tv Book TV CSPAN February 16, 2010 5:45am-7:00am EST
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great canal, a great bridge, he's the greatness and the glory and the continuing invention of america. so it is a particular honor and delight for me to welcome david mccollough who has a great subject, one of the great families. pardon the over-use of this word, but it is hard to avoid when you are speaking of the adams family. it is my pleasure to not only thank david, but to thank the trust and foundation for the support of this evening in memory of the late marcus coin. in the house of representatives, educational co-chairs, the members of families committed to
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help sustain the family of lives while they were in the house of representatives. he has been working recently to introduce legislation that would authorize a memorial to john ad ams in the city of washington. it is a great pleasure for me to turn over the mike sfone to david mccollough who will -- the microphone to david mccollough who will talk about a great family. a person who is doing as much as he can do memorandum more lile lies -- to memorialize this great family. in the presence of many of of his colleagues who will honor us with his presence this evening. it is my pleasure to turn things over to the honorable chairman roemer who will introduce our speaker for this evening. >> thank you so much dr. billington for hosting the
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dinner we just came from, and thank you so much for the wonderful job you do for this library, not only for members of congress, but for american families and my constituents throughout indy 500 who come to visit this -- throughout indiana who come to visit this wonderful library. it is no coincidence that on this evening, april 24, 2001, we are celebrating the 201st birthday of the library of congress, and maybe with the help of providence, and the hand of providence coming down with us tonight, we are also celebrating john adams' role in that. john adams who was the president who signed the very first appropriation to delegate money for this institution. so we are delighted to be here. my wife, sally, joins us here this evening, right here, and i'm delighted to have her as my
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abigail adams who has helped me so much in my public life, and we're joined by the key sponsor of the legislation that i've introduced in the house of representatives, distinguished senator from the state ever massachusetts, senator ted kennedy, who has done a marvelous job, not just with this legislation that we hope to pass -- [applause] >> not only with this legislation that we hope to pass to create an adams' memorial, but maybe some day there will be a kennedy memorial in our nation's capital to the great things that that family has achieved over the span of their many, many talented generations of public service. i also -- i'd also like to say in my remarks here as well, too, that in the dinner that we talked about, we talked about
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of diplomats. charles francis who probably single handedly kept other nations out of the civil war. and henry adams. maybe one of the from finest scholars and most talented historians in our nation's history. this is, indeed, a very dazzling and brilliant family that we hope to honor with a fitting memorial in our nation's capital. this starts the foundation of that movement. waffle walled owe emmerson once -- ralph waldo emerson once said accident there is properly no history, only biography. in that spirit, our guest has written bog fizz about theodore roosevelt, harry truman, and now coming soon, john and abigail
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adams. but also buying fizz about events. the building of the brooklyn bridge. and the destruction of an entire town due to flooding in pennsylvania. ooh even these two books were about reputation and mark rabble people and participation and their skills and their strengths and their followies and their foibles. he has richly and accurately conveyed parts of american history to us and their writings. he wrote about the johnstown flood way before the deluge of books about natural disasters hit. he started to write about the panama canal before the canal leapt into the head linds in the 1970's. and he wrote about truman. he wrote about truman and catapulted him into new fame and acclaim. the research and the beauty and the wonder of david mccollough, is summed up by some of william faulkner's nag magnificent
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words, and he said, i believe man will not merely endure, he will prevail. he is immortal not because he alone among creatures has an inest oustible voice, but because he has a soul and a spirit capable of sacrifice and passion and endurance. the poet writer's duty is to write about these things. it is his duty to help man endure by lifting his heart and reminding him of honor and hope and pride and congressman pation, and pity, and sacrifice, which has been the glory of his past. the poet's voice need not merely be a record of man, it can be one of the props to help him endure and prevail. unquote. our poet, our writer, david mccollough, through painstaking research brings us american history. sacrifices endurance and compassion. he brought us truman's courage
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and honor, roosevelt's pride and soul. he brings us the human spirit that not merely endured, but prevailed in building the panama canal. and with john and abigail adams coming to us next month, he will show us the sacrifice and the glory of the past. i bring you our poet t. our writer of american history, the one and only, david mccollough. [applause]
