John Adams - David McCullough

I highly recommend this biography of a founding father whose legacy is often marred by his rancorousness and the political infighting that took hold during his presidency. McCullough gives us a complete portrait of the pragmatic John Adams, whose passion and emotion sometimes got the best of him, but also pushed him to be one of the most influential orators at the Continental Congress.

McCullough makes the interesting choice to begin the biography after the first shots had been fired at Lexington and Concord. We first meet JA, a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, en route to Philadelphia. The Revolutionary War is underway. McCullough then returns to pick up the thread of JA’s ancestry and childhood. 

JA took detailed notes and his catty comments about his fellow delegates at Continental Congress are gems for the modern reader. American history books rarely reflect the greatness of Adams’ oratory at the Continental Congress. In a single, marathon speech, his impassioned and cogent arguments in favor of independence, broke a deadlock; McCullough considers this the most significant speech of his career.

Later, we can see JA’s famous rancor emerge as he returns to the US following his stint as one of three American ministers to France, with not so much as a “thank you” from the government, or a new assignment. He had spent much of that time doggedly working to keep the American diplomatic mission on track, and to manage competing egos. He felt unappreciated and dismissed, and his intellectual vanity could not abide such feelings.

Grudgingly accepting the vice-presidency, JA grows increasingly  bitter at being summarily excluded by Washington and his cabinet, and relegated to the largely symbolic role of Senate leader. The slow burn of his former partnership with TJ, begins during this time.

The JA-TJ relationship of founders working together, to bitter political enemies, to reconciled friends, piqued my interest. JA’s partnership with Thomas Jefferson was mutually beneficial during those early years in Philadelphia. TJ tended to defer to JA’s points of view while JA viewed himself as a mentor. JA handed the quill to TJ, but undertook the public defense of the Declaration, himself.

• Side note: TJ wrote a fiery passage condemning slavery (it was ultimately removed from the Declaration of Independence), but he enslaved 200 persons. I am inspired  to dig deeper into the anachronism that was TJ; this was a recurring theme in this biography as McCullough charted the JA-TJ relationship. It seemed to have been one of the most significant friendships of JA’s life. JA was forever pragmatic, and far more aware of cognitive dissonance than TJ.

McCullough provides a more nuanced reflection on JA’s fruitful partnership with Abigail Adams. I felt it was more compelling than the “Abigail Adams” biography I previously read. A clear picture of her importance emerges as JA grew increasingly isolated from Republicans and Federalists alike during his presidency. She is a sounding board, a voice of reason, and a valuable advisor for JA; as such, she is unique among the “founding mothers”. In later years, after AA’s death, when others praised JA for his role in John Quincey’s accomplishments, ht would reply: “my son had a mother”. We get a sense that not only was AA permitted into JA’s highest confidences on matters of state, but that he actively sought her counsel.

The vicious newspaper attacks, Jefferson’s machinations as vice-president to undercut JA, and the first fisticuffs on the Senate floor (a Republican spat at a Federalist who responded by wielding his cane) - are not so different from today’s embarrassments. We have this view of politics of yore as being dignified; they were not.

Upon retiring from politics himself, and watching benignly from the sidelines during JQA’s presidency, JA grew optimistic about the world with all its trials and tribulations. His golden years included financial comfort (due to a life of careful spending, unlike Washington and Jefferson), and being surrounded by doting family members. He had shed his rancorous spirit to the point that he uncharacteristically extended the olive branch to TJ. The passage where McCullough writes of a July 4th celebration where an aged JA notices he’s the last signer and one of few of the founding generation left, is particularly poignant.