einstein said there must be a better way. that's what an inventor said. he went on to invent a refrigeration system that would not leak. he tried to market it. the timing was not right. the refrigerator came up with freon. it solved it. it's not poisonous. decades later, we discovered that freon doesn't poison people, but the atmosphere. that's another one of the examples of unforeseen consequences. >> host: we're talking with henry potroski, "why science alone will not solve our global problems." >> next joseph ellis recounts the 1200 letters that john and abigail adams explain throughout their over 50-year marriage. the letters provide an understanding of the adam's

personal relationship as well as an extent the discourse on the politics of their time. joseph ellis discusses his books in washington, d.c. the program is just over 45 minutes. >> i'm not going to read to you. i'm going to read a few passages. i'm going to talk about for like 25 minutes and then have questions. everybody is busy. got complicated lives. and then we'll do signing and get out of here. and this was the most enjoyable book i have ever written to write. i had fun -- it's not the right word. but full illment in trying to write this book in a way that hasn't been true for the other eight before it. eight, that sounds like a lot. i think it's partly because i've

never written a love story before. and it is a love story. and it's a love story written across a rather consequential american historical landscape. but here's the way i put it more cogently perhaps. all of us who have fallen in love try to raise children, suffered extented bouts of doubt about the integrity of our ambitions, watched our once useful bodies betray us, harbored illusions about the principals, and done all of this with a partner traveling the same trail know what unconditional commitment means and why especially today it is the exception rather the rule. abigail and john traveled down that trail about 200 years before us.

they remained lovers and friends throughout and together had a hand, a significant hand, in laying the foundation of what is now the oldest enduring republic in world history. no small matter. and they left a written record of all of the twitches, traumas, throbbings, and transcribelations along the way. no one else have ever done that. as suggested one the reasons for writing this book was to -- hey, gail. how are you doing? was to figure out how they did it. and i really mean that. how many of you have ever seen a movie -- this is a talk that strikes a certain age group in a different way than another -- "that's entertained?".

came out in the late '60s. it's a collection of the great musical moments in the mgm musicals. of which are great, you know, my favorite is judy garland. but there is a scene in the movie early in which a very still in his prime fred estare, mid 30s does a 48 second dance sequence with eleanor powell. she makes ginger rodgers looks like -- clumsy. [laughter] >> and they do this piece and then frank sinatra comes along. and sinatra looked at the audience and, saying, you know, you can sit around and wait. but you are never going to see that again. you can sit around and wait, you

are you ain't never going to see abigail and john again. okay? they are singular. and a story that i feel privileged to be able to tell. i want to dip you in a few homes and then let you ask me questions. let me give you a bit. the letters themselves are so potent. there are about 1200 of them. why are there so many? because they are apart a lot. john is in philadelphia, during the continental congress and the revolution upcoming, run up to the revolution. there's any son. how are you doing? and then he's in paris and

amsterdam while she's back in quincy. so that like you would think maybe the madisons, dolly and james could create the equivalent, but they don't. because they are always together. and maybe washington, martha and george, but george requests and martha concurs that upon his death they will destroy all of their correspondence. only three letters survived. so part of this -- part of the story is available to us because of the volume of the letters. the volume is important but the quality is even more important. even if james and dolly wrote or even if they didn't destroy

their own letters, the washingtons, they wouldn't match this correspondence. okay? it's the literary quality and it's the level of emotional honesty and candor that they sustain for 59 years. and allow us to understand what love means over a lifetime. not just romeo and juliet, romantic love adolescents. as it seasons and changes, and as you suffer together, abigail was asked in her old age whether she would do it all over again. she said i cannot imagine suffering the same amount with anyone else. [laughter] >> i mean they lost three kids. they watched him go down in elections. and in some ways, suffering together is the most ultimate expression of love. it's particularly new england

idea. [laughter] >> all of us red sox fans understand it instinctively. [laughter] >> let me lead you a brief passage that gets at this when they are courting. and it talks about their correspondence. this is just before they get married. which is almost now it's october 25th, 1764, abigail was apparently rather than half serious when a few months before they wedding she asked john to deliver on his promise and tell me all of my faults both of omission and comission. and all of the evil that you know either or think of me. tell me what you really think. john responded with a mock catalog of your faults, imperfections, deficits, or whatever you please to call

