History's Agenda
Exploring recent and historic events that have defined America, this podcast is perfect for understanding the foundations of American culture. Have you always wondered about the events that led to the deaths of JFK or the story of Son of Sam? What about the full story behind the Founding Fathers? Each episode of History's Agenda provides detailed storytelling of these issues and many others. This is an ideal podcast for fact-hungry listeners.
History's Agenda
John Adams: From Boston Courtrooms To Independence. His Relentless Push For A Nation
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Fireworks didn’t make America—hard choices did. We open the new year by diving into the fierce, flawed, and fiercely honest life of John Adams: the lawyer who defended British soldiers on principle, the strategist who made independence possible, and the president who chose peace over applause when the nation begged for war.
We walk through Adams’ unlikely path from a shoemaker’s son to Harvard scholar, his daring defense after the Boston Massacre, and the way he engineered unity at the Continental Congress by nominating George Washington and persuading Virginia to align with New England. You’ll hear the real timeline behind July 2 and July 4, how Jefferson became the Declaration’s scribe while Adams supplied its voice, and why the early war looked hopeless until foreign loans and alliances—driven in part by Adams—changed everything. From Hessian mercenaries to the prison ships of New York, we pull the camera back to show the stakes and the strategy that wore down the British empire.
Then we tackle the 1790s knife fight: parties taking shape, newspapers as political weapons, and Jefferson’s covert funding of hit pieces. Inside the presidency, Adams faced riots, the France crisis, and crushing pressure to go to war. He signed the Alien and Sedition Acts—an error that scarred his reputation—yet he also made the bravest call of his career: sending envoys to secure peace, sacrificing reelection to spare the republic a disastrous conflict. Finally, we explore Adams’ long reconciliation with Jefferson, the treasure trove of letters that still teach us how to argue in good faith, and the towering legacy of John Quincy Adams, whose work on the Monroe Doctrine, the Amistad case, and national science policy carried the family’s ethic forward.
If you care about the birth of American institutions, the messy truth of leadership, and the costs of choosing country over self, this story has layers you’ll love. Press play, then tell a friend—and if this conversation changed how you see Adams, subscribe, rate, and leave a review to help others find the show.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first podcast of the new year with uh a new year and a new name, History's Agenda, and we're back with uh our our favorite compadre, as you will, in in this mission of talking about all these things that make America what they are on this 250th year anniversary of um of America. Welcome, Jack. Thank you. Good to be here. So, as you may have noticed from the lead-in, that we kind of decided in um that one of our first victims, if you will, or one of our first people we're gonna talk about is John Adams. John Adams, you know, born in um uh 1735. If you can only imagine how long that was and what the country was, and and strict religious family in Massachusetts. You know, his father wanted him to be a minister, sent him to college to be one, and he went to law school instead. Best the bar and the rest is history. Oh, yeah. You may, you may begin.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you know, going into the the early years of his life, which we'll really just touch on for a second. I mean, he he is a precocious individual, and he he is a phenomenal reader and diarist early, early in his life. And he's always challenging himself. And of course, he he goes to Harvard, does remarkably well. His father wanted him to be a minister, but that didn't go anywhere. He found he liked the law better. And his father accepted that. His father was a farmer, more or less, and also a shoemaker. And John Adams used to say, when things got bad, I said, I can go back to being a shoemaker. That was one of the things he used to say early on. But one of the things about John Adams that's so different than almost any of the other founders is that he's real. He's not like the other founders. You have to remember that the other founders are very aware that what they are doing will be studied, will be looked at, will be dissected by historians in the future. So they are busy building their monuments to themselves. And they're careful to not let things that look too bad exist. John Adams is totally different. He is emotional, he gets angry, he will go off, blow his lid, and say stupid things. He acts like a real person. And that's that's what's so lovable about the guy. The guy's real. You know, you look at the others, you can't picture them. You know, can you picture George Washington just sitting down, relaxing, and talking? No, he's like a figurehead in a sense. So many of them are like that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you think about the affluence of being in Virginia, partially because of slavery. I mean, they're very affluent people. Jefferson, Monroe, all the except for Hamilton, that is. You see these people, and and Hamilton's not from the South anyway, he's from New York, but you see these different different points of view. And and that's what's interesting. And Adams is, you know, I mean, at least what I believed and and read in, you know, McCullough's book was that the reason he chose law, it was because he thought it gave him the best time for to be intellectually to learn more and to succeed and and almost to become famous.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, he he was always accused of being vain. Vanity was one of his problems, they used to say. And yes, he he did want. He he looked to advance himself, and he always loved to argue. In fact, when you look at his books in his private library, he would read a book and then he would do marginalia. And more often than not, he'd write more marginalia in the book than what was in the book at all. I mean, he'd be so busy giving a counter-argument. That was the way he was. He would look at something and then look at all the various options and ideas. He just didn't have one idea. He would look at many different things. He was an intellectual in the truest sense of the word. One of the great minds of the American presidency, you know, only matched, I would say, by his son. Um John Quincy. And and of course, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are right in that same ball league. But John Adams with raw intellect, I really do believe that he he was a little bit above uh Jefferson and Madison. He did he had that amazing, amazing raw intellect. And it wasn't sugarcoated. It wasn't, he didn't care if what he said hurt him or helped him. He was just honest. And that was his nickname in Boston. They called him Honest John. And got to go back. Look at the look at the like the Boston massacre, which was made into something it never was. But British soldiers were there. And and the rioters were there throwing rocks, using clubs, and hitting them. I mean, soldiers were bleeding, and they kept screaming, fire, fire, fire. And finally, out of fear or whatever for their own safety, one of them fired, and then all of a sudden they all fired, and four people died. And then Paul Revere, of course, took an idea and and that had existed as a cartoon, but he made it much more graphic and made it seem that the soldiers were just deliberately shooting the people in the crowd, which was nothing but the truth. And the problem was that they were arrested and were charged with manslaughter.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, you think about you think about what's going on with ICE today, and you think about these confrontations they have on the street, and I don't know why it makes me re remind me of the Boston Massacre all the time. We just had one, and I don't know where it was. I want to say it was in Minnesota where they had snow and it was bad, and supposedly somebody tried to run over and they shot and killed her.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. I saw that, yes.
