The Adams Stamp
LANT, JEFFREY L.
The Adams Stamp THE ADAMS CHRONICLES: FOUR GENERATIONS OF GREATNESS, by Jack Shepherd. Introduction by Daniel J. Boorstin. Little, Brown. 448 pp. $17.50. THE BOOK OF ABIGAIL AND JOHN: SELECTED...
...One of the clues as to why John managed to solve this difficulty with greater success than other Adamses lies in his relationship with Abigail...
...This integrity, the hallmark of the family, won for the Adamses the admiration and respect not only of men who agreed with their opinions but of those enlightened opponents who saw the necessity of having men in the republic who strictly followed the dictates of their consciences regardless of the consequences...
...Less solemn men found them unsettling to be with, or they occasionally ridiculed members of the family for standing upon the dignity they insisted was due them for both public deeds and private virtues...
...In both the Presidential elections of 1800 and 1828, the Adamses, supposedly advocating the rule of an elite, fell before men who were hailed as representatives of "the people...
...Louisa Johnson Adams, John Quincy's wife, scarcely emerges as a lifelike figure and is overshadowed by her mother-in-law, Abigail...
...The truth is that the Adamses did not so much urge the rule of an elite as the rule of certain qualities of probity, integrity, and responsibility which were as yet largely restricted to an elite...
...Edited by L.H...
...The history of its members can scarcely be separated from the history of the republic itself...
...Harvard University Press...
...Thomas Jefferson, who defeated John Adams in his try for reelection to the Presidency in 1800, said of him, "He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probably effect of the motives which govern men...
...This Assembly is like no other that ever existed...
...THE BOOK OF ABIGAIL AND JOHN: SELECTED LETTERS OF THE ADAMS FAMILY, 1762-1784...
...Jeffrey L. Lant is a young historian at Harvard...
...His son Henry (1838-1918) was a writer (The Education of Henry Adams) and historian...
...they were dedicated to improvement and to an unending succession of edifying and serious concerns...
...Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline...
...However, as this small society of illuminati grew into a larger and more heterogeneous nation with different and more flexible standards, the position of the Adamses suffered...
...Such tension was a quintessential Adams problem...
...Every Man in it is a great Man—an orator, a Critick, a statesman, and therefore every Man upon every Question must shew his oratory, his Criticism, and his Political Abilities...
...411 pp...
...Her qualities of command, steady resolution, enlightened common sense, and perception were not matched by the wives of the other Adamses, none of whom found the satisfaction and fulfillment in marriage that John did...
...Even in a society of enlightened men, the Adamses were bound to have some difficulties...
...To a large extent they "failed" because they could not resolve the tension between self-doubt and determination...
...His fellow members, although they did not regard Adams without fault, returned the compliment...
...Despite distinguished careers, both men went through profound periods of self-doubt, undervaluing themselves because they were convinced they had not measured up to the standards of eminence established by their forebears...
...Their stuffiness did not assist their public careers, which were otherwise distinguished by hard work, self-sacrifice, and uncompromising integrity...
...He wrote to his wife, Abigail, in October 1774: "The Business of the Congress is tedious beyond expression...
...They were a prickly bunch, thin-skinned, fretful, and long-suffering...
...Shall I creep or fly...
...There is less material on the Adams women in Jack Shepherd's book, The Adams Chronicles...
...John Quincy, his son, described himself in his diary as "a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners...
...Abigail is the only one who receives much notice...
...A bold Push, a resolute Attempt, a determined Enterprize, or a slow, silent, imperceptible creeping...
...He is as disinterested as the Being who made him...
...This distinction never became apparent to the mass of Americans who persisted in regarding the Adamses as either crypto-monarchists or aristocratic sympathizers and, as such, men whose political extinction must necessarily come with the growth of an increasingly democratic and egalitarian nation...
...The Book of Abigail and John, a new selection of their letters first published in 1876, attests their love and friendship and provides us with another aspect of the man and an enhanced appreciation of the woman...
...Marian Hooper Adams, who committed suicide when she was Henry's wife, is a formless phantom...
...John earned the nicknames of "His Rotundity" and "the Duke of Braintree...
...John Quirtcy's son Charles Francis (1807-1886) became minister to Great Britain...
...This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him...
...Pragmatic John Adams, conscious of the passing of time and of its value, was "wearied to death" by the displays of erudition on trivial matters, and yet, even while complaining, he recognized that he was a significant member of a significant assembly composed of representatives of all that was best in the colonies...
...JEFFREY L. LANT For four generations, stretching from before the American Revolution until the end of the Nineteenth Century, the Adams family stood at the apex of American society...
...John, for example, found that the constellation of genius and intellect brought together at the Continental Congresses produced its own distinctive problems...
...Taken together, these two readable books present the Adamses in perspective...
...John wrote in his diary: "Shall I look out for Cause to speak to, and exert all the Soul and all the Body I own, to cut a flash, strike amazement, to catch the Vulgar...
...Two new books, The Adams Chronicles: Four Generations of Greatness by Jack Shepherd and The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784, should help restore them to a more prominent and deserved place in public respect and admiration...
...There are good reasons why the Adamses have not previously achieved that place in public regard to which their various talents and often brilliant accomplishments entitle them...
...Historian Daniel Boorstin contributes an excellent analysis of the Adams family in his introduction to Shepherd's book...
Vol. 40 • October 1976 • No. 10