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>> well, i -- maybe i should stop right now. that was a wonderful, wonderful introduction. and thank you, congressman roemer, very much. jim billington, thank you. and ladies and gentlemen, what a warm welcome, which warms me very much. this is a full season for me. i have a book forthcoming. john adams. and i'm happy to say two of my previous bocks are being reissued in hard covers as simon & shuster classics. "the great bridge "ow and "mornings on horseback." my book about theodore roosevelt. each of these books is to have a new introduction by the author. as it says on all of his books
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in the new classic series, which led me to an incident in a bookstore a few weeks ago that i won't forget. i was told by the editor, ros -- my wife and i were staying in new york, and the editor called and said she needed the new introductions right away. i had a copy of "the great bridge" with me, but i had no copy of "mornings on horseback." so i thought it was important to read the introduction in the original book before i wrote the new introduction, and i headed over to fifth avenue to the large barnes & noble store, which replete with everything, and sure enough i found a paperback copy of "mornings on horseback. and i went up to the checkout counter which in that store is vi very large, maybe seven or eight people checking books out, and you get in a line, as some of you have experienced, and the
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line is so long it snakes back and forth. and i was standing with the book if my hand, with the cover of the book against my leg, and i noticed a man looking at me. and after the line moved forward a little bit, it so happened that the snaking line put him writh right beside me, and he leaned over and he touched me on the shoulder and he said, i've always wondered what sort of wooks books an author buys in a bookstore. and i had the feeling everybody in the line was listening, everybody heard, so i very quickly explained. and he went oh, yes, sure. i also feel it is a full season
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because i'm here at the library of congress. i can't tell you how indebted i am to this great institution. i have done research for all of my work here. in fact, the first piece of serious history that i ever atelled was researched here back in the 1960's when my wife, rosalee and i happened on to some photographs of the johnstown flood that had just been donated to the library. and i saw those photographs, and i had grown up in that part of pennsylvania, and i had never understood what the flood was about, but in the photographs, i saw the level of destruction that had happened, and i wanted to know more so i took a book ought of the -- out of the library, and i found is quite unsatisfactory, and i took another book out of the library, and it was even less acceptable
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it seemed to me because for one thing, neither of the authors understood the geography of western pennsylvania, which i at least did know, and so taking a cue from thornton wilder, who had been a fellow at yale college when i was an undergraduate, who said that he in writing his plays and novels imagined a story that he wanted to see on the stage whether in the print of a book, and if nobody had written it, he wrote it himself, so he could read it. and i thought, why don't you try and read -- write the book about the johnstown flood that you would like to read. people have often said to me -- they said then, well, you must have known a lot about the subject. i said, no, in fact, what i really knew and all i knew was that when we were small children, we used to make a lake of gravy in the mash potatos and
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then break the mashed potatos with oush fork and the gravy came down among the peas and we would say "the johnstown flood" not knowing quite why we did it. but i discovered my vocation here in this great library, and i am indebted, as all writers are to writers everywhere. i think as i'm sure many of you feel, too. one of the greatest of american institutions, greatest of all. free to the people. the whole world. freedom is found through the portals of our public libraries. and of course this is the greatest of all our american libraries, and right, how appropriate that it stands here on capitol hill, our national acro crop list. -- acropolis.
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it is hard to know where to begin with the adams. so maybe i should begin with the enormous painting that hangs in our capitol in the rotunda. of the sifpkte declaration of -- of the signing of the declaration of independence. if you look at that painting, the man standing at absolute dead center -- and it is no accident. it was designed by the artist that way -- is a short, stout, rather straight-up man, john adams. or if you go to the white house, to the state dining room, and look at the mantle piece, you will see what may be the most important memorial of all in our nation's capitol to john adams. two sentences carved in the
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mantlepiece in the state dining room in the white house taken from a letter john adams wrote after his first night in the white house, the first president ever to occupy the whoice, to his wife abigail back in quincy, massachusetts. the lines were put there first by franklin rooze. and when harry truman had the responsibility of rebl the white house in the 1950's, he made certain that the lines remained there. when president kennedy was in office, he had them carved into the mantle of the mantlepiece, and there they stand, there they stay. it was written november 2nd, 1800. just a little more than 200 years ago. "i pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall ever after inlaboratory it. -- inhabitt may -- inhabit it.