SPEAKER_00:You know what I mean? And you think about these military confrontations with ordinary people in the streets.
SPEAKER_04:Well, the interesting thing was that the the soldiers were arrested and charged, and they said no one will represent them. So John Adams did.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. And I'd forgotten that.
SPEAKER_04:He represented them and got them acquitted. Except for two. He got them acquitted of manslaughter. And he was absolutely hated by the people in Boston for doing that.
SPEAKER_00:Things don't change, do they?
SPEAKER_04:And and it's rather interesting, but in time they came to realize that John Adams was a man of integrity. And he, as he stated, he said, I will follow the law, I will tell the truth, I will and that's that's what he did. He saw what had happened, he studied what had happened, and he told the story as it was. And how could a jury look otherwise that the soldiers were being attacked? And so he was hated for a while, but eventually his reputation was cleared up because they realized that this was a man that they could count on to tell the truth and to stand for what was right. And when the time came for Boston to be represented in the first Continental Congress, which we so often forget, John was nominated to go. And that's so vitally important. See, we always think of Independence Hall. But the first Continental Congress met at Carpenter's Hall in a very little stuffy room, all crammed together and secretly talking about what do we do. And John Adams wrote the Declaration of Writs and Grievances, which is the declaration that goes to England saying this is what needs to be taken care of. Otherwise, we have a problem. And that was all done in Carpenter's Hall. And he was around luminaries. This is where he met George Washington. This is where he met Patrick Henry. Give me liberty or give me death.
SPEAKER_00:And John Adams That was around 1774 or something like that. 1774, yes, indeed. Right.
SPEAKER_04:And so John Adams is looked upon as a major leader in the movement, if not for independence, because that wasn't really thought of yet, but basically for gaining their rights as Englishmen, because they weren't being represented. And so they broke up the first convention and then the second came together in 1775. And this is where the magic of John Adams comes to fruition. He is like the spark plug for the second Continental Congress. See, you had Concord and Lexington. Those were the first battles per se.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Skirmishes. We hadn't even thought about independence yet. And so at this point, John Adams is saying we better look at things very differently here. Because we are at war. And you had so many people, Dickinson of Pennsylvania sitting there saying, Let's give the Olive Branch to the English. And they had the Olive Branch petition sent to England. Meanwhile, John Adams sits there and says, Well, here's what we need to do. And he nominates George Washington to be commander-in-chief of the military.
SPEAKER_00:A Virginian. He isn't stupid.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. The thing is, because at this point, he is being canvassed by John Hancock to become commander-in-chief. And he knows far too well that if he nominates Hancock, it will remain a New England affair. That's so vitally important. Then he sends Washington, it's seconded, etc. And then the next thing he does is he convinces Richard Henry Lee to go to Virginia and meet with the Virginia delegation. And this is very, very important. And Lee goes and meets with the Virginia delegation and comes back with Lee's resolution, which I'll read to you. It's very, very important. Okay. Resolved, that these United Colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved. That's a powerful statement. And what that statement says is Virginia is walking in lockstep with New England.
SPEAKER_00:At a time where England is the largest military power in the world, pretty much. Oh, which is the largest navy, has I mean, they show up with hundreds of ships, not just a couple. I mean, it's really almost ridiculous. I mean, there's also France and Spain and all those other countries in Europe, but we had nothing.
SPEAKER_04:We had nothing.
SPEAKER_00:We had nothing.
SPEAKER_04:But we had John Adams.
SPEAKER_00:We had John Adams, that's true.
SPEAKER_04:And this is so vitally important because everything he does, as Franklin said, all the clocks have to strike at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:That's true.
SPEAKER_04:That's smart. It had to be. It had to be. Had to be. It had to be all at once. And so having sent Lee to Virginia, and Lee returns with his proposal, Lee's resolution, as it's called, and then they set up a committee. You also have to remember that John Adams is a member of every committee. He didn't sleep. He was the spark plug that kept everything going. They started to call him the Atlas of American independence. That's what he was referred to. You know, when you watch the musical 1776, they keep saying that he's obnoxious and delight despised. That's not exactly true. He was admired, sometimes kind of looked at ascance because he was just so honest. He insulted everybody, usually. And then the last thing is in that committee to form a declaration on Lee's resolution, which is the Declaration of Independence. Who does he push? Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson. An action he will regret for the rest of his life. Really? Yeah, because he said, why didn't I do it? And he says, you know, because Jefferson gets all the glory for the Declaration, because basically, the Declaration, as Benjamin Rush put it, he said, Adams and Jefferson were the North and the South of the Declaration. Adams was the voice of the rec of the Declaration, and Jefferson was the scribe. Because basically, what the Declaration was saying is what John Adams is fighting over. And he is the loudest, he's the longest, he's the strongest, and he just doesn't give up. True. It's really amazing. I mean, we should have statues of him all over the place, and there aren't statues of him all over the place. Which is something I can't fathom.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, he's the first vice president of the United States, right? He was Washington's vice president, which is the beginning of a job that really had no duties.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Other than other than voting when there's a deadlock in the Senate. Sure. Or deadlock and and which happened a lot because it was the Senate. And there were only 13 states. So, you know.
SPEAKER_04:And they and of course it was very political, but we but getting to the point of the declaration, of course, he gets Jefferson to write it. And after Jefferson writes it, basically Franklin and Adams go over it and kind of hone it a little bit, change things. And then it's brought to the Congress. And there's a passage in there stating that slavery should be abolished. John Adams is pushing very hard to get rid of slavery and also to push for women's suffrage.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's amazing. Like a true Bostonian, right? I mean, he's ahead of the world.