them. she was, he observed, negligent at playing cards, could not sing a note, hung her head like a bull, sat with her legs crossed, pigeon toes, and to top it off, she read too much. she responded many of the deflects were probably incurable, especially the reading. he would have to learn to live with that. the leg crosses charge struck her as awkward, since a gentleman has no business to concern himself with a legs of a lady. the letters exchanged during their courtship provide the fullest and first window into the chemistry of their relationship. but it would probably be wrong to resume that the correspondence accurately reflected the way they talked to each other when they were together. letter writing in the 18th

century was more delibtive and artful exercise than those of us in the presence with the e-mail and text messaging can fathom. it's a different world. the letters are all we have. while they constitute a long string to emotional and intellectual pearls, they were self-conscious, more stylized and orchestrated than real conversations. there are some things in sort that we can never know for sure about their deepest thoughts and fieldings. though they are, among the most fully revealed couples in american history. and given the likely death of letters in the present and future, i don't think we'll know as much about any prominent

american political leaders in the future as we know about them. two essential ingredients in the lifetime dialogue were clear from the start. abigail, despite the lack of any formal education, she was home schooled by her father and grandmother. she could match john with a pen. which was saying quite a lot. since he proved to be one the master let writers in a age not lacking in serious contenders like thomas jefferson and benjamin franklin. second there was a presumed sense of psychological equality between them that abigail presumed and john found intoxicating. of she was marrying a man who loved the fact that she was as he put it saucy. and he was marrying a woman that was simultaneously capable of

unconditional love and personal independence. they recognized from the beginning that they were a rare match. her grandmother tried to talk her out of it. she thought that abigail was marrying down. she said i have found my man and i intend to keep him. there were so many topics they could talk about easily and just as many they did not have to talk about at all. the wedding occurred on october 25th as i said 1764 in the same parlor of her father's house. her father was a minister in massachusetts just outside of boston. where initially they had found themselves totally uninteresting. in her last letter to john before the wedding, abigail asked him to take all of her belongings which she was

forwarding to their new home. then she said, and then, sir, if you please, you may take me. [laughter] >> that gives you a bit of a sense of the correspondence. i want to dip you as i say in two moments. i thought of dipping you in summer of '77, it's got a melodramatic quality to it. abigail is pregnant. in 13 years, she's pregnant six times. that's normal for new england women. they lose two out of -- two of three kids out of 12. and she writes him, he's in philadelphia. it's a very pivotal moment in the war. general howe is sailing out. god knows where he's going. they think he might be going up the hudson.

going all the way around to the south side of the chesapeake to come up to philadelphia from the south. john says he's going to california. it's politically a significant moment. that decision by howe is a fatal decision because it leaves the army of bergoine in new york at saratoga. captured. so the movements of the british army, but they are the movements inside abigail. the uterus of abigail. she's pregnant. they can't write directly about it, the conventions of the 18th century precluded. but he's worried and then she writes him in june and says i felt something. and i don't like it.

i think something is wrong. and there's a two-week hiatus between when she writes and when he gets the letter. this is what makes distance difficult. he's writing about the politics. by the time he gets it, it's happened. the child has been born. it's stillborn. it's a girl named elizabeth. probably strangulation with the umbilical cord. she's writing him in between the contractions for the birth. later on, when he leaves the presidency for seven months to be with her when she's sick, everybody says how can you leave the presidency? this is the reason. he never once -- he thinks she might be dying. he's never going to make the same mistake of being away from her again. but i won't tell you that story.