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may none but honest and wise men ever rule." john adams in the painting stands there was the clossous of independence, as jefferson said it. jennifer sopped son said, his sense and thought moved us from our seats. he was the driving force that pushed the declaration of independence through the congress, made it happen when it happened, and that was crucial. no other figure in the congress played such a part as almost all who were there attest in letters, diaries, and later recollections. he gave his greatest speech, the speech which won the congress over to voting for the declaration of independence behind closed doors and no copies, no record of it was kept as was the policy.
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so we don't know exactly what he said. but he spoke for two hours. and he made history. the british had landed 32,000 troops on staten island just a few days before. the largest city in the country thin, in the colonies then, was philadelphia, with a popping of all of 30,000. so the enemy had landed more troops on staten island than the population of the largest city in the colonies and they were only about a day and a half's march from philadelphia. furthermore, they were the best proops troops in the world. tough, well equipped, and well experienced. when they pledged their lives, their fortunes on that sacred document, that wantsjuste rhetoric. that was literally true. abigail adams at one point writes to john, her husband, i wonder if future generations will ever know what we sacrificed for them?
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it is easy to look back on those times and the history that resulted and come to the conclusion that it was all inevitable, but nothing is ever inevitable. nothing was ever on a track in history. the course of american events then, as later could have gone off in any different number of directions for any different number of reasons. they didn't know how it was going to turn out. as adams himself wrote to abigail again and again. the written record of their correspondence, which is one of the treasuries of the city of boston -- one of the treasures of the city of boston, housed in the historical society, comes to more than 1,000 letters just between john and abigail adams. the written record, the man script record on mike film of the adams family, if it were stretched out, would reach about five miles.
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there is no body of correspondence, no collection of family pabs papers of a major protagonist in american history to compare to it. nothing even close. out of all that, particularly from the period of john adams life, comes one of the great stories in our history. john adams was also, i have to stress, the principal figure of the revolution, to travel farther in the service of his country and at enormous risk and difficulty than any other single person. he left his wife, his children, his farm, his profession. he had very little income, he was not a wealthy man, and abigail had to take care of the children, run the farm, do the washinging -- do the washing, the cooking, with the help of a
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hired girl, educate the children, because schools were closed, make ends meet, and keep up his spirits. "we live my dear soul in an age of trial, he wrote, what will be the consequence, i know not." and she answers "you cannot i know nor do. i wish to see you an inactive spectator. we have too many high-sounding words and too few actions to constitutional amendment with them." this exchange often reads like something from shakespeare. it is so articulate, literate. the command of the language is enough to humble us all and keep in mind that abigail adams never attended school. to her son john quincy, at age 12, when he sailed with his father for a second time to europe, after a hore endous first crossing earlier in the
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midst of winter and again sailing with his father in the midst of winter and in the midst of war, two -- to this 12-year-old boy, his mother wrote as follows -- imagine not just the quality of what she is saying in its prose, in its command of the language, but imagine the clarity of her thought and how deeply felt is what she's saying. "these are the times in which a genius would wish to live. it is not in the still calm of life that great characters are formed. the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. great necessities call out great virtues, when a mind is raised and animated by scenes that
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engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of a hero and a statesman. he's 12 years old. later after he has lived in europe, traveled to st. petersburg, to a place as far as most americans were concerned is the other side of the moon. very few had ever been to st. petersburg. he went as the secretary to the american who was sent to try and strike up relations, diplomatic relations with the government of katherine the great. he'd known jefferson. he had conversed with the intellectuals of france, and he came back to enter harvard. and when his mother, who was by then in london, got word through her sister back in quincy, that young john quincy seemed at times a little too impressed
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with his own opinions, she wree to him as -- wrote to him as follows. "if you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world and obtaining a knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. that you have never wanted a book that has not been supplied to you. that your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. how unpardonable would it have been in you to have been a blockhead." [laughter] both john and abigail adams were great readers, and they quoted from the poets they loved and
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the novels they knew, and very often they would quote lines and not bother to put quotation marks around them, because they knew the other knew the lines. so you have to be careful sometimes because what these wonderful lines that you think are theirs are not in fact at all theirs. but they were very original, very funny. both abigail and john adams had a delightful sense of humor. listen to this, for example, of john adams describing his first brush with new yorkers in 1774. he's on his way to philadelphia for the first -- his first experience beyond new england. he's never been out of new england. and he's on his way to the first continental congress. and he's just met some new yorkers and he's writing back to abigail. "they talk very cloud loud, very fast, and all together." "if they ask you a question before you can utter three words
