Welcome to my discussion of the second president of the United States, John Adams.  I’m still on the ninth book in this series (I didn’t read much this week). I think that I want to remain several books ahead of the story that I’m publishing in a given week, because I’ve found that knowing what’s coming helps add perspective to the story of the week. This is conflicting with the idea that I want to write these stories as soon as possible after I’ve read the book. My plan is to put down my thoughts as I’m reading now. Books three through eight will suffer a little because I’m just going to forget a lot about what I’ve read by the time I get to the write up.

Adams was a one-term president and his role as his presidency, among the first five presidencies, seems like the least successful and it is not surprising that he is lightly regarded relative to the others. But, John Adams cannot and should not be defined solely by his presidency (this is also true for the other four, but relative to all presidents, Adams' contribution outside of the presidency is very impressive, I think). Prior to becoming president, he was a diplomat serving in France, England, and the Netherlands in two separate periods. He took his son John Quincy Adams with him on the first tour (but not his wife or other children) and the young JQ absorbed life in Europe, becoming fluent in multiple languages and setting himself up as perhaps the greatest Secretary of State in the nation’s history along with being the President of the United States. But that’s a story for another day.

Adams, unlike the other of the first five presidents (all Virginian planters) was a Northern lawyer and he, along with his son, were the only of the first twelve U.S. presidents who did not own slaves. He was a hard-working, driven politician who believed strongly in the United States and favored a strong federal government. He was the only president elected as a member of the Federalist party, which was completely eliminated as a party by 1820.

Background

Adams was born on October 30, 1735 and he died on July 4, 1826 during his son John Quincy Adams’s presidency. Of course, July 4, 1826 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. His final words were purported to be “Thomas Jefferson survives”, but that was, in fact, not true, as the third president of the United States and author of that Declaration had died hours before on the same day. John Adams as the second president of the United States from March 4, 1797 to March 4, 1801, serving just a single term and losing his re-election bid to his sitting vice president, Mr. Jefferson.

John Adams would have had an amazing career without the presidency. He was a lawyer in the Boston area before the Revolution, and as a member of the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence. He was commissioner to France, a minister to the Dutch Republic, and a minister to England, spending a decade abroad in service to his country. (In those days, only certain countries had ambassadors, the US only had ministers.) He also served as the first vice president of the United States. Serving between two giants of American history, Adams is often overlooked, and his presidency was not an unqualified triumph. But, his contributions to the United States were important and his sacrifice for the country was remarkable. Unlike the reserved Washington, he was fiery and passionate and sometimes, well, he was wrong.

What I knew About Adams before Reading a Book About Him

I knew little about Adams before reading this book. The episode of Presidential dedicated to Adams drives home the point that most people know little about Adams – I’m hardly alone. I knew that he was a lawyer who defended British soldiers who were accused of the so-called Boston Massacre. I knew that he was Washington’s vice president, that he was a member of the Federalist party, that he had a reputation as a prickly character, and that he was the first president to lose a re-election bid. I also knew that he was from Massachusetts and that he was a punchline in the Hamilton musical. But, beyond that, I didn’t really know that much about him.

The Experience of Reading John Adams

For the second book in the series, I selected the Pulitzer Prize winning John Adams by David McCullough. I purchased this book on Kindle and read it on my iPad. The Kindle book is fully featured, allowing scrolling and all other features. It is 654 pages in length (exclusive of the end notes) and I read it in five days, ending on February 6, 2021. Compared to the Washington book that I read, this book is much easier to read. McCullough wrote an accessible book that is entertaining as well as informative. He was greatly aided by the large number of letters between John and Abagail Adams as well as John’s writing in his own diary. The Adams family preserved these documents and McCullough (and James Traub, who wrote JQA book I read) put them to good use.

Adams was not an easy man; his impatience and prickly personality got him into tough situations. In his career as a diplomat, he had a tough job trying to advocate for a fledgling country with no real power engaged in a battle against the most powerful country in the world. The job was tough enough, but it appears that he made it tougher because he wasn't blessed with a diplomatic disposition. But what emerges in the book is a picture of a man who is duty bound, who loves his new country, who is a brilliant thinker (although sometimes misguided) and who will do what is asked of him in service to his country.