SPEAKER_04:You know, he's he's talking to Abigail, and Abigail says, do not forget the women. And he pushes for that, but that goes nowhere. And then the South walks out.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And now they don't know what the hell to do. And so what they have to do is is scrub slavery. You know, he's one of the few people, if you think about it, when we talk about our presidency going up to like our twelfth president from first to twelfth, there's only two that were not slave owners. John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Pretty amazing. Another reason there should be statues. Now the thing is that they scrub the slavery thing, and Franklin basically says to Adams, we have to create a country first. We can only do so much, we're only mortal, you know. And so they do that. The South agrees grudgingly, and they scrub a few other things. And then finally the declaration has to be voted on. There's still lots of questions, there's still lots of battles. And on July 2nd, during a severe thunder and lightning storm, John Adams speaks for like two hours. And when he finishes speaking, the entire Congress is ready to vote yes.
SPEAKER_00:It was hot as can be, too, right? And it was only raining, but it also was like sweltering warm, wasn't it? And the windows were closed. Yeah, and the windows were closed.
SPEAKER_04:And they hadn't bathed in a month. But the thing is. Think about this. After he gave this very inspiring speech that got them all fired up, which he was phenomenal at, they all voted yes, except for New York.
SPEAKER_03:New York Abstains. Gracefully. Courteously, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Is that what it was, Curtis? I forget what it was for the mus from the musical.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. New York abstains courteously. And so John Adams writes a letter on July 3rd to Abigail. He said, from now on, July 2nd will be honored. There'll be praised, there'll be pomp, there'll be fireworks, cannons roaring. But we don't think of the second. We think of the fourth. Interesting. What happened on the fourth? They all signed it, or that's when they sent it. Here's the interesting thing. They voted independence was declared on July 2, 1776. They took Jefferson's scripts, sent it to a printer, and the printing was done on July 4th, 1776, which was printed on the paper. And John Hancock and the Secretary of Congress signed the document. It's a tiny little document. It's this big, it's a small little document. And so just two people signed. And so from then and thereforth, July 4th is the date because that's when the publisher printed it. John Adams for a long time tried fighting it and finally gave up and said, It's the fourth, okay.
SPEAKER_00:At the end of the day, what's the difference?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So the whole thing is a lot of people think that when you go to the National Archives, the document you see saying July 4th on it is from July 4th. It's not. It is from August 2, 1776. And it is signed piecemeal. It isn't signed completely until 1781. And uh I think the last person to sign it was Thomas McKean. But lots of people also sign it that weren't at the uh deliberation, such as Benjamin Rush. He signed the thing. And the thing to think of with all of this is that each of these individuals, they end it with saying, you know, our sacred honor. Honor meant a lot to these people. And each one as they sign their name, they were signing their death warrant. Because had this failed, they would have been captured and they would have been hanged for their crimes. I mean, it's an amazing thing. And here we are, as you mentioned, we have no navy. We have this rag tagged army which is just defeated in New York and and by the skin of his teeth, George Washington gets out of Manhattan and heads into New Jersey and survives barely, with about four thousand troops. The British have sent an armada of ships, filled New York Harbor. It was this series of masts. They had 30,000 troops.
SPEAKER_00:Including the well-trained Haitian soldiers that were missionaries. That's a that's a yeah. You know what I always find interesting about that is when they were captured by the American Army, they were released them. They would release them rather than hold them as prisoners of war, because they considered them to be like slaves as well as everybody else.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they were just they were just underemployment by the British. They really didn't give a hoot.
SPEAKER_00:And they didn't, they're not the ones that got paid. Yeah. You know, the the king gets paid and they got nothing.
SPEAKER_04:They didn't get much. But uh the interesting thing, a lot of the Hessians just stayed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Or came back. Went a few went back. Yeah, some went back, but a lot of them stayed in the colonies at the time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's it's so interesting. Even the ones that went back, I think I read somewhere just the other day, like 90% of the ones that went back came back with their entire families and now and lived here.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yeah, the the Hessians, that whole thing, that Christmas, that Christmas Day attack was what saved. Was what saved um the revolution. I mean, had they not done that, probably would have fallen apart. Yeah. I think everybody agrees. They didn't have shoes. They were freezing, they didn't have half of them didn't have weapons. Some of them were carrying spears. You know, uh, it was it was it was terrible. And had that not happened, and George Washington learned something at this point, real quick, just to mention, and that was that he didn't have to fight a battle. Because initially he was fighting the battles where they'd stand next to each other and fight back and forth. And he he realized it took him a while, but he realized that what we need to do is have skirmishes and do somewhat of a guerrilla war. And you know something? It's an interesting thing. I think a lot of us didn't understand the American Revolution until the Vietnam War. Because the United States didn't need to win the war, they needed to wear out the British and let them lose interest. And that's exactly what happened in Vietnam. Same thing. They didn't win the war, but we finally lost interest. This is ridiculous. Why waste the time? And that's exactly what the British finally said. It took them a while. And through all of this, John Adams is busy working like crazy. You know, he goes to Europe. As soon as he's done with the the declaration, shortly afterward, he has to get money. And John Adams goes to the Netherlands and gets a three million dollar loan.
SPEAKER_00:Which is a heck of a lot of money.
SPEAKER_04:That's an amazing amount of money. This is so vitally important. And this is another thing that we should have a statue of him for. I mean, he is really one of the most important people in this whole revolution and in this whole thing with the independence, yet he always gets a back seat. And when he was older, he used to joke about the fact how he's always kind of forgotten. And he said, in the future, the history books will talk about the American Revolution. And Benjamin Franklin will walk into a field and take his lightning rod and smote the ground. And out will spring George Washington on his horse. And the three of them.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, listen, it's come down through history and what people are taught today is that he was very brash, for lack of a better word. But also, it's come down that his relationship with his wife is something that's, you know, transcends the time period. I mean, you know, we all know about Martha Washington, but and things like that, but we don't know anybody else's wife. No, no. Other than John Adams. That's what, yeah. Probably for the purpose that you said. He journaled everything. They wrote letters all the time. And she was ahead of her time as a strong, forceful woman that wanted to see changes in the world. Yeah. Agreed. Or in our world, our country.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And and as I said before, he chronicled, diaried, he did everything. And if something embarrassed him, he kept it. If something praised him, he kept it. He's the most real. He's the most human. He's he has all of the human frailties. All of the others, you know, Thomas Jefferson in his later years, he redid a lot of his diaries to make himself look better. It's a little frightening when you Jefferson's kind of a uh how can I put it in a nice way? He could be a big problem to a lot of people, and he was to Adams to a degree.
