John Adams and the American Presidency

John Adams’ mind was a product of the European Enlightenment. Yet this, according to David McCullough in his Pulitzer Prize winning biography entitled John Adams, was only the beginning of the Adams legacy. The list of contributions made by Adams to the establishment of American society and government is long and weighty. He argued – verbally and in written form -- for independence from Britain at a time when many colonies were clinging to notions of peace with the mother country. He nominated George Washington to be the first commander of the Continental Army.  Adams was largely responsible for the rules and by-laws of the emerging republic’s first navy, and he was instrumental in the creation of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He also served as the second president of the fledgling United States and as a diplomat in The Netherlands and France. Quite possibly though, the most significant aspects of John Adams’ life involved the creation of structures and underlying principles of United States government.

In a 1776 pamphlet entitled Thoughts on Government, Adams produced a work of genius. In it, he laid out the twin themes of independence. “The happiness of the people was the purpose of government . . . [and] that form of government was best which produced the greatest amount of happiness for the largest number” (102). In an era of Enlightenment, Adams was creating a government that “raised fundamental questions about the realities of human nature, political power, and the good society” (101). Largely based on the values of 17^th century English political philosopher John Locke, virtue had a prominent role in this “good society.”  Moreover, the primary mechanism for achieving virtue in society was through education. Thus the creation and perpetuation of a virtuous government was dependent upon a “government of laws, and not of men” (222) but also on government’s ability to “spread . . . wisdom, knowledge, and virtue among all the people” through the creation of “private societies and public institutions . . . for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country” (223). Of course, Adams is not alone in promoting education in the late colonial and early republican periods. Ben Franklin is also notable for contributions in pursuit of knowledge. For example, Franklin’s hand is behind the establishment of the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1731 (essentially the first library in North America), the American Philosophical Society in 1745, and the University of Pennsylvania in 1749. Thus when Adams presented the idea of a Boston counterpart to Philadelphia’s Philosophical Society it was, in McCullough’s words “enthusiastically taken up” (223) to become the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1780.

As important as this reader considers education in a civil society, Adams’ greatest contribution to government can be seen best in the “principle of the separation and balance of powers” (222) which Adams first wrote for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1779, only to later argue for it during the drafting of the Constitution in 1787.  In January 1787, Adams had produced a pamphlet entitled A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. Although hastily written, it is considered to be “an expanded, more erudite rendition of the case for checks and balances in government that he had championed in his Thoughts on Government, and later put into operation in his draft of the Massachusetts constitution” (374). In it, Adams identified the salient features of a government free of monarchy and hereditary aristocracies. “There must be three parts to government – executive, legislative, and judicial – and to achieve balance it was essential that it be a strong executive, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary” (375). Once again the power of Enlightenment principles and concepts is apparent in the structure of government which Adams conceived. In this case, Enlightenment notions of balance and symmetry in the framing of power are paramount. This structure has come to be known as the first, second and third articles of the Constitution which were signed into law in Philadelphia in September 1787, and it is sure evidence of Adams’ tremendous contribution to the narrative of the American story. 

Indeed, within the past week an example of Adams’ independent judiciary can be found in BOUMEDIENE ET AL. v. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. decided 12 June 2008. This decision, although disliked by the President of the United States, ruled against the President and his denial of habeas corpus (Latin for “present the body”). Had Adams not had the foresight to envision the need for a court system which could, if necessary, rule against the executive power without fear of reprisal, the American people – and arguably the world – would not have had habeas corpus restored.

Late in his life, Adams read (or likely re-read) some of the writings of Rousseau, one of the seminal figures of the European Enlightenment. To Rousseau’s line declaring “There is no doubt that people are in the long run what the government make out of them . . .” Adams responded in the margin with “The government ought to be what the people make it” (619). Clearly even in 1815, some thirty years after Adams’ own seminal works were produced, he believed in the power of the people to know what was best for themselves, and to act on that power with rationality and reason. In short, John Adams was a product of the Enlightenment.

John Adams, perhaps more than any other figure in early American history, left a huge collection of written works for posterity to study. In McCullough’s capable hands this wealth of information and ideas are handled well. Subtleties in Adams’ personality are presented clearly and with insight. For example, Adams’ vanity and the concurrent struggle with that vanity appears to be a theme which runs throughout his lifetime. While still a student at Harvard in 1756, he wrote “Oh! That I could wear out of my mind every mean and base affectation, conquer my natural pride and conceit” (41) which suggests he realized a flaw in his character and sought to exorcise it. And yet the tendency toward self promotion seems to have survived the test of time. For example when, toward the end of Adams’ life, he was invited to Faneuil Hall for the unveiling of John Trumbull’s 1818 painting of the signing of the Declaration, his first words were to remind the audience that it was he who in 1775 had nominated George Washington to be the leader of the newly forming Continental Army. On this point, McCullough states that “possibly it was Adams’ old vanity that prompted the remark” (627). This notion, that a Founding Father would embody such a tension, is compelling. It also removes any inclination the reader may have to place Adams – or Franklin or Washington, for that matter – on a pedestal. Adams and his friends are all revealed as great men, but men nonetheless.

     
This book is a rich source for understanding American history. In my case, I read it while on a trip to Boston and Philadelphia. Indeed, I was literally walking the streets and eating at the taverns that are mentioned in the narrative! This, of course, made the historical aspects very lively for me, and I was able to take photos of places with specific events in mind. Because of these circumstances, the book and my travel experiences are closely woven together. Furthermore, I am able to use the photos, the experiences and the knowledge gleaned from the text in my American and Modern Humanities courses. For some time now I have been working on a segment for my classes on the origins of the American Revolution and the development of the ideas embodied in the U.S. Constitution. The study of John Adams goes a long way toward explaining those topics to students. My travel experiences also help make exciting a topic that can be quite boring for students. As much as it is possible, I attempt to show that the “Founding Fathers” – Adams, Washington, Franklin and Jefferson – were real human beings, living real lives and making real decisions. It is the power of those decisions that have had such an impact upon our lives today. In some ways Adams knew the impact their decisions would have when he wrote “How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children?” (102). Or perhaps he realized there would be an impact but what exactly it would look like is open to interpretation, as when he wrote to his wife Abigail in 1774, “We live, my dear soul, in an age of trial. What will be the consequence, I know not” (Preface). In either case, the important didactic point is that people make choices and the choices people make can have long lasting impact on millions (perhaps billions?) of other people over a long period of time. Human agency now is no less than human agency then. Perhaps more than ever, students in the American education system need to learn this concept.

*This book review was written in 2008.*