As an old man, Adams was a man who threw off the cares of his political life. He was blessed (especially in those days!) to live a very long life and mend some proverbial fences with his frenemy, Thomas Jefferson. The letters that Adams sent to Jefferson were interesting, touching, and sometimes amusing (he just couldn't let some things be).  Adams as a political being and a father was tough and unyielding. Adams as an old man and as a husband was loving and kind-hearted. The post presidency portion of the book was my favorite.

It is undoubtedly true that McCullough is sympathetic to Adams, and a more critical biographer would probably have not painted such a rosy picture of him. In his review of John Adams, Stephen Floyd (the proprietor of the site bestpresidentialbios.com), points out that Adams himself couldn’t have been more delighted in the treatment that McCullough affords him, especially in fights with Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson.

Adams’s Life Before Presidency

Adams grew up very poor (in the Presidential podcast, McCullough says his family was about as poor as Lincoln’s), but he was a bright and hardworking student. He was educated at Harvard University and became a lawyer in the Boston area. His most famous case was defending British soldiers in the so-called Boston Massacre of 1770 winning acquittal for six of his eight clients. He did this despite his role in what would become the American Revolution, an admirable decision in supporting the idea that all people deserve competent representation.

McCullough points out that the Boston Massacre showed Adams’ bravery and this same bravery was evident in various episodes throughout his life. During the trial, he said the following, which is (or should be) a fundamental underpinning of criminal justice: “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 without the help of drug crime law firm. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection.” If there are drink and drive cases, DWI law firm serving in New Jersey can be checked out and their attorneys can be hired to solve the cases.  During this period, he moved his family back to the family home in Braintree (now Quincy), MA while he stayed in Boston with his law practice. This would become a theme in his life: separated from his family in service of his work.

Adams was also a member of the First Continental Congress of 1774 in Philadelphia, again leaving his family behind in Massachusetts. He also was a member of the Second Continental Congress and he nominated George Washington to head the Continental Army. He also organized a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence and persuaded Jefferson to write the document, convincing Jefferson that he should do it in part because he, Adams, was obnoxious and unpopular and that Jefferson was a better writer. The rest, as they say, is history. This was the first, but not the last time that he and Jefferson would work together as a team. Once again, Adams was brave, knowing that an unsuccessful effort here would end with him swinging from a tree. This is confirmed later in the book when he was in Europe – the English were prepared to spare some of the Revolutionaries had things gone differently. Adams was going to have a rope around his neck, though.

Adams was sent to France in 1777 as a commissioner to assist Benjamin Franklin among with negotiating an alliance to help with the Revolutionary War, which was going… not great. He sailed to France, taking John Quincy with him. The trip was a difficult one, with the main mast breaking and the ship getting several hundred miles off course. Despite having never sailed across the ocean before, Adams observed the sailing and by the end of the trip he was instructing the captain how to sail. It is not true that this captain invented the eyeroll emoji in response, but one can imagine that he was, in fact, perfecting that maneuver in real life. After six long weeks aboard the ship, Adams arrived in France only to learn that an alliance had been agreed to before he had even left the United States. After about one year, Adams returned to the US and six months later, he returned to France, this time charged with negotiating a treaty with the British to end the war.

Abigail would eventually join him in Paris and they would eventually move to London when John was named the first US minister to England. There is a lot of detail about Adams’s adventures in Europe (including his work with Jefferson), his time in Amsterdam, and his various, pretty much fruitless efforts to get aid for America during the war. Although later political adversaries, while in France, Jefferson and Adams were friends who worked together, and JQ spent a lot of time with the 3^rd president.  Adams tried hard, yes, he did, but his natural role was not as that of a diplomat.  Nevertheless, Adams did work on getting the Treaty of Paris signed to end the war. Adams was not part of the drafting of the Constitution, he was over in England, trying (unsuccessfully) to get the parties to the Paris Treaty to honor it.

One of the key insights in this time in France for me was that Adams, in working with Franklin found him to be much less than he originally thought. By this time in his life, Franklin was old. Adams saw him as lazy, unorganized, not careful with money, and content to live a good life in France. Adams worked to learn the French language and he discovered that Franklin could barely speak it. It is probably true, though, that Franklin had a certain je ne sais quoi that made him more effective than Adams in dealing with the French. Adams was a typical Northeasterner, industrious, impatient, looking for results. Franklin, was a lot more subtle I think (perhaps too subtle). I would like to learn more about Franklin’s time in France, to be sure.

