number of other vice presidents will get. He
writes Abagail at one point, quote my country has, in
its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that
ever the invention of man contrived, or his imagination conceived.

(24:19):
He considered seriously resigning, but he stayed on for eight years. Now.
The fact is a vice president's basic job was to
wait around and see if the president died, and so
Adams was deeply, deeply frustrated. However, his patients worked out
and a four way race between Adams and Thomas Pinkney
on the Federalist ticket and Jefferson and Aaron Burr on

(24:40):
the Republican Adams received seventy one electoral votes and Jefferson
sixty eight, and therefore, as Vice President, Adams, as President
of Senate, opened and read his own election results, proclaiming
himself president. In seventeen ninety six, Alexander Hamilton urged Federalist

(25:16):
leaders to support Thomas Pinkney as president to ensure Jefferson's defeat,
but Hamilton made no secret of his preference for Pinckney
over Adams. In a January seventeen ninety seven letter to
his wife, Abigail Adams said of Hamilton, quote, Hamilton I
know to be proud, spirited, conceited, aspiring mortal, always pretending

(25:41):
to morality with as debauched morals as old Franklin, who
was more his model than anyone I know, as great
a hypocrite as any in the US is intrigues in
the election. I despise that he has talents, I admit,
but I dread none of them. I shall take no
notice of his puppyhood, but retained the same opinion of

(26:02):
him I always had, and maintained the same conduct towards
him I always did. That is, keep him at a
distance close. By the mid seventeen nineties, two political parties
existed the United States, the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans.
By the time Adams became president, the nation was facing

(26:23):
worsening relations with France. France, who thought the United States
should honor the French American alliance during the American Revolution,
was angered that the US signed the Jay Treaty with
Great Britain. French privateers started seizing hundreds of US merchant
ships in the Caribbean beginning in mid seventeen ninety seven.

(26:44):
Adams wanted to resolve the issue diplomatically. However, the Federalist
Party demanded war. Adams, going against what his party wanted,
established a committee of three American diplomats to meet with
France's Minister of fort Affairs. When the committee arrived, the
French demanded large bribes before any negotiations, the diplomats disagreed

(27:10):
on whether to pay the bribe, and they eventually left
without meeting anyone. Fearing that this would push the United
States into war, Adams initially refused to turn over any
notes from the diplomats to Congress. When he finally did,
Adams redacted the names of the French officials that tried
to bribe them, calling them X, Y, and Z instead.

(27:33):
The Democratic Republican Party were angered with France over the bribery,
but were against going to war with France. The Federalists, however,
were ready to go to war. Adams asking Congress to
appropriate funds to create a navy, improve their coastal defenses,
and for authority to summon militia men to active duty.
Of needing, the Navy Commission privately owned American ships and

(27:58):
gave captains permission to seize French ships. Between seventeen ninety
eight and eighteen hundred, the private ships captured about eighty
French ships, but war had never been officially declared. Adams
again tried a diplomatic solution, sending diplomats in early eighteen hundred.
The Democratic Republicans, more moderate Federalist and most of the

(28:22):
country agreed with this move, but Hamilton and other Federalists
were opposed, wanting to go to war instead. By the
time the diplomats arrived in France, Napoleon had seized control
of the French government. Napoleon signed the Treaty of Mortefontaine,
which released the United States from its Revolutionary War alliance

(28:43):
with France and brought an end to this quasi war
with France. Adams viewed this pea Street of France as
his greatest accomplishment as president, later writing to James Lloyd
in January eighteen eighteen that he quote desire there are
no other inscription over my gravestone. Then here lies John Adams,

(29:05):
who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with
France in the year eighteen hundred. However, Hamilton and many
Federalists were deeply upset over Adams negotiating with France. As president,
Adams decided that he would keep Washington's cabinet rather than
appointing his own. Hamilton, who was not a part of

(29:27):
adams administration, influenced several members of Adams's cabinet. In the
spring of eighteen hundred, Adams requested the resignation of two
cabinet members, Timothy Pickering, the Secretary of State and James McHenry,
the Secretary of War, for listening to Hamilton instead of himself.
Pickering opposed adams nomination of William S. Smith and Henry

(29:50):
Knox as Adjutant General and second in command of the Army.
Pickering also conspired against Adams reporting to Hamilton and other
Federalists what went on in cabinet meetings with President Adams.
On May tenth, eighteen hundred, Adams wrote a letter to
Timothy Pickering requesting his resignation. Quote, as I perceive a
necessity of introducing a change in the administration of the

(30:13):
Office of State, I think it proper to make this
communication of it to the present Secretary of State that
he may have an opportunity of resigning if he chooses.
I should wish to day on which his resignations take
place to be named by himself. Pickering, on May twelfth,
eighteen hundred, responded in a letter refusing to resign. Quote, Nevertheless,

(30:35):
after deliberately reflecting on the overture you have been pleased
to make to me, I do not feel to be
my duty to resign Adams responded by discharging Pickering, quote,
diverse causes and considerations essential to the administration of the government,
in my judgment, require a change in the Department of State.

(30:57):
You are hereby discharge from any further service as Secretary
of State. On May sixth, eighteen hundred, James McHenry on
Ke Pickering wrote his letter of resignation immediately after Adams
requested his resignation. In preparation for the eighteen hundred election,

(31:17):
Adams separated himself from Hamilton and the Federalists opposed to him.
The Federalist Party, however, chose Adams as their presidential candidate
and Pinckney as their second choice. Democratic Republicans decided to
stay with their seventeen ninety six choices, with Thomas Jefferson
as their presidential candidate and Aaron Burr as their second choice.