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of your answer, they will break out upon you again and talk away." >> when al lass the american army suffered a -- when alas the american army suffered a terrible defeat in the battle of long island, adams summed up the whole explanation for this debacle in one sentence. "in general our generals were out-generaled." john adams was among the first signers, of course, of the declaration of independence, which unlike the trumble painting didn't happen as we saw it there. it wasn't all signed in one day. it happened over several days beginning august 8 and some people didn't sign until november. that adams is in the middle is quite symbolic and important in that painting. he was also a signer, one of three with john j. and benjamin
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franklin, of the paris treaty that ended the revolutionary war, which is often described as one of the most advantageous treaties to the united states in all of american history. it, among other things, not only ended the war, but extended the nation all the way to the mississippi river. he was our first vice president and the first and only president ever to face the truly daunting task of succeeding george washington. one might say the impossible task of succeeding george washington. he was, as i said, the first president to live in the white house. he was the first president to come to capitol hill to address a joint session of congress, which was not called that then, but, in fact, that's what it was. and he wrote a book in what became a pamphlet, what is in many ways, the most succinct and clear description of the
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structure of our government in a letter that was written initially to george witt, among others, the great virginia attorney, and it spems out the bicameral -- it spells out the bicameral legislature, who will have command over the armed forces, and an independent judiciary. adams was adamant that the judiciary must be independent. an independent judiciary is something that we americans too often take for granted, as if that's the way it always was and always would be and so forth. in fact, it had to be battled for and adams was a great battler for it. he was the one that said most often and with most emphasis that we must be a nation of laws and not ever men. -- not of men. maybe as admirable as anything that he ever did is he drafted
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the oldest written constitution still in use in the world today. the constitution of the commonwealth of massachusetts. which includes in it a clause unlike that of any other constitution written before or since which says "it shall be the duty of the government, of the legislature, to provide education for everyone." and "it shall be the duty of the citizens and government of massachusetts to cherish learning." then he sketches out what that means. and he sketches out virtually everything. art, music, science, natural history, agricultural, economics . the point being, it is all part of the life of the mind, all essential to the good society, civilized society, and all must be part of the educated person's
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life. and it is somewhat sad to report, but nonetheless true, that the literacy rate in massachusetts at that time was higher than it is in massachusetts today. his first as a president and as a political leader in our country are numerous. he was the first school teacher to become president. he was the first new englander to become president. he was the first harvard man to become president. he was the first real farmer. in other words, as opposed to a planter or slave master. he also is the only -- he and abigail are the only ones among the founding fathers, as we call them, who did not own slaves. ever. and, as a matter of principle.
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a very important aspect of their outlook on life. it is often said in trying to understand slavery, trying to understand the culture of the south, that we have to remember to see things in terms of the times in which they happened, that we must understand the slave master's point of view in the context of that time. well, jol john adams -- well, john adams lived in that time, abigail lived in that time. other new englanders owned slaves, and it was quite common to hire slaves out at harvest time, and the adamses would not hire slaves. this, i think, is a measure our of their principles. they were principled people. and adams served his country for 25 years. virtually without a break.
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and at considerable sacrifice. because, among other things, he and abigail were separated, he was separated from his family for almost 10 years in total. in a way, we're the beneficiaries of that sacrifice, because they were separated. they wrote the letters, and we are now able to see into their lives in a way that's impossible with the others. it is possible because of the candor of their correspondence. the absolute candor. the vivid -- the vitality of their writing that we can know them as human beings better than we can know, more closely than we can know any of the other founders or protagonists of the time. it is not really even close. adams believed, as he told his son, john quincy, that one ought to write as one talks. one shouldn't strive for literary effect.
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one shouldn't resort to artifice or mannered frills in writing, but write the way you talk, which is exactly the way he wrote. and so his prose that is a -- has a directness, a modern quality to it that it makes it quite different from so much emphasis that was written at the time. -- that makes it so much different from so much else that was written at the time. i think it is important to set adams in something of a frame here, in the span of his life. he was born in 1735 and he died in 1826. and he died, as many of you know, on the same day as thomas jefferson. and it wasn't just any day, it was the day of days. july 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary, summer, of the signing of the declaration of
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independence. when i initially began work on my book, i thought i would write a book about the chris-crossing lives of these two extraordinary men, these very different americans. and my concern at the time was that jefferson, with his aura, with his great standing in american life, as the oracle or spokesman for american democracy, the ideal of american democracy, with his memorial here in washington, his face on mount rush more, his fame, would upstage this rather stout, short , fellow from new england about whom most of us know very little. and i was worried, as a matter of just writing problem how could i -- how could i keep adams in balance with jefferson?
