Honest John Adams Self-revealed
NEVINS, ALLAN
Honest John Adams Self-revealed THE ADAMS PAPERS: VOLUMES l-IV Edited by Lyman H. Butterfield Harvard. 1,526 pp. $30.00. Reviewed by ALLAN NEVINS Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia...
...The papers of this formidable family are the richest such collection on the continent...
...Readers will find them as interesting as they are inspiring...
...But Henry Adams rescued it by attaining a fame as historian, essayist and thinker which equalled that of any forbear...
...He was incessantly industrious, interested in science, political theory, and literature, an omnivorous reader and a minute observer of life...
...A much broader man than Alexander Hamilton, John Adams was not much less versatile than Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson...
...instead, he was often frankly hot with passion and as introspectively self-critical as Washington was cold and self-contained...
...By publishing the diary and the autobiography separately (Charles Francis Adams, Sr...
...They will find, too, that the text is so enriched by Butterfield's scholarly editing, which enlarges a fine American tradition in such work, that the set offers almost a history of the era in which the Republic was born...
...He gladly accepted the good offices of Dr...
...Charles Francis Sr...
...In effect, these four volumes constitute a new revelation of stalwart John Adams...
...His vanity was colossal and gave him an unsleeping touchiness...
...But Adams never, or almost never, let his irritable personal pride sway him to the hurt of the nation...
...They mark the inception of what will be a monumental collection of from 80-100 books...
...Benjamin Rush in renewing his friendship with Jefferson, and when the two Presidents died on the same day they left a splendid legacy in their later letters to one another...
...Every public library, every school and many homes should have these four volumes...
...In courage, in honesty, in incessant labor for the public good, and in high-minded liberalism, John Adams set an example which his countrymen might give more attention and honor today...
...He would have liked a broad reconciliation with Britain after 1783...
...His refusal to join in the ceremonies of Jefferson's inauguration in 1801 was one of the most childish acts of which a President has ever been guilty...
...As he told George III on a famous occasion, he had "no attachment but to my own country," and he proved it even when proof in 1800 meant party ruin and banishment from power...
...It is easy to see why many people disliked him...
...By turns, he was farmer, schoolteacher, lawyer, politician, legislator, diplomat, executive and philosopher...
...He was by no means so aloof and Olympian as Washington...
...It was therefore an event of national importance when, in 1954, the Harvard University Press agreed to publish a dignified edition of the Adams papers, and the trustees of the Adams Manuscript Trust conveyed all right and title in them to the Massachusetts Historical Society...
...His public and private integrity was unshakable...
...But a force they remained...
...Always respected, they were never much liked by their countrymen...
...He appears so likeable in his combination of faults and virtues, so creative in his talents, and so intrepid in facing the storms of his time, that it is impossible not to wonder why the people he served so well never really took him to their hearts...
...author, "The War for the Union" No American family rivals the Adamses in distinction of intellect and character, in force of personality and in public service combined with literary talent...
...His certainty that he was right on all great issues was unbending...
...During five generations, the Adamses were a living force in national affairs and culture...
...Reviewed by ALLAN NEVINS Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia University...
...They were never democrats...
...earned public gratitude by editing the works of John Adams and the great journals of John Quincy Adams...
...had confusingly intermingled them), and restoring many omitted passages, Butterfield fully exhibits John Adams's human qualities...
...If not a democrat, he was a complete patriot —indeed, the more patriotic in that he scorned mere popular applause...
...This record will be followed by the diary of John Quincy Adams, which Butterfield terms "probably the fullest record of its kind created by an American statesman," with many previously suppressed passages...
...Still, even in our own time, Henry Adams II kept" tigerish guard over the treasure, bending a suspicious gaze on the rare scholar he let peer into it...
...John Quincy) Adams...
...Adams was quick to quarrel publicly and angrily with all opponents from John Dickinson in 1775 to Timothy Pickering in 1800...
...Though sometimes petty, Adams was often large-minded...
...Butterfield has done for John Adams all that Julian Boyd has done for Jefferson, and what Leonard Labaree is doing for Franklin...
...No praise could be higher...
...As a diplomat in France and Britain, he took care to keep his general criticisms of both peoples to himself lest they impair his usefulness...
...Most historic famihes begin brilliantly and end feebly, and the Adams line, with two Presidents at its head, might have seemed certain to illustrate the rule...
...and this in turn by the as yet completely unpublished diary of Charles Francis Adams, Sr., in 16 or 18 volumes, with perhaps a separate volume of the journals and recollections of his mother, Louisa Catherine (Mrs...
...Here we have, in 1,526 pages, the diary of John Adams from 1755-1804 (though it effectively closes in 1796), and the autobiography down to the spring of 1780...
...After Charles Francis Adams, Sr., it would have been absurd for any of them to seek elective offices...
...The issuance of the first four volumes, superbly edited by Lyman H. Butterfield and beautifully produced by the Press, is again an event of national interest...
...In fact, he tactlessly advertised all such convictions...
...His public courage was monumental and yet very human...
...He never concealed his contempt for Tom Paine, his vindictive hatred for Hamilton (which was amply reciprocated), and his belief that Franklin was lazy, loose in morals, and ready to take part in treacherous schemes...
...To be sure, they were increasingly a force outside the mainstream of American life...
...As Edward Everett Hale said after inspecting them at Quincy, they constitute almost "a manuscript history of America.' Until recent years they were strictly guarded as a family archive...
Vol. 44 • December 1961 • No. 39