SPEAKER_00:He's a paradox reacting enigma, as they say. So but I I the one thing about John Adams um is that I think he becomes, in our minds, he's really just a true American. Yeah. And we spoke about a little bit before. He his life transcends all these 250 years. We can relate to his relationship with his wife. We can relate with his father and going to school and doing something different that his father wanted. We can relate to those things. And his real, some of his real, I think of his brilliance, is to know when to get out of the way. Know when he isn't the guy to do it, that somebody else is going to be able to do it better. And pull the strings. He figured that out with the uh Virginians, of course. And just to say one other thing about the time period, and I'll let you go back to where you are. And that is, you know, you talk about uh fighting war during that time period. Two of the things that are really forgotten is how revolutionary war was fought in during that time period by us. We fought differently than we ever, anyone in the world that ever fought. I mean, it was guerrilla warfare. We didn't reach. We didn't have a choice. We didn't have any people. And the other thing that I think gets lost is that we look at that this as in a revolutionary war, but it really was our first civil war because there were an amazing amount of loyalists, and there was a great fight, I mean, between the loyalists, whether it's maybe not hand-to-hand combat or with guns, but there is a huge disagreement between loyalists and patriots at a time, which is really somehow lost, I think, on the way we're taught history today, that you know, there were people that thought differently. Amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It was it's it's incredible because probably about one-third of the population was for independence and the revolution. And probably another third were loyalists. And then let's say the last grouping were just kind of sitting back and seeing which side won, you know? I mean, it's no different than today.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. You know, I it's fascinating. I think what my dad used to say, doesn't matter you believe, Dad. Do you like Richard Nixon, the Republicans, or do you like the Democrats? He goes, listen, the only thing, the only thing guys like me care about is do we have a job? Do we have enough money to feed our family? And do we have a place to live? Everything else, you know, whether it's conservative or non-conservative or liberal doesn't mean anything to me. And there was those people I guess, you know, somewhat the silent majority as we're referred to back in the day. But but, you know, the people that are really that don't have time to worry about who sits on what side of the aisle. The what they worry about is the everyday things that they need to survive in this world. That's true.
SPEAKER_04:And and you have to think also that Adams is in the Netherlands. Franklin is in France. All of these people are busy trying to gain and garner support for the revolution. Because once again, we have to thousand troops. I mean, you know, and and it's it's it's dangerous. And we couldn't get the support from the French initially until there was a battle up in by New York State, actually. And the the real hero of that was a fellow by the name of Benedict Arnold. And after his victory against the British, France said, We'll support you. And that was in the nick of time, because there was no way in hell that we were going to win this war by ourselves. And so the French sent troops, they sent money, they sent ships, they sent soldiers, as I said that before, gunpowder and everything else, and equipment, clothes, all the stuff that was needed for the American army. And they were walking side by side with Washington at that point. And then there was not too much in the way of major wars, but then we have the the big one on Williamsburg. I mean, uh, not in Williamsburg. Um what's the final battle?
SPEAKER_00:Yorktown.
SPEAKER_04:Yorktown is Yorktown, excuse me, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00:Different part of Virginia. Different part of Virginia. And Hamilton is there, you know, as we know, and others, and you know, the world the word's changing.
SPEAKER_04:One of the people, well, Hamilton was there, and Hamilton confused the British British totally because he decided to drill his troops in front of the British, and the British were saying, is this some kind of trick? And uh and of course, the French pushed against Cornwallis with Washington, and they were on a peninsula and surrounding the peninsula was the French Navy. Just hanging around. And he had to surrender. It was the greatest surrender in their their mind that they could hardly imagine. They were the greatest military, the greatest navy. And here they are surrendering to these ruffians, these rebels, as they called them. And Cornwallis refused to even come out. He handed his sword to his assistant and had him bring the sword. So George Washington had his assistant accept it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, what else is good, what else is should be noted is especially during that time period, the English really raped and pillaged America when they could. And they alienated regular people and took over and literally raped and pillaged, took people's things, killed people, took them wives, girlfriends, money, all you have. And you know, the American viewpoint starts changing because they realize if these guys, if this is what I'm up for, I'm gonna fight to the death. It's Sun Tzu, art of the war. Yeah. Flat out, you know, flat out. And there was, I forget his name, was it was it, you know, Parton? Was that the general's name, uh general or colonel's name? Tartan, where he is where he would, when he captured people, he killed them. Oh, okay. Yeah. And and, you know, when the English are yelling quarter, they would yell back parton's quarter. You know? So so the this went on and on and on. And, you know, they the English could have done so many things differently and maybe produced a different result.
SPEAKER_04:Well, think of the one thing that is the most abhorrent of all and never talked about, and that is the prison ships. Oh the prison ships were all around New York, and over 10,000 individuals died on those ships. There is a memorial in, I think it's in Brooklyn, around there, or or right around that general area, I forget exactly, that contains the bones of over 10,000 victims of the prison ships. And that was uphorant. They didn't win any friends in this whole thing. And of course, so the war ends, and uh John Adams, you know, uh is busy. He's still trying to get money, get supplies, meet with people, um occasionally go home and see his wife. Um his secretary, when he goes over in 1777, 1778, is John Quincy Adams, who's 10 years old and is already fluent in several different languages. Right. And he works as a translator for many of the various people involved. I mean, and he turns out to be the last surviving witness to the Treaty of Paris, which takes place in 1783, in which the formal peace program is is is established and the United States is born. And who was one of the three commissioners who were involved in that? One, of course, was John Adams, the other was John Jay, and the third was Benjamin Franklin. There is a unfinished painting of the signing of that document, but the British refused to pose for it. It's kind of interesting. But I never saw that. John Adams, once again, he is the the almost irreplaceable man. I mean, he's he's he's he's really very important. He's right next to Franklin in many respects, right next to Washington in many respects. Uh as as as the indispensable man. He's doing so much. And then the war ends and he becomes the minister to England.