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but when i began, and very quickly after i gn began, particularly after i had read the letters, read his diaries, adams was a great diarist, i realized that adams was the one i wanted to write about. and the more i thought about how unfair it is that adams had had so little attention -- relatively little attention, whole shelves, whole rooms full of books have been written about jefferson. there are only less than a dozen books of any real consequence about john adams. and once that dawned on me, i think the book just took off. and i must say i have never -- never -- and i have been very fortunate in my subjects, i feel -- had a better subject than this one. when i began to turn a corner is when i read an entry in his diary written when he was about
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20 years old and teaching school in what was out then the little wilderness town of worcester. this lonely boy, you know, teamping in a one-room schoolhouse, working away every night in his diary. and these diaries, by the way, are all -- have all survived. they are about the size of the palm of your hand and written in a tiny, almost microscopic hand, which must have been very difficult writing at night by candlelight with a quill pen. july 21, 1756. "i resolve to rise with the sun and to study scriptures on thursday, friday, saturday, and sunday mornings and to stat-in some latin author the other three mornings. noons and nights i intend to read english authors. i will rouse up my mind and fix my attention. i will stand collected whin myself and think about what i read and what i see. i will strive with all my soul to be something more than persons who have had less
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advantages than myself." quite a remarkable statement. but then the next morning, if you read on in the diary, you discover he slept until 7:00. and a one-linen tri the following week read, "a very rainy daydreamed away my time." he is human. he is intensely human. he was irityable. -- he was irritable. he was vain. he was quick to anger. he was stubborn, fiercely stubborn. independent. oh, my goodness was he independent. he could be tact less. -- tactless. he could be petty. but he was also great hearted, warm-hearted, affectionate, viberarnt, full of stories -- vibrant, full of stories, full
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of talk. he couldn't stop talking. he loved to walk. he was one of the world's great walkers, especially at the time. if he had a great cold, his cure was to go out and walk 10 miles. he was truly brilliant. as was his son, john quincy. i think if you could give all the presidents of the united states an i.q. test, that john quincy adams would come in first, second maybe with his father coming in a close second. john adams in that very bookish time was, i feel, the best, most widely and deeply read of any man in public life in america. he was an avid reader. he read latin. he read greek. he learned to speak french flinte fluently starting from scratch when he was sent to france to join franklin and help keep the french involved in the war. he succeeded in getting by in
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dutch when he served the country in holland. he was, as benjamin rush said, a stranger to dissimilation. he was honest and everybody knew it. he was afraid of very little. but i think maybe as much as anything, he was afraid of dishonor. and he loved people. he loved jefferson. he loved jefferson even when jefferson became his political rival. really his political enemy. and even, i think it can be said, when it was discovered that jefferson had been paying the man who had been slandering adams during his presidency. and his vice presidentsy, james calendar. his affection for his wife was boundless. and his respect for her was
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boundless. this story of the adams is, among many other things, one of the great love stories in american history. "your sentiments of the duties we owe to our country are such as become the best of women and the best of men." he wrote to her. "among all the disappointments and perplexities which have fallen my share in life, nothing has contributed so much to support my mind as the choice blessing of a wife." "i want to take a walk with you in the garden, go over to the common, the plain, the meadow. i want to take charles in one hand and tom in the other and walk with you, abby on my right hand, to view the cornfields. alass poor imagination you do supply the want of the original and reality."