Coming back to the United States in 1788, he almost immediately was elected to the vice presidency. One imagines that Adams had a Selina Meyer level of frustration with the office. While supportive of the Administration, he was largely ignored by Washington and not a part of the Administration power structure. He did attend the Senate and presided over it religiously (something almost unheard of in modern times). He got involved in a naming controversy related to the president. He was advocating a fancy title for the president (His Majesty), but lost that argument, thankfully. Adams felt that this title would put the president on equal footing with the Kings of Europe, but that was precisely out of step with the American idea.

Someone like Adams would never, ever rise to the presidency today, he had poor political instincts, and he was already out of step by 1800. Nevertheless, he was elected in 1796 with Jefferson coming in second in the election. Thus, Jefferson, by now Adams’s political rival, was his vice president. Jefferson would run, as a sitting vice president, against the incumbent Adams in 1800 and defeat him. Prior to the 12^th Amendment, each elector would cast two votes for president and the winner would be the person with the most votes, with the runner-up being named vice president. This obviously was a weakness in the Constitution, and it would rear its head in the 1800 election more dramatically. But, having a vice president actively opposed to the president, especially someone as influential as Jefferson, well, that’s not exactly going to be good for your presidency.

Key Challenges/Features of Adams’s Presidency

Probably the biggest challenge of the Adams presidency was the relationship between the US and its erstwhile friend, France. Adams found himself in somewhat of a cold war with France. Adams had soured on France during his time over Europe and he saw the French Revolution as not being a great positive, while his VP was more enthusiastic about the Revolution and was relatively unbothered by the Reign of Terror in France (which occurred during the Washington presidency). Adams called for an increase of defense spending. He was an advocate for an increase in naval power for the US and pushed to have ships built and a navy raised. Considering the relative importance of shipping in the late 18^th Century and the dangers that the US ships faced in the Atlantic, Adams’s priorities here hardly seemed to be misplaced. (His vice president would eventually undo some of Adams’s efforts here and that was a boneheaded move.)

Adams sent a peace commission to France, while Jefferson met with the French minister in Philadelphia, Joseph Letombe. Letombe’s report back to France painted Jefferson in an extremely unfavorable light, appearing to actively undermine the president of the United States. Meanwhile, French agents demanded bribes from the peace commissioners in came to be known as the XYZ affair. Adams decided to not make this information public, but rather said that the peace commission failed. Republicans (i.e., Jefferson’s allies) demanded that the information be made public, assuming that Adams was withholding information favorable to the French. Playing the part of the rake to the Republicans’ Sideshow Bob, Adams released the papers, showing the bribe demands. Imagine a party being more supportive of a foreign power than to the President of the United States. The mere thought of it today would drink one to drink (vodka).

Adams, though, frittered away his advantage by signing a series of laws known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These Acts gave the president the authority to deport people more freely and increased citizenship requirements. Adams deported a total of zero people under these laws and few convictions under the Sedition Act were realized. These acts were unpopular and fueled the opposition to Adams. An own goal, to be sure. The state of Kentucky wrote a resolution that states had the natural right to nullify acts they deemed unconstitutional, a stunning assertion and a notion that reverberates in some fevered swamps until this day. The Kentucky resolution was authored anonymously by none other than the vice president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson.

I mentioned in the comments of the Washington post that Yellow Fever was a real problem in Philadelphia during the summers in the Washington (and Adams) presidency. As a result, the Federal Government largely abandoned Philadelphia during the summer months. The VP Jefferson was away during one period for 10 months(!). The Yellow Fever was a bad assed disease and in one summer, 5,000 Philadelphians died (of a population of 50,000). The people of the 1800s did not understand how the virus was being transmitted (it was via mosquitoes and you can read this content to know more about it). It turns out that there now is a vaccine now for yellow fever that is one of the most effective vaccines ever produced. I have also found out that Yellow Fever was brought to the United States in the first place from Africa. Now, what was it that the United States was importing from Africa again?

With his vice president actively working against him (and running against him!), the campaign for re-election (such as it was, Adams didn’t believe in directly campaigning for office), was going to be a heavy lift. Adams chances for re-election were dashed, though, by Hamilton, a Federalist, who wanted to wage a war with France. Adams had continued with the peace effort with France was able to avoid a war with France. I mentioned in the Washington write up that Adams had asked Washington to raise an Army in preparation of a war with France. Washington wanted to have control of his staff and wanted Hamilton to be his number two. Adams was not in favor of that – his trusted Hamilton about as much as Jefferson did, which is to say not at all – and he demanded that he have the final say as to rank, not Washington. Adams capitulated. But he also sent a second peace commission to France, which was successful. Hamilton was outraged. For all of the hand wringing that the Republicans had about Hamilton, it was Adams who curbed him and he paid the price for it.