SPEAKER_00:Prime Minister. Becomes the ambassador or whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_04:And he is the individual that has to meet with King George the God, I would have loved to have seen that. Well, he was terrified over the fact because here was a man who King George III wanted to hang.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Coming in with a representative of a new nation of a whole colony that was once under the king's realm. I mean, if you think about this juxtaposition, you know, when I forgot to mention this before, but I should mention it because it fits so perfectly with this whole scene. When the British surrendered at York, Yorktown, they played music. And the music is called The World Turned Upside Down. And if you look at everything that's happening, as I just mentioned, the world had turned upside down. And the fellow that should have been hanged is now the representative of a nation that once was under the king's control and everything had reversed. That's amazing. And their meeting actually is rather cordial. And in fact, King George III tells Adams that his country is very lucky to have him as their ambassador. And they actually got along pretty good. It's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, there weren't a lot of swift people in those days in that king's court. So I mean he must have looked like a genius.
SPEAKER_04:And uh, a little crazy when he got a little older.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's true. It's funny because in the musical Hamilton, he does a song called The World's Upside Down. Yeah. And there's a I they obviously talk about that in the Adams book, too, I believe, at the time period of playing that music.
SPEAKER_04:So John Adams is in England. Thomas Jefferson replaces Franklin in France. And they had become very, very good friends. And they were constantly sending warm letters back and forth to each other. And uh the secretary for John Adams is a fellow by the name of William Stephen Smith. And he becomes the courier between Jefferson and Adams. And Jefferson always writes Adams and said, Mr. Smith always has a room here. They both are kind of very impressed with him. And Smith eventually asks for John Adams' daughter's hand. Hmm. And he isn't exactly pleased about that initially, but accepts finally, and he he marries Nabby, which is their daughter. And it's very important because I have something to talk about a little later with that, because he becomes John Adams' son-in-law. And so he works back and forth between Jefferson and him. At this point, in France, all hills starting to break loose. Because France was broke. They spent all of their money on the American Revolution. And the coffers were dry. And the people were not happy about it. And so they revolted, and of course, down went the Bastille. And of course, eventually it leads to all the issues with, you know, King Louis XVI and his wife being guillotined, and, you know, the reign of terror and Rospierre and all that whole gang of what I like to call is government de jour.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, out of hand. You know, people would go out there and and cheer or when somebody got their head cut off.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, it was it was the blood ran down the streets. It was thousands of people guilty.
SPEAKER_00:Mad madness. Thousands of people give it to him. So the Bastille, I think it was 1785? Something like that.
SPEAKER_04:You know, it's interesting to note that this fellow, William Stephen Smith, who is now John Adams' son-in-law, was Lafayette's aide-de-camp.
SPEAKER_00:Really? We all know Lafayette's importance in the American Revolution.
SPEAKER_04:And he becomes part of that family. So much so that in 1780 he becomes George Washington's aide-de-camp. And uh becomes a very, very important part of the Washington family. And he's really quite important in these early days. I mean, he's a very interesting character.
SPEAKER_00:He learned well from his father-in-law. Yeah. Put himself everywhere.
SPEAKER_04:And so uh Adams is there in England until I think it was 1789. 1788. I think it's 88. 88. Because the Constitution is all done by uh while Jefferson and Adams are in France and England respectively. But also the interesting thing, the Constitutional Convention, which was basically to repair the Articles of Confederation, which didn't quite happen. It was hijacked, but they needed something to use as a guide. And you know what they ended up using? The Constitution of Massachusetts. And who wrote that? John Adams. John Adams. But not only that, he wrote it himself. And the Constitution of the United States used that as a model. It's really, once again, another statue. You know, think of, I mean, as I said, the indispensable man. I mean, think of how many different directions his influence goes. And he returns, he's nominated for vice president under Washington in New York. His son-in-law, William Stephen Smith, becomes very important, and Washington says, I want you in my administration. And he becomes more or less the marshal of New York City. And dines every weekend with the Washingtons. So he's, in fact, John Adams is always saying, My son-in-law is with Washington more than I am. And of course, they have the inauguration, and then, of course, he's vice president for eight years. And office that serves no use whatsoever. Adams tries to throw out various ideas. What do we call the president? And he had all these fancy names. And Washington finally said, just call me Mr. President. And Adams did so much to annoy the liberal side, because we didn't exactly have political parties yet. The liberal side of the Congress, they started to refer to him as his rotundity as a title. John Adams was a little chubby. And uh that was his experience as vice president, it was awful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I was reading that when I was looking, just following up a little bit, reviewing myself. So when he was vice president during that period where he literally had nothing to do, he cast the deciding vote in the Senate 31 times. Think about that. How often do you see the president do it today? Hardly at all. The vice president today. Hardly at all.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, he did not win a lot of friends on the side of the liberal, which would become the Republicans. You know, it's it's an interesting thing that party politics was not conceived with the writing of the Constitution.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_04:The idea of party really is born in the cabinet of George Washington, and it's Hamilton and Jefferson. Federalists and the Federalists and the Republicans.
SPEAKER_00:Democratic Republicans or whatever.
SPEAKER_04:And the interesting thing is this that Thomas Jefferson at this point starts to show a very, very frightening style about himself. He starts paying newspapers to write very bad articles about George Washington and saying he has flabby arms or he's kind of losing it. And George Washington knows what he's doing and basically tells him, I know what you're doing. And Jefferson eventually quits the cabinet.