(31:41):
Eighteen hundred was the last presidential election where the runner
up of the election would become the vice president, so
each party had two candidates, hoping to get their most
popular candidate as president and their second most popular as
vice president, with the possibility the one candidate from each
party could become president and vice president, which, remember is

(32:02):
what had happened in seventeen ninety six, when Adams became
president but his rival Thomas Jefferson became vice president. Was
a flaw in the original design of the constitution. From
the beginning, Adams had two major issues against him. The
first was the deep divide within his party on Adams

(32:23):
deciding not to wage war with France. On October twenty fourth,
eighteen hundred, Hamilton wrote a very long pamphlet It was
called Concerning the Public Conduct of John Adams, on why
he believed Adams should not be re elected as president.
Hamilton stated that Adams quote does not possess the talents

(32:44):
adapted to the administration of government, and that there are
great and intrinsic defects in his character which unfit him.
For the chief Magistrate has certain fixed points of character
which tend naturally to the detriment of any cause of
which he is the chief, of any administration of which
he is the head. It is a fact that he

(33:05):
is often liable to paroxysms of anger, which deprive him
of self command and produce very outrageous behavior to those
who approach him. Most, if not all, his ministers, and
several distinguished members the two Houses of Congress have been
humiliated by the effects of these gusts of passion. Close.

(33:26):
In addition to the really deep, bitter hostility between Hamilton
and Adams, there was an unpopularity of the alien and
sedition laws. These laws basically were an effort to censor
the American people. They said, if you said certain things,
you could be charged. It was just short of treason.

(33:47):
People hated the idea that the government could try them
for saying the wrong things. In the election, Jefferson and Burr,
both the Democratic Republican candidates, tied with seventy three electoral votes.
Adams won sixty five votes, Paintney one sixty four, and
John Jay received one vote. Remember that Jay had been

(34:10):
the co author of the Federalist papers. Interestingly, you now
end up with Jefferson and Burr clearly in violation of
their agreement. Burr, who was a snake who will later
on shoot Alexander Hamilton and then after that engage in
treasonous acts trying to steal parts of the West from

(34:31):
the United States. Burr would not concede the Jefferson. The
tie went to the House representatives. Everybody understood Jefferson was
the candidate for president. Burr was the candidate for vice president,
but Burr's ego and ambition led him to try to
somehow usurp Jefferson, who was really the founding genius behind

(34:52):
the rise of the Democratic Republican Party, which is today
the longest existing political party in the world. The Democratic
Republican Party evolved into just being called the Democratic Party,
and it is literally the longest serving political institution in
the world today, a tribute both to Jefferson and to
whatever patterns he developed in that party. Adams became the

(35:17):
last federalist president. This was really an amazing moment in history.
There was no real experience of an opposition party peacefully
taking over. Normally it involved a military coup de ETAs
sometimes it involved a revolution. But here you had a
moment where Washington, who had set the stage by voluntarily
giving up power when he surrendered his sword after the

(35:39):
American Revolution and then once again giving up power by
leaving after eight years in presidency, had really set a
tone that people operated within the constitution, and Adams within
the constitution had lost and so you had literally the
rise of an opposition party which then became the govern

(36:00):
learning party and in some ways. Adam's willingness to follow
the Constitution, to be a part of a larger system,
and to subordinate his ego to his patriotism is one
of the key moments in American history. Months after losing
the eighteen hundred election, Adams threw himself into writing. For
the rest of his life, Adams wrote his autobiography. He

(36:22):
wrote letters to the other Founding fathers. In eighteen twelve,
a mutual friend brought Jefferson Adams together again, and they
exchanged hundreds of letters until their death fourteen years later. Interestingly,
both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day, July fourth,
eighteen twenty six, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of

(36:46):
the Declaration Independence. Jefferson died at twelve fifty pm. A
few hours after Jefferson's death, Adams woke from sleep and said,
Thomas Jefferson survives. These were his last words as he
fell into a coma. Shortly afterwards, at about six pm,
Adams died. He was ninety one years old, one of

(37:08):
the remarkable Founding fathers and a man whose dedication to
the rule of law, dedication to the concept of a constitution,
dedication to a belief in ideas and that legitimate argument mattered,
and dedication to subordinating himself to the greater cause of
American independence in American self government make him one I

(37:32):
think of most honorable and most respected of the Founding Fathers.
And John Adams can be always approached with an idea
that you're going to learn a little bit more by
reading what he said. It's even more true if you
will also read what his wife, Abigail wrote. She was
clearly the most literary of all of the Founding Father's wives,

(37:54):
and she had a tremendous impact on John by the
letters she wrote and by her committed went to public life.
So I look back on Adams and think how lucky
we were as a country to have citizens like this
willing to dedicate themselves to the development of freedom. Thank

(38:18):
you for listening to Founding Fathers Week on Newtsworld. You
can learn more about John Adams on our show page
at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Gainish three
sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan and
our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show
was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks the team at

(38:40):
Gingrish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope
you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with
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learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtsworld
consign up for my three free weekly columns at ginrishtree
sixty dot com. Slash newsleak I'm the Land which this

(39:02):
is neutral