[laughter] what do you do when you are to enter years ahead of your time? which is what she really was, and the decision she was most unhappy when john was away.

she was clinically depressed between 1781 cisco and 85. i would call her a prudhoe and you get the point. second dipping moment, john presidency, again, what i find so stunning is the overlapping relation between the private and public story. john's elected president in 1796. it's a close election, 72-69, very sectional vote. adams comes to the presidency almost maybe worse than obama in

terms of what he inherits. i mean obama has the good case in a ditch. john comes after george washington. how do you like that? [laughter] the greatest hero in the age and possibly in american history. his book cabinet is loyal to hamilton. he doesn't think he can replant them. so he keeps literally the secretary treasury of war and state are loyal to hamilton and by leal hamilton really thinks he's the president. he really does. once washington leaves the stage, hamilton goes nuts. hamilton has been living under

washington and some of the things hamilton doesn't 1796, 97, 98 are incredible. there is a war going on with france and undeclared and thomas jefferson ran against him for the presidency. jefferson is in his capacity leaking all information to the french consul in philadelphia and telling the government in paris not to pay any attention to anything the president of the united states has to say. he doesn't speak to the american people, even duly elected. this is a pretty good thing. you have to read the book to get the full context but abigail is extremely influential.

before there was eleanor roosevelt, before there was hillary clinton, before there was maybe michele obama, there was abigail. and at this stage, abigail's influence preus catastrophic because abigail is going to tell him in a moment of serious doubt on his part to sign the alien and sedition act, the biggest blunder the tim kaine will be tied to his reputation rattled through the hs of history books. why? well, does this sound familiar to you? george washington, upon return as adams takes the presidency, the aurora, fox news of its de,

since george washington secretly a spy for the british. [laughter] it's actually a series of forged documents released trying to undermine washington. we upon his retirement we seriously questioned whether you had any honor, whether you had any of honor or whether you simply lost did and this one. we pray for your eminent death. this is washington. that is the world that is created here. so adams comes in and they launched on him. john adams intends to make himself king and appoint himself

as a successor for life. if every elective is known he has a boatload of 24 prostitutes he intends to bring to the mansion. [laughter] and reliable witnesses can testify that he is certifiably insane. remember eagle tannin 72? that's what the political culture is like, and in that moment, abigail is a lioness protecting her lair. she can't believe it is being said about her husband and her son. there's even a moment when a publisher newspaperman in new jersey, publisher of a newspaper called "the wasp," a great tidal, accuses adams of having a big if ass.

[laughter] and one of the wonderful features of the alien and sedition act most people don't notice is the alien and sedition act is the first time in british or american law makes truth a defense. if you see the king of england and has a big ass and he does, that is worse. you go to jail forever doherty cut your head off. and a win in sedition act if it's true you can't be prosecuted. so abigail says we can't go after that guy because i know you do have a big ass [laughter] but how does he know? but she does persuade him to sign this piece of legislation which is common you know, it goes out "the wasp" and only has to limitations but it is too

bad. when they retire, adams says i feel i have many great change from a great exchange. i have changed honor for maneuver. he has a barn full of seaweed and he can't wait to get back to quincy. the retirement years are interesting and i try to write them. john is always worried about what he calls buying at the top, meaning dementia and alzheimer's as we would call it, and just the opposite has happens to him. his body becomes a kind of weak envelope but hit his mind keeps reaching the way in a vivacious fashion and a the gilbert stuart portion sort of captors that. abigail has suffered for some

time with room toward arthritis for long periods of time. there are these moments and she and john deride of in their carriage. the good to boston three times and it's like they are -- to go to harvard and it's like these are people who out of the past, you know, like the hour people from a distant era -- it's hard to know how to talk to them. abigail lies in 1818 of typhoid with the stroke. john ghosted and lies down to lie down and die with her. heaven for him he thinks the

vision is boring as hell, and heading for him is going to make love with abigail and argue with jefferson and franklin. this is heaven, you know, and he's not sure there is a heaven. he's got a great line he says if it could it be said conclusively that there is no here after my advice to every man, woman and child on the planet is take opium. [laughter] but this is how it goes. he knew they were permanently diminished so when a delegation visited him on june 30, 1826 requesting some statement from the patriarch of the looming independent celebration he refused to cooperate. i will give you independence

forever, he declared. asked if he might like to elaborate, he declined. not a word. he learned the gift of silence, nothing he ever learned, abigail would have approved. other good visitors came from his bedside convinced the end was near. he was 91. on the morning of july for come he lead on this bit of breathing with difficulty apparently unable to speak but when a price it was the fourth and the top fifth anniversary of independence he lifted his head with effort to clear it is a great day, it is a good day. later he stirred to thunderstorms subsequently described in eulogies as the artillery of heaven and was heard to whisper thomas jefferson's survives by several