It is interesting how enthusiastic the Americans were for war with France, considering how badly the Revolutionary War had gone before the French helped. Even a decade plus later, the War of 1812 was hardly a smashing military success and resulted in Washington getting sacked. Lots of fighting spirit these Americans had, kind of a speak loudly and carry a little stick energy.

Adams's peace with France ripped apart the Federalists -- Hamilton was against him -- and ended his chance for re-election. He finished third in the election to Jefferson and Aaron Burr, who tied (we will talk about that next time). His presidency and public life were over. In my view, avoiding a war with France was much more important than his re-election, he chose wisely for the country. If you apply the Woodward test to the Adams presidency, it appears that dealing with the French threat was the next greater good that Adams saw as his priority. That he kept the United States out of war suggests a successful presidency. But, that he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, laws that foreshadow issues that exist until this day, one could also say that Adams ventured or allowed himself to be pulled too far toward the politics of fear in that effort.

In the waning moments of his presidency, Adams signed a bill to expand the judiciary (known as the Midnight Justices Act, Jefferson would undo a lot of it) and add judges that were sympathetic to his positions (that NEVER happens anymore, heh). He also appointed a guy named John Marshall to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which may just have been his most consequential presidential act.

Adams’s Post-Presidency

Adams retired to his family farm (still in existence, I hope to tour it some day) and lived a relatively simple life in his post-presidency. The key feature was that after several years of acrimony, he re-established communications with his old friend Thomas Jefferson. These letters between Jefferson and Adams were fascinating to me. Adams had a real personal connection with Jefferson dating back to their time together in Europe and he was willing to overlook the absolute disloyalty that Jefferson showed him during his presidency and communicate with him as a friend and as a fellow framer of this new country. He wasn’t above raising old issues to rehash with Jefferson, but the Virginian did not appear to take the bait. He outlived his beloved wife and saw his own beloved son ascend to the presidency.

Adams’s Family Life

Adams married Abigail Smith in 1764 and they had six children, including the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams. While I had reason to doubt that George and Martha Washington were participants in an especially loving union, there is little doubt about John and Abigail’s abiding love for each other. Abigail was also a strong political ally of her husband and a source of counsel during his life, which was highly unusual in that time.

Adams was not born from wealth, but he did acquire some amount of money during his life. Unlike the planters that were president around him, he did not live a life of luxury, but he clung to relatively simple tastes. He died with an estate worth about $100,000 according to McCullough, which made him a fairly wealthy man for his times. You can hire probate attorney Tomes Law Firm, PC, here for the best estate attorneys.  If you want to know how to avoid probate on these estates, you can check it out from here! Attorneys from Business Planning Law Firm in Bloomfield Hills expressed that it was untold in the book that how I read about Adams (but recounted in the book about his son), he lost a large share of his fortune when a bank that held his money failed. His son, JQA bailed him out by buying the family farm from him and allowing him to live on it for the rest of his life. It is unclear to me, then, how Adams had an estate worth $100,000. Nevertheless, he did not have the financial problems of his three successors. If you wish to know why start a will early, and their advantages, you can check it out here!

Adams was not an easy man to have as a father. He was demanding and exacting, especially with regards to JQA. Unlike his brothers, JQA rose to the demands from his father. His brothers, though, were not capable of living up to such a standard and were generally disappointments to their father. He was an ally to JQA’s wife, Louisa when she had few others and he was welcoming toward other daughters-in-law and his grandchildren.

John Adams: The Man

When I think about Adams, I think about a man of high integrity, of high honor, and a man with high intelligence, but limited in his ability to see things from others’ perspectives. In other words, he was arrogant and that was to his detriment. He was simultaneously well-impressed with his own intellect, but full of self-doubt (well-founded!) in his ability to be a leader of men. The impression one gets of Washington is that he was maybe not the most gifted intellectual to ever walk on the face of the earth, but he was a leader.  Adams was not a leader of men; he had few allies. There’s no denying, though that he was a great thinker and writer – he drafted the Massachusetts constitution, which predates the US Constitution and is the world’s oldest functioning constitution. When we get to JQA, we will see a man more suited to the Congress than the White House and I think that John Adams, senator from Massachusetts, would have been a good role for him.