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after john quincy became president of the united states and john adams, old ancient john adams was in quincy alone in the big house, and people would come to him and say to him, how proud you must be, how wonderful you've done in raising your son to become president of the united states, and john adams would say, as only he could say, "well, he had a mother, too." he also once in picking up the line from thomas payne, "these are times that try mens souls," john adams was quick to say, "these are times that try women's souls no less." she was the intellectual equal,
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no less, i think. she could hold her own with any of the great thinkers of her time. she knew them and they knew her. she was admiring of jefferson. she was he can treemly admiring of washington. she thought the world of george washington. she couldn't imagine how anyone possibly could replace him in the presidency and particularly her husband. and she felt so sorry for him to try and fill that gap. there were plenty who did not like john adams, who found him difficult. the count defment verchens said his pezzian tri and stubbornness -- his pesantry and stubbornness will give count to a thousand problems. adams response was "thank god he gave me stubbornness when i know i'm right." abigail thought of her husband
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as solid, strong. she saw in this rather strange young man when they first met and he was courting her, something very worthy. and he always spoke of her as his ballast. it is quite interesting to study his presidency, his vice presidenc kwlfment -- presidency to find that the times he got in trouble were the times she wasn't with him. and he knew it. he would write these plaintive letters for her to come and join him, to leave the farm. i need you, over and over he would say to her. and he succeeded, he would say, the task of the president is harrowing. i do not wondering why you wish to retire from it or rejoice in
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seeing an old oak in his place. her old oak. adams fought to keep his independence all through his political life. it was, as is often the case in life, his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. his fiercely independent nature, his unwillingness to join in the two-party system, to be party to faction, was, in some ways, what made his presidency such a success and in some ways, what made it such a failure. certainly a failure for him personally that -- in that he wasn't re-elected, but keep in mind he wasn't swept out by a landslide as is often suggested by some biographers. the slappeder was probably the most vicious campaign in our
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history. slander of all kind. mud slung as we have seldom even imagined it. adams was ridiculed. he was supposedly disgraced because he was a monarchist. and maybe mad, insane. franklin, who had had a rather difficult relationship with adams after they got to france, they had been quite good friends, and worked together well in the continental congress, but when adams showed up in france, he found that the great man was not quite what he believed he was. and franklin later wrote that while adams was a devout patriot, he was sometimes, quote, out of his senses. and this spread, this line, this
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expression, was the talk of congress. and it is repeated again and again in history and biography. what adams found when he got to france was that franklin was, in many ways, the living example of how not to follow his own dictums. he hardly was the one to early to bed, early to rise. the truth is, i think, that benjamin franklin was long past his prime. he was suffering from various ailments. severely suffering with the gout and with boils. he was grossly overweight. it was difficult for him to get around. he was sloppy about the details of the office. adams was certain, as were others that the whole operation
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in paris was riddled with spies, which it was. and that adams said franklin was very careless about money, which he was, and that he didn't work very hard. he was lazy. but his greatest complaint was that franklin wasn't pushing the french to get more from them. he was too ready to go along with the french, give verchens, give louie the 16th whatever they wanted, in order to keep relations in good standing. and particularly, ad -- adams wanted to elicit the french navy to help us win the war. adams was a great believer in the importance of sea power, as he would say. wooden walls, as he says. he deserves to be given far greater credit as one of the fathers of the gavey. one on the campus at indianapolis and another on the
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state clol capitol grounds in massachusetts. this is a very important american. was he a great man? absolutely. was he a good man? absolutely. and beyond all that, he's extremely interesting. and a marvelous story, which is really what appeals so to me. and with all of his accomplishments, i think one would fairly have to say, foremost among them is his marriage, is abigail. whose correspondence alone puts her in a separate category among american women of that time, because we have very few bodies of letters and diary entries, correspondence that compares to hers from that period. if she had not become the wife of a congressman or the wife of a president or the mother of a president and those letters -- and only the letters had
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survived she would be somebody of infinite interest and importance to understanding that crucial time. but founding -- and we can never, ever know enough about those people and what they did. and why they did it. what they believed. when they talk about the public good, when they talk about public service, serving the country, that's not just civics textbooks stuff, they meant it. and all you have to do is just see what they did. to achieve that. adams going over the peernizz in the dead of winter, traveling from the upper left hand corner of spain, all the way to paris, 1,000 miles by mule in the dead of winter, with his two little boys with him to get to paris to do what he had to do to serve the country during the revolution because wre were at war. adams going to amsterdam and the hague to get money for the
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cause, to get the you dutch to come in and help support, help finance the war. another part of his accomplish ment, his history, his story, is virtually ignored, just as we ignore the part that the dutch and netherlands played in the outcome our revolution, both in supplying us with outcome and arms, more arms than were supplied by the french. but how many of us know anything about that? the tragedies in the adams family are heartbreaking. the loss of children, the loss of a child stillborn, the death of a son from alcoholism when he was still in his 30's and the news of that death reached them, john and abigail adams, here in the white house within days after they knew they had lost the election.