deaths bedside. some question whether this happened. it's happened. it's in the record dvr record. but by coincidence to fight the problem and the histories of fiction, jefferson died earlier that same afternoon. both patriarchs each possessed and in will power seem determined to die on schedule. madison died on the third. monroe died on the second. they are all trying to buy on the fourth. [laughter] john drew his last breath sort lead after 6 o'clock. witnesses reported that a final plot of thunder sounded at his passing and in the bright sun broke through the clouds, and estimated 4,000 people attended a federal the first congregational church three days later as his body was laid to

rest alongside abigail. the have remained together ever since. [applause] >> actually moved them across the street to the unitarian church because john quincy bought to crypts for them in and he and his wife buried next to him. john mica of the unitarian by the time he was at that stage. unitarianism you don't really have to believe anything to be unitarian. [laughter] have prompted any questions or comments? there's a specific right there. you have to go to the mic because c-span's covering this event. people have to speak. yes, sir.

>> this is just tell somebody has a better question. but i have heard that the children and grand children the least by abigail who had deplorable lives, the children are raised by john adams or the family members grew up to have replied to the co great lives. i wonder if you could comment on that. >> some of the try to talk about the childbearing issues, and as a parent and one of my children is right here. [laughter] you do your best and then who knows how it turns out. [laughter] what you said is partially true and misleading. abigail worries that all of the children up to a certain stage are released without a father around a lot. she talks about that.

they develop an impression of their father as a result and wouldn't exist if he was there mainly as some extraordinarily heroic almost beyond human figure which you were really there would see as a bumbling india and of certain things. it is true he takes john quincy with him to paris and then again the second time to paris and amsterdam takes charles the second time too. of the four atta -- adams children you are weak reading their concern about them as children you know what is going to happen to them. and it is not a happy story. john does succeed. john quincy from the time he exits the womb is programmed to become a major public figure in

history and when john quincy is probably the most intellectually prepared person ever to be elected to the presidency of the united states. when he was sent to the investor of st. petersburg there was a debate in the senate and said does anyone else read and speak latin, greek and greek, french, dutch, russian and german? if there's anyone else who does we would like to please entertain. he's not a happy man, however and he's a one-term president as john sort of knew he would, but nevertheless he sigrid secretary of state and opponent of slavery as a member of the house representatives as you know. in fact there's a great book you got me on this, there's a great book to be written about this and it's called the missing

link. john quincy is the missing link between the founders and lincoln john quincy dot i's in the senate in 1948. i think i got this right, and present to watch him fall is lincoln, the missing link. somebody can take this idea and run with it. albia aires this guy who's a former officer in the continental army who ends up losing everything with quarter investments. charles becomes an alcoholic and a drug-addicted who dies at 30 in new york even the was a child he is the most beguile. all three of them graduate from harvard. abigail wendi are in europe keeps worrying we are spending all this money on a 11 dinners, we are not going to be able to afford college tuition for our

children. tommy, the youngest and the most invisible fields as a lawyer in philadelphia and eventually comes back to live with his parents in quincy and marries a local girl and has eight kids but he is alcoholic. so the pattern in the adams dynasty is one and child succeeds enormously and all the crestor hartel failures. is this the fault of abigail? there are some letters that she writes to john quincy that will scare the hell lot of you. more than john. abigail was tougher as a parent than john. abigail says the ship the sale of the almost sunk, that john and she says that she's glad it

didn't, but if you turn out to be an immoral man i would rather you die right now. whereas this is john stealing, together in the netherlands and john quincy says i would like to buy a pair of ice skates, very indulgent. so john says no you can't have any ice skates, and then john thinks well, one of the things i don't have disgrace, and maybe if i buy a new ice skates, he writes this, you learn to dance and therefore this is an investment and your overall majority, so i will buy skates on one condition you buy a size large so that we don't have to buy new ones, okay? that was john's way of being a