SPEAKER_00:But Washington took the high road, though. He didn't dig deep in that kind of thing. It was Hamilton that would get pissed off and want to fight it, but not as much as Washington. I mean, he was the president. He was the real deal.
SPEAKER_04:Well, Washington was a very surprisingly a very good politician. And he he realized that everything he did was going to be scrutinized. So he became somewhat of a reactive president rather than a proactive president. And that's really important. And he let the battles take place and it started driving him crazy. Hamilton was driving him crazy, too. And the thing is that basically Jefferson resigns. And Washington tells Martha, I do not want that man on my property. All letters, all writing between Washington and Jefferson cease. They basically despise each other at this point. And there's a fascinating thing that happened. When Washington died in December of 1799, Jefferson came to Mount Vernon to offer his respects. And Martha kicked him out. She said there was only two things that were the terriblest times of her life. And she said, the death of my husband and having to deal with Jefferson.
SPEAKER_00:And at that point, he was quite the powerful man.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, and somewhat a bit of a snake in the grass. As we worked out that way. As we get into the Adams presidency, the unfortunate thing for Adams, he had to follow Washington. Nobody could follow Washington. Right. You know, Washington was a statue for 25 years. He could do no wrong. Although in his second term, he was hung in effigy outside of his, outside of the presidential home in Philadelphia. And Washington didn't know how to deal with that because he was always praised. And he didn't know how to deal with someone not liking him. And that was one of the things that really pushed him to say, I'm not doing this again. Because Hamilton and Madison kind of pushed him to do the second term. And then finally he said, that's it. And then Adams runs and Jefferson runs, and it's a little nasty, not as nasty as it would become. And Adams wins by three votes. And everyone reminds him, you won by only three votes. And in those days, the way the Constitution was written, which would be changed very quickly, whoever got the highest amount of votes would be president. Whoever got the next highest would be vice president. It worked very well with Washington and Adams. They were of a similar mind. But now he has Jefferson, who becomes a hostile vice president.
SPEAKER_00:And he's on the inside. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And he does everything in his power to destroy Adams. And when everything in France is really getting bad, you have to understand that there were riots and people were being killed and people were being attacked, and you had a lot of people from France there carrying on. And Adams doesn't quite know what to do, and it's pushed on him by the Federalist, the Alien and Sedition Act. And so Adams does what he always did. He contacted Abigail and said, What do you think? And she said, I like it. So he approved it. That is one of the things that truly damaged him. Because everyone thought it was his idea. And lots of newspapers are attacked, newspaper editors are attacked. Benjamin Franklin's grandson, who ran the American Aurora, is arrested and dies in prison. And uh it's pretty ugly. But it was in response to the absolute anarchy that was going on in Philadelphia. And so Adams tells Jefferson, look, we have to solve the situation in France. You are very, very comfortable with the French. How about I send you over there as an emissary to solve this? And Jefferson says, No. Think about that.
SPEAKER_00:Unheard of in today's world.
SPEAKER_04:He is the vice president. He is to support the president, but he does not want to support the president, and he'll do everything to destroy him. He hires a fellow by the name of Callender to write terrible articles on Adams to destroy his reputation, to destroy his credibility. All done by Jefferson. I mean, it's worthy of impeachment as far as I'm concerned. It's really a shame what Jefferson did. And uh Adams, unfortunately, now can't send someone over there. He has to find someone that would do it. And finally he does. And everyone wants to go to war. And Hamilton, acting like a complete moron, says He gets crazy. Yeah, sits there and says, Let's go to war with France. And Adams says, with what? Who's going to support us? England? And Hamilton's so happy to be wearing his outfit. And he talks George Washington into becoming general again. And Washington's not that well at this point. And he's he's rather feeble, but he will do it for uh, you know, for the glory of it, for the honor of it. And Hamilton is his next in line. And Hamilton is planning to let Washington resign, and then he will be general in charge. And Adam says He was no dummy. And Adam says, not on my watch. And and eventually he pushes Hamilton away. And he sends people over to France and eventually works out a deal. But the information of that deal of peace between France and the United States comes after the 1800 election. Adams sacrificed his presidency to basically solve the French situation. We could not afford to go to war with France. It was insane. The entire country wanted to do it. But he said no. And he became very unpopular for it, but he did the right thing. You know, it really was the right thing to do. And opened up a warm diplomatic relationship that would lead to what is called the Louisiana Purchase a few years later.
SPEAKER_00:Double the size of the country.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And John Adams was favoring that. And it was John Quincy. They were the only Federalists that were saying, go for it. And his presidency is pretty much ruined by Jefferson and by the press and by the Alien and Sedition Act. You know, I was teaching a class years ago and I was tired. And I was talking to the kids, and I said the Alien and Sedation Act, and they were like, what? And but the The election of 1800 is probably the one of the ugliest elections in history. Adams is accused of everything, including being an hermaphrodite. How's that for a chart? And that day it's a big deal. Yeah. And Callender goes to work and he does this magnificent job on destroying Adams. And Jefferson is paying him for that. And of course, Jefferson and Burr will defeat Adams. And the interesting thing is that Callendar, that terrible individual that that uh Jefferson hired. Eventually went to Thomas Jefferson as president and say, I want to raise. Look at all the good work I've done. And Jefferson said no. And then Callender releases the Sally Hemming story. If you've ever wondered where the Sally Heming story comes from, it comes from Jefferson's own attack dog. Since he wouldn't give him a raise, he bit him in the ass. And of course, that has stuck with Jefferson ever since. Interesting thing. Jefferson also wanted to get rid of Burr because they were tied, and there was a lot of dirty politics going on. I always find that Hamilton, Burr, and Jefferson are somewhat similar. That's why they all hated each other.