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and they lost the election, let me remind you, by such a close margin that a difference of 250 votes in new york city alone would have given john adams the victory in the electoral college. furthermore, if the south had not calculated its population and therefore determined its electoral votes by including 3/5 of the slaves, who, of course, were not able to vote at all, it wouldn't have even been close. or had the news that the x, y, z affair, the war that was threatened with france had been settled, if that news had arrived maybe two weeks earlier, it would have made the difference, and maybe most important of all, was the fact that ajohn adams, the political leader of adams' own party, the federalist, adams only really nominally a federalist, i should say, zearned hamilton decided at the last minute to sabotage the candidate of his own party by
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writing a vitriolic extended letter that was published declaring adams incompetent, a fool, and everything else that he could say about him. this, programs, in retribution for the fact that adams had taken away alexander hamilton's power when hamilton was the inspector general of the army at the time of the threat of the french war and when alexander hamilton was dreaming grand dreams of marching on mexico and maybe, maybe, john adams by cutting the ground out from hamilton, the inspector general, in a vivid scene, a vivid encounter that took place in a little room in a boarding house in trenton, new jersey, between these two very brilliant, very important men, who hated each other, maybe john adams saved us from mill -- militerism. i think probably the heaviest
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blow of all for adams was the death of his oldest daughter who died after a mastectomy that was care -- carried out in the house in quincy in a day without anesthetics. she was riddled with cancer and died not long after ward. and he was really greatly changed after that. he became much mellower, much less quick to anger, much more forgiving. but he had been, i must say, all along, a very forgiving man. he could get very mad. he could fly into a reign range, almost always privately, i should stress, but he was also quick to forgive. and then when abigail died, much of his life was over. now, they went back home to
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quincy in 1800. and here with this -- was this protagonist, this vigorous character at the center of the american drama who had been on the move, in action, constantly. thomas jefferson would never face anybody in argument. he would never talk back to anyone on the floor of the senate or the floor of the house of congress in philadelphia. he would never dispute anything with anyone to his face. he tried to avoid conflict, avoid pain, as he said he designed his only actual origin vention was the famous mold board plow, which was called the plow of least resistance to go through the heavy clays of virginia with the least resistance. in many ways, that's how he tried to go through life, avoiding trouble, avoiding pain,
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avoiding argument. adams concurrent -- adams couldn't understand that. furthermore he knew life was full of pain, full of tragedy. you can't erase it. jefferson erased -- destroyed every life she ever wrote to him and every letter he wrote to her and every letter written by her to someone else. it was as if he just wanted to blot out, obliterate her whole memory. we don't even know what she looked like. adams wanted to embrace life. he loved argument. he couldn't understand why anybody wouldn't stand up and fight for what they believed in. he was at his best in dispute, in representing a case. he was a brilliant courtroom lawyer. and he was on the move to europe , back and forth, over the mountains, up to the netherlands, over to england. he was, of course, our first minister to the court of st.
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james, and one of the great he have of all scenes in that period is when jorn adams, the farmer's son from quincy, massachusetts, stands before king george iii at st. james' palace to represent he is there to represent the new upstart nation, the united states of america, the independent united states of america, when only a matter of a year or two earlier had he been there, they would have hanged him. and then he's back in quincy, massachusetts, in 1800, and he never goes anywhere else again, for 25 years. and has no say in the government, no influence, no money, no glamor, no publicity. he becomes john the farmer of stony field, as he became called. quite real -- as he began
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calling his little farm there in quincy. and again as a writing problem, it seemed to me, how can i possibly sustain 25 years where he doesn't go anywhere? . i can't just say for 25 years he didn't go anywhere or didn't do anything. but as it turned out, it turned out it was the most wonderful part of his life. because as i have not said before, among other things, john and abigail were devoutly religious people. the separation of church and state is a great theme, and an important theme. but in the idea that the church and state were separated in the hearts and minds of the founders is erroneous and highly misleading. adams is a very vivid case in point. they were devout people.
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and in this last period of adams' life, and particularly after the death of abbey, he begins to find a sense of peace p. a sense of unity with the world, and then what he writes, something very close to contentment and and a kind of gravitas. along with his humor, his humanity, with continuing atext for his children and his grandchildren, as well as his great pride in his brilliant secretary of state and his president son. .