When it came to the idea of “all men being created equal”, he had a nuanced view of that assertion. He concluded that all men were not, in fact, created equal. Some men were smarter, more industrious, etc. than others and to believe otherwise was preposterous to him. I would say, though, that he was clearly an advocate of equal protection under the law and the notion of due process – he exhibited that early on in his defense of British soldiers in the Boston Massacre.

John Adams’s America

I mentioned that the second term of Washington’s presidency that differences were arising and that continued during the Adams presidency. The Democratic-Republicans, led by Jefferson and his intellectual equal (if not superior), James Madison, actively opposed Adams’s presidency. The Federalists as a whole were relatively sympathetic to the idea of a monarchy and close association with England. The D-Rs on the other hand, were committed to the idea of a Republic and sympathetic to France and especially the French Revolution. The end of the Adams presidency was extremely damaging to the Federalist party and it was virtually completely eliminated as a functioning party as I mentioned above by 1820. The whys of that will be explored in the Monroe story in more detail.

Of course, slavery remained an issue in the US, although most political leaders “abhorred” it. By kicking the can down the road, they were able to wash their hands of it and remained complicit in the furtherance of slavery. I’ve read about the presidency to the year 1840 so far, and by that time, politicians were arguing that slavery was actually a good thing. I haven’t gotten beyond 1840 and we don’t have slaves now, so I’m sure that was solved in an amicable way, agreeable to all.

It is hard to pin any of the slavery issues on Adams, though. He never owned slaves and he and Abigail were astonished to see slaves as part of the building of the White House. Adams moved into a partially finished White House in 1800 and the capital city of 1800 was basically a couple of buildings (the White House and the Capitol, and some boarding houses) in a swamp.

What Really Surprised Me

Part of what I found surprising in the Washington book carried over into this one. The effort to establish this country did not result in a large scale effort by the new American citizens to rise up against the British. One of the things that Adams laments was that during the Second Continental Congress was that actual attendance during the Congress was low – and Adams was exasperated that Jefferson begged off of attendance, citing personal matters.

I was also surprised by the length of Adams’ time in Europe. I suppose I must have known about this at one time, but really, I had no idea that he spent basically a decade in Europe, from shortly after the start of the Revolution to the completion of the Constitution (with only a small break in between). He had an interesting mission separate from the foundational moments of the country.

What one person (not a president) would I want to read about from John Adams’s era as President?

One thing that I've learned during this process is that there is more than one side to a story. Events recounted in one book can be handled much differently in another. The discussion of Benjamin Franklin in this book was very interesting. Adams clearly thought that Franklin wasn’t really doing what he should be doing in France. It would be interesting to get a different perspective.

However, the person that I want to read more about from Adams’ era is John Marshall. I attended the first week of Constitutional Law class when I was in law school, so I know about Marshall’s (and the United States’) most important decision, Marbury v. Madison. I will admit that I did not know that Marshall was appointed by Adams (looking back at my Con Law book, it mentions that, apparently, I forgot that), that he was secretary of state under Adams, and the circumstances around his appointment. He may not have been the best legal mind to ever sit on the Court, but he was arguably the most influential. As an attorney myself, I have an interest in knowing more about his life.

Ranking

The latest Sienna poll rates John Adams as the 14^th best president in their latest poll (conducted in 2018). Adams rated highest in background (family, education, experience) (3^rd), integrity, intelligence, and court appointments (all 4^th). His lowest rankings were in leadership ability (21^st), executive ability (21^st), luck (24^th), party leadership (28^th), and ability to compromise (31^st).

These assessments feel right in terms of rating his overall strengths and weaknesses. Adams was a brilliant man, well educated and he brought a wealth of experience to the job. His 11^th hour appointment of John Marshall as chief justice was maybe the most  consequential act of his presidency. Marshall solidified the role of the Supreme Court and authored some key decisions that clarified and strengthen the federal government’s role vis-à-vis the states in way that I believe was very beneficial to the country. That one appointment makes Adams’s presidency very consequential.