SPEAKER_00:Different sides of the same coin.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, very much so. I've often thought of Sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Go ahead. I think the difference about Hamilton is he'll do anything to win what it's less personal, it's more agenda. Where I think for Jefferson and Burr, it's more personal success than actually ideological success. But that's just my impression.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I I've always looked at it this way. If Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr were sitting at the bank of the river and I was drowning, Jefferson would walk away. Hamilton would help if there was an audience. And do it. He'd help. And he did many times. I mean, Burr's not a great guy, but he did a lot of very good things that people don't know about. But Hamilton, as I said, was an audience. You know, because he wanted to be seen. He was always, he always had to be a star.
SPEAKER_00:And uh just well, think about where he came from. So, I mean, he's different than all of them. Yeah, and he's got a chip on his shoulder. And he's got something to prove.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and of course, he and Burr would have a little argument. And Burr gave him lots of chances to sit there and say, you know, I'm sorry. But he said, I refuse to apologize. And it's interesting, nobody knows exactly what the argument is about. But several people have, including, you know, Gour Videll, often stated that uh Hamilton said very bad things about Burr's daughter. And Bairr's daughter, he treated in a very special way. She was highly educated, Theodosia. And she went to university, she spoke several languages, and uh he was basically saying something really awful about her, and Daddy got mad. Could be. I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Listen, Daddy loved his daughter. Yeah, he sure did. He loved her. One of the few things that are documented, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. He adored her. And and as I said, he educated her and he wanted to make her into something really wonderful. And and Hamilton insulted her. Insulted him. And uh whatever it was, you know, think about these politicians, they called each other every name in the book. It had to be something really awful to make him get so angry. And so we'll never really know. But he suggested that Hamilton suggested incest between him and his daughter.
SPEAKER_00:And and think about it, Hamilton's son had just died not that long before by a duel. Yes. And and his wife had been a lot been through a lot with him because he had an affair that became through this mechanism of of treachery. It's it became between Burr and Jefferson and all that. They became well known that Hamilton had this affair. His wife, who was an amazing woman by all accounts, certainly a woman ahead of her time, much like Abigail.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Had a hard time. He never seemed to think of her.
SPEAKER_04:But he was concerned about himself. And he had affairs with so many people. You know, it's a it's amazing. I mean, Martha Washington, whenever she'd see an alley cat go by, she used to call it Alexander Hamilton. And Sarah was no different, and Jefferson was no different. Jefferson broke his wrist jumping out a window when the husband of the woman he was having an affair with came in.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's that's happened to some of us, so I don't know. I've jumped out of a few windows. Not with married people, but I've jumped out of a few windows of my day.
SPEAKER_04:But as I said, they're they're very similar in so many respects. And one of the reasons why they hated each other, and they all hated Adams.
SPEAKER_00:And that's why he has the rap he has today.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. They basically, collectively in the election of 1800, Hamilton wrote an entire booklet about the insanity of John Adams. And the Democratic the Republicans found it and published it. Which basically finished off Hamilton in his career. I mean, he couldn't get elected dog catcher at this point. And of course, then he's killed. You know, it's an interesting thing. If you go to his tomb in uh New York City, Trinity Church, you'll discover that his tombstone was paid for by Trinity Church. Really?
SPEAKER_00:Because he was broke, completely broke. And his wife his wife is buried like partly askew right next to him.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and his son is there somewhere, but they don't know where he is exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so.
SPEAKER_04:You know, the fascinating thing also is the guns that were used in the duel, the son had used the same guns in the duel. And they also had a hair trigger.
SPEAKER_00:I think of I always think when I hear that, I always think of Hemingway killing himself with the same gun his father killed himself with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And you think about it, no one told Burr it had a hair trigger.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe at the end of the day, if we put it all together, you know, Burr is, you know, uh Burr was known as a bad shot. Yeah, a child of that's what Hamilton was was counting on. I mean, I know that they try to make it like Hamilton pointed up in the air and Burr shot him when he was pointing in the air, but I'm not sure. Who knows what happened to him? I'm not sure about that. There's a lot of defenders of Hamilton.
SPEAKER_04:But you also have to remember for a few minutes before the duel, Hamilton in front of Burr was doing target practice and practicing. I mean, that's insane. Scared the hell out of Burr.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, think about what it took if you've ever been to the spot. It's up on the top of the cliff that overlooks in the New Jersey side of New York City. I mean, today's world you get in your car and you drive up to the top, but in that world, it must have been a hike to get up there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they went up there with their seconds and did the thing. And of course, that kind of ended Burr's career. And at this point, Adams retires and goes home. And retires and becomes a farmer. And he said, I've traded politics for manure. One thing about Adams is he has a great sense of humor. He said, I'm gonna go home and give horsey ride to his grandchildren and stuff like that. And at this point, his son is really starting to take off, John Quincy. And George Washington said of John Quincy Adams, he's the most important man we have in government right now. And he was so correct in that idea. John Quincy at this point teaches at Harvard. And he in 1810 these books come out.
SPEAKER_03:These are best if I just read the title.
SPEAKER_04:It's the Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory by John Quincy Adams. It was published for his students. After the students got their copies and people bought them, the rest of them were sent to the old house in Quincy. And the old man, John Adams, proud father, starts sending copies of the books to friends, relatives, and political associates. He had not spoken to Jefferson in years. And Benjamin Rush. You know, Benjamin Rush is such a fascinating character. We never really hear about him too much. He's the father of American psychiatry and so much, so much more. And he is a good friend of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. And he writes a letter to John Adams in 1809 and said, I had a dream. I had a dream that my son pulled out a history book. And it said, for the year of 1809, John Adams with great humility wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas Jefferson returned, in turn, wrote a letter to Adams, restoring an old friendship. And the two would send letters to each other for many years for which historians love to read and study, etc. I'm paraphrasing. And that they would die at practically the same time and fall into the grave together. Now he wrote that in 1809. It wasn't until January 1st, 1812 that John Adams wrote a letter and sent two of these books, which he called Homespun, to Thomas Jefferson. And yes, he wrote back to J to Adams and read the books and complimented the homespun. And they wrote lots and lots and lots of letters back and forth to each other. And my God, they did fall into the grave at practically the same time. It was the same day. July 4th, 1826. Now, the whole thing with Benjamin Rush, he just could have waited and written the letter afterwards. Right. He died in 1813. The amazing thing about Benjamin Rush, you want to talk about the gift of prophecy. That's an amazing gift of prophecy that he wrote.