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thrares so many other things i could read in his soul, but i think the passage i find most moving of all is one he wrote one day just looking out his window, if you -- and if you go to dwinsy today, and i hope those of you that have never been there, will go to quincy, and by all means see the house where john and abigail adams lived, very small house, right by the road, when the roops marched by, the dust that blew through the window into the kitchen, there are only two bedrooms upstairs in the winter time, the water left standing in an upstairs bedroom frozen almost solid, it was so cold up there. but most of all, the house that they lived in after they came
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back from europe, what is now called "the old house," which incidently is older than mount vernon. it was built by somebody else prior to the time that the adams acquired it. but it became their home stead, and it was to in the family for four generations all together. adams founded, among other things, a great family. that's been said by congressman roemer. but truly, extraordinary family. brilliant family. dazzling. dazzling is an entirely proper word. and the old fellow knew it. he knew it. he knew that some of them had had problems -- openly wrote aabout. abbey, his favorite -- in many ways, his favorite child in so many ways died so horribly.
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and he's lost his teeth, he's full of rheumatism, and an ice storm struck. and destroyed his trees. he had worked very hard on his trees, loved his apple trees. always out there pruning -- by the way, this is no gentleman farmer. this is a man that helped build walls, and mowed his own hay, and chopped his own fire wood, even right up until the end, he was out there working with the farm help. and he's sitting in the window, looking out, and you can stand at that same window right beside the same desk. everything in the house is the way it was when they were there. nothing in the house is, well, this is how it might have been or this is the kind of chair they might have had. it is all original, and because so many generation haves lived in it, it is like looking at a
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geological cross cut. you can see the layers of history there. a painting that the adams had done of general washington, of president washington. they paid to have an artist paint president washington at some expense, considering their income it was really quite a sacrifice. that painting not only still hangs in the house, it hangs in the same place that it was hung when they lived there. so there he is. looking out the window, and here's what he wrote. "a rain had fallen from some quarmer region in the skies when the cold here below is intense to an extreme. every drop was frozen where ever it fell on the trees and clung to the limbs and sprigs as if it had been fastened by hooks of steel. the earth was never more universally covered with snow and the rain had frozen upon a crest in the surface which shown with the brightness of silver.
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the icicles on every sprague glowed with the luster -- sprig glowed with the luster of timeds. i have seen a queen of france with 18 million levers of diamonds upon her person, and i declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels did not make an impression on me equal to that presented by every shrub. the whole world was glittering with precious stones." he could react the same way 0 words on paper. he could react the same way to punctuation, a subject he had never had much interest in. "i never delighted much in couldn't plailting commas and coalons, but now -- in spite of all my exertions, roaming in the
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milky way, thoseing those which composed the incomprensible union first, and if i do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, i feel an irrepressible impulse to fall on my knees in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs that benevolence that sanctifies this whole." he's good company, john adams. i've kept company with him now for over six years. it's been one of the most wonderful experiences in my writing life. and i feel enlarged by knowing him. i've also been reminded, and i think this is so very important.
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that those founders were not gods. they weren't perfect men. they weren't without flaws. wute blemish. without -- without mistakes in their lives, personal mistakes, political mistakes, embarrassing moments, stupid things said and done. times when they didn't feel adequate for the job. but then no one was adequate for the job they were undertaking. if we think of them as gods, as we think of them as perfect, supermen, marble i'd oles, we are doing them a disservice. we are diminishing the wonder of what they accomplished as human beings.
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flawed, faleomavaegaable human beings. should there be a memorial ever john adams in our nation's capitol, beyond the painting, beyond the inscription in the white house mantle piece and some recognition of his extraordinary wife? yes, of course there should be. long past time. so i'm thrilled that members of congress and the people of quincy and others are joining in trying to make this happen. and i've been very honored to have the chance to take part in this event, this historic event tonight. [applause]
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court of st. james. baugh -- because in 1785 he wrote a small token of recognition of gratitude and a hope that we'll be seeing more of you in the library by that statue and in the reading rooms. , david mccollough, thank you. >> oh, thank you. >> this is very exciting for me. i feel -- i'm very moved by this , jim. i hope it is what i think it is.
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well, indeed, it is. there you see a facsimilely -- if it isn't a facsimilely, you're in real trouble, the bath hotel, west minister, june 13, 1785. "i have now the honor to inform you that having shown my commission to the right honorable, the marquee of carmathon, and so forth and so on it goes on about appearing before the king. how wonderful. thank you so very much. this is a treasure. [applause]
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