Adams was also an arrogant man who often made rash judgments. He was an elitist and he did not play well with others. He was willing to sacrifice liberties and create or perpetuate an environment of xenophobia in a time of what he considered a national security threat. But, he did not enforce those laws with any sort of impunity and he had the good judgment not to lead the country into a disastrous war.

The overall rankings have him as a second quartile president, the worst of the five founding fathers, but safely above average. His overall contribution to the country, though, rivals almost anyone of this age.

What I Was Looking Forward to after Reading this Book (in this journey through the presidents)

After reading this book, I was looking forward to reading about how Jefferson saw the rekindling of the relationship between he and Adams. Obviously, there was a lot to read about with Jefferson, but I was curious to see if Jefferson felt the same (unfortunately, this isn’t discussed much in the Jefferson book I selected). Of course, I also wanted to read about John Quincy Adams, who was prominent in parts of this book (and that book was my favorite so far).

How My Understanding Lines Up (or doesn’t) with the Washington Post's Presidential Podcast

One of the problems that I have writing these summaries is that it has been a relatively long time since I’ve read the McCullough book and I have read six more books. I did do some combing through the book, but I forgot some of the facts. The podcast interviews David McCullough, the author of the book that I wrote and he focuses a lot on the relationship between Adams and Jefferson. He points out, and I had forgotten this, that Jefferson had hired someone to write about Adams critically.

Looking at the book, however, I think McCullough misspoke as I believe he is talking about Jefferson’s actions during the Washington administration when he was Secretary of State. Jefferson hired a man named Philip Freneau as a translator in the State Department, which enticed him to come to Philadelphia to establish a newspaper critical of the Washington administration. Jefferson and Madison also contributed articles anonymously to the newspaper. I seem to remember that Freneau wasn’t actually able to translate anything and that his position was nothing more than a front to finance the paper. I am not aware of Jefferson doing this as vice president. It should be noted that Hamilton was doing basically the same thing in support of Washington (writing in a paper), but I don’t know that he was doing what Jefferson was doing in terms of giving Freneau a government job to support the newspaper. (Hamilton didn’t become president either.) When I have discussed at the site about how reading these books about the presidents has taken a lot of the shine off of Jefferson, this is the type of thing I’m talking about. The podcast talks about the letters between Adams and Jefferson and focuses on the debates between them, but it talks about Adams debating, and not that Jefferson responded.

The second half of the podcast talks about how there is no monument in Washington about Adams. Back in 2016, there was a movement (kind of) to get a monument to Adams, suggesting that it should focus on his opposition to slavery. They talked about a deadline of 2020 to get certain plans done and since we are now passed that year, I’m assuming that’s not going to happen. One of the people in the podcast, in response to a question about whether it is even worth it, gives a very interesting response. He says that people forget what they read in history books, but that a monument (especially in Washington) identifies what people and values we think are important and which ones we think aren’t. The use of monuments, he says, shape history. You don’t say. They go onto say that the people of the 18^th Century (Washington et al.) though that monuments were outdated (in the 18^th century!) and even dangerous because they elevate the cult of one person, that they elevate the accomplishments of the individuals over the masses and that they elevate authoritarian rule. That monuments are a way to contest a legacy. Just an unbelievable commentary from 2016 that was amazingly prescient. The speaker then makes the point that in today’s popular culture there are ways to advance a legacy that are far more effective than a stone monument, citing the HBO series on Adams and appearances by presidents in various forums. Those of us who are of a certain age will remember Clinton playing the saxophone on Arsenio or Obama on Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. Then, there was a president who had a reality series on TV. The last ten to fifteen minutes of this podcast, listened to again in 2021 are amazingly powerful.

The podcast, while mentioning the Alien and Sedition Acts, etc. focused on two things: his relationship with Washington and the lack of recognition overall and in the form of a monument for Adams. There is no doubt that McCullough believes that the Jefferson relationship is a key feature of Adams's life and since he was the guest of this podcast, it makes sense that my ability to comprehend the clear themes of his book put me in alignment of his brief assessment of Adams here. The more interesting discussion in the podcast is the monument talk, especially in view of the controversy relating to monuments over the past four years.

What We Can Learn from the Adams Presidency

When I think about the Adams presidency, I think about how he really did not fit all that well into this job. He was a brilliant man with a resume as long as his arm, but he really didn’t have leadership ability necessary for the job. Effective presidents are going to be those who can see the long term and can bend the public will in that direction.