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:And when Adams and Jefferson finally reconciled together, Benjamin Rush wrote them both and was so exact, very, very happy. And then he died. And his death cemented the relationship.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you realize that this is all there is, and time is running out.
SPEAKER_04:And so they they wrote this this whole thing, a whole book. Massive. All the letters between Jefferson and Adams and Abigail. And there's so many books about John Adams. Perhaps one of my favorites outside of McCullough's was The Passionate Sage. It's about Adams and his retirement. And I wanted to mention something about these. Who did these belong to? William Stephen Smith.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:They were given to him by John Adams. So I have my little piece of homespun here. Which is I have this from John Adams through William Stephen Smith and uh part of my library. One last thing to mention, if I may, because there's so much more, but good lord, we could go on for a month of some days. I went to the old house in in uh 2005 and I took the tour. And at the end of the tour, one of the heads there said, You're with Edison, aren't you? And I said, Yeah, I run the Edison Mental Park Museum at the time. And he said, We've got a question here. We're trying to figure out if Brooks Adams used Edison or Tesla. And I realized he meant Westinghouse, but Tesla, I understood DC, to light the whole house. And so we went in and went through the entire house, digging through every room, looking and searching to find out where the power unit must be. It was the most educational thing about the Adams family. I got to all the room, you know, sitting there hanging out in the library, looking around and just searching, going to the room.
SPEAKER_00:A little bit better than a regular tour, huh?
SPEAKER_04:Yes. And he was saying to me, he said, we haven't had this much activity looking around since David McCullough was here. And and so we searched through the whole house and finally found a room where the generator was. And we discovered a chimney that they didn't know existed. So that was sort of like my little discovery in the Adams homestead. I was hoping they'd name the chimney after me.
SPEAKER_00:But they didn't. So how how did it become that you acquired those books? This is a wild story.
SPEAKER_04:I'm sure it is. That's why I asked. I, for many, many years, I wanted to get a set of these books, but they're too expensive. I can't afford them. I'm a poor historian. I mean, there weren't many made. Yeah, there's not it's not a big not a large publication of the first edition.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_04:I looked on eBay one day. And there they were. And it had a minimum bid of$80. Nobody else bid.
SPEAKER_00:That's how I got my first photograph.
SPEAKER_04:And I I didn't know who they belonged to. I could not read the writing in the front initially. And then one day I happened to be looking at it. I'm going, William Smith, I know that name. William Smith, William Smith. And then all of a sudden everything started to click. And what he did, I don't know if I can show this to you, probably not going to be very easy to do. And no, it's not going to be able to be done. On the top of the page, he wrote 187 on each book. And I'm like going, what's that all about? So I instinctively went to page 187. And maybe this will come out. He signed it here.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:He signed the book, and each one of these books is signed in three locations by William Steven Stephen Smith. Very, very important person in the American Revolution. And he was the one in charge of Evacuation Day in New York. He did an awful lot and then ran into issues with Jefferson. But that's how I got the that's how I got the books. And it took me 10 years to figure out who they were for. I just didn't look at that too carefully and was more concerned with the fact that I've got John Quincy Adams' book. But it turns out that I have one of the members of the Adams family's copies. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right?
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So, so, so, you know, that tradition just lived on, you know, the the education, the, you know, ability to deal with problems, to think out of the box, to come up with amazing solutions to fight for what they needed. That just lived on.
SPEAKER_04:John Quincy Adams, and it's Quincy Oase. I learned that many years ago I was in Martha's Vineyard and I was at a party, and there's a lovely old actress named Ruth Gordon. Oh, yeah. And she sat there and said, I'm from Quincy. And I said, she said, that's how it's pronounced. She was born in Quincy. Because I hear so often people say John Quincy Adams. Quincy Adams. I'll keep that in mind. And uh the interesting thing is that John Adams was a wonderful teacher to his son. Thomas Jefferson was a wonderful teacher to his son. Benjamin Franklin was a wonderful teacher to his son. John Quincy Adams had the most incredible education and is considered to this day to be probably the most intelligent president we've ever had. You've got to remember he wrote the Monroe Doctrine. He worked on freeing the Amistad slave, formulating the Smith. Institution. He changed so much. He was not very successful as president, very much like his father. But afterwards, he did some of the most incredible things, including to teach William Seward. William Seward became a great friend of John Quincy Adams. And John Quincy Adams became an advocate to ending slavery. And of course, the most important thing of all, when Abraham Lincoln becomes the president, who is his Secretary of State? William Seward. And a lot of the influences of John Quincy Adams find their way into the Lincoln administration. A very, very important family. It had such a profound effect.
SPEAKER_00:Seems to uh be a great place to leave it. I think he was the the perfect per person to do out of this group that we're probably gonna do regarding others. I know we talked about famous assassinated presidents, but I think given the 250-year anniversary, I think we should do whatever president you want to. Okay. It doesn't have to be a founding father, but whatever interests you interests me, and hopefully interests our listeners.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I wanted to give John Adams a good fair shake because you know something, as I said, McCullough has written a book, lots of people. Ellis has written books on it. So many people have written books on Adams, but go to Washington, D.C. There's not one statue of him. And to think what he did. You know, we used to call Edison the indispensable man, but in many respects I have to say the same thing for John Adams. Think of everything that he did. It's time for him to get a memorial, a statue, something in Washington, DC. I think that would be important. So that's enough. I've been babbling at you for a while.
SPEAKER_00:Hour and a half. Thank you. Thank you much, everybody. Thank you for listening, Jack. Always a pleasure. Likewise. Thank you. Okay. And uh we all look forward to hearing and seeing you again. Okay. You take care. Bye.