more indulgent parent and his mother -- and john quincy's mother. various stuff that is written -- there's a book about the ann adams dynasty that sort of dumps on abigail as a mother. i don't think it is fair. i think it is imposing a set of 21st century standards. when her children come to live with her and quincy, abigail says my standards are different from yours. they are more austere and sevier would have to recognize that that is a different kind of thing. and most of the grand children in that equally horrible. george, the grandchild from john quincy, committed suicide. the other kid the highest

youthful. it's not a romance. it has all kind of portable youthful. it's not a romance. it has all kind of portable thinks. i know people want to get of here and maybe buy a book. >> [inaudible] answer all these questions you have to give shorter -- [laughter] absolutely right. but we will take one more question and then kendal questions owsley -- yes, sir. >> [inaudible] -- and i'm struck by the fact it seems to me you do not like thomas jefferson and regard his reputation as undeserved and largely based on his writing one document in 1776 a and i wonder whether you see any parallel -- >> that's too strong. >> i know they had to get you going. -- any parallel in the president

having given one speech or to land the company president? >> no. [laughter] >> i understand what you're saying. quote let me put it to this way. when i was talking about the election of 1800 the traditional interpretation of the election of 1800 is the jeffersonian interpretation that the journalists have captured the revolution and carry this direction and jefferson is elected and recovered the original spirit of the revolution. is the second american revolution. what is the victory of the states' rights and slavery. that's what it really is and that is what -- it's not

democracy versus aristocracy come its verses of the national vision, and jefferson this committed. he would have been with the confederacy 1961. i'm not so sure about madison, and that is the reason along with the hypocrisy on the racial issue one of the core arguments, this is jefferson, was we can't afford to free the slaves because then they will marry with whites and corrupt anglo-saxon rights. well, meanwhile he's offered four or six children by selling hemingses. it's pretty bad. this from a guy that is a virginian, went to the same school as jefferson, what remains is the same color as jefferson. so i am not totally alien but i think jefferson is the most

resident at contradictory figure he rode the magic words in history which are extraordinary and pulled his truth and he is simultaneously the symbol of the central dilemma of american history slavery and race. he stands aside those issues. i will try to be really brief now. you got going. >> i'm sure you are an expert in reading letters written in those days in the course of writing this book -- >> if i'm not i'm in big trouble. >> that's right. negative intrigued on how one wrote a letter in those days. you implemented your conscious of what you were the did you do all the traps in your head and then write them? >> abbett elrod in the evening after the children were in bed at the kitchen table in the

house if you go to fisa in quincy to can't believe how small it is. john wrote in the morning before he went off to the morning right. the original letters reflect, the cross out and john especially is hard to read his hand even as a young man is not good. abigail depue's used to reading. but one of them might remain in terms of the writing of books as i can actually write all my on the back of xerox paper that is blank and i believe there's a connection between the movers and the muscles and movement in my hand. i don't recommend that for anybody. certainly the next generation

direction. but it works for me and there is a derivative quality of writing in the 18th century that we need to understand that there is nothing interacting about communication, and so you are having to be more thoughtful the your expressing yourself is not just like it's a conversation. your reporting on your felch process at that moment. there's more invested in it. how the deal has a wonderful line early in her life she says my pen is freeer than my tonga. i can write things i cannot speak to you which is good. talk about john when he is wounded by i bleed we've to

people. we will try to be brief. >> to the extent it is possible to answer this question, what do you think adams would think of the living document of the constitution? that is the idea that the meaning of the word of the text change of time? >> adams is an advocate that the notion the original intent is frozen in time in 1780 is absurd and he is aware of the fact the original contenders themselves don't agree, there he would be a liberal jurisprudence person rather than scalia or thomas, so what jefferson. jefferson thought the constitution ought to be written every generation sevier original

school coming to exist in the 80's is this far from their point of view can most historians because we all know as historians there are a lot of a different original intentions and the one thing we intended is to have the document change. >> less could question. >> hewey alluded to other first ladies. i wonder in this case the role of abigail played in the tenure during his white house residence. you either looted before to the sedition act and so forth but is there a singular moment you think that it really stands out during the period of which her influence was critical in terms of the presidency? >> that is the most critical mode. abigail and john are the most