The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  Instead, like John’s nemesis, Ben Franklin, the Adamses received a splendid greeting. When their ship docked at the Long Wharf in Boston on June 17, 1788, John Hancock, the governor of Massachusetts, sent a warm note of welcome as well as his glistening coach to transport them to his mansion. Cannon boomed, church bells clanged, and the wharf was crowded with cheering people. John could see no hint of hostility among the smiling faces along the streets as they rode to Governor Hancock’s opulent home.

  Back in Braintree, John and Abigail were dismayed to discover that repairs and extensions to the new house they had purchased while they were in England were unfinished. The handsome furniture they had bought in London had been badly packed and was a chipped and scarred mess. The house was larger than their earlier Braintree homestead, but it still seemed small compared with the spacious quarters they had enjoyed in Paris and London. Abigail called it “a wren’s house.” John, ecstatic at becoming a farmer again, rushed out and bought six cows, which he presented to Abigail. She acidly pointed out they did not have a barn in which to keep them. That did not stop him from buying a herd of heifers a few weeks later.

  Meanwhile there were relatives by the dozen to greet—including John’s mother, still amazingly spry at seventy-nine after burying two husbands. Sons John Quincy and Charles and Thomas were among the first to embrace them. Twenty-one-year-old John Quincy had graduated from Harvard with highest honors and was reading law under a prominent attorney in Newburyport. Eighteen-year-old Charles, Abigail reported to his sister Nabby, “wins the heart as usual.” Fifteen-year-old Thomas had become “the cutup of the family.” The two younger boys were still at Harvard.

  Nabby and her husband had sailed to New York to meet Colonel Smith’s large family and settle there. She was pregnant with her second child, and Abigail decided to depart for that city as soon as possible, leaving John to figure out how to milk his six cows on his own. John’s concern was more practical. He tiptoed around the subject in a long letter and finally asked Nabby what Mr. Smith planned to do for a living. Unable to disguise his own feelings as usual, he blurted out the hope that Smith would not devote himself to seeking “public employment.” It was a virtual guarantee of ending up “the most unhappy of all men.” He would like to see Smith become a lawyer—a profession that guaranteed a man true independence. “I had rather dig my subsistence out of the earth with my own hands than be dependent on any favour, public or private, and this has been the invariable maxim of my life,” he wrote.

  This was self-delusion. John Adams had now spent fourteen of the prime years of his adult life in public service, dependent on the “favour” of his supporters in Congress. He was a politician, and there was nothing wrong, and certainly nothing immoral, about a man like Colonel Smith, an authentic war hero, considering a political career. The idea that there was something low or unworthy in seeking political support from other men was John’s True Whig bugaboo at work—the notion that even a smidgen of self-interest was wrong.

  Nabby glumly replied that she agreed about the law as a path to personal independence, but she did not think it was a practical choice for her husband. He was too old to begin a career that required years of study and preparation. Mrs. Smith proceeded to give her father some unexpected advice. She was living with her mother-in-law in Jamaica, Long Island, not far from New York City, and was picking up lots of political vibrations from her in-laws. “The general voice” that she was hearing in New York agreed that George Washington was certain to be the nation’s first president. But the second-highest honor, the vice presidency, was by no means decided. Many people had told Nabby the post belonged to John Adams. “I confess I wish it, and that you may accept it,” she wrote.1

  To Braintree came corpulent, affable General Henry Knox, another soldier who had decided to devote himself to public life. He spoke as a representative of General Washington’s former aide, Alexander Hamilton, who had become the leader of the country’s first political party, the Federalists. They had been the backers of the Constitution in the struggle to win its ratification. Their opponents were called “Anti-Federalists” at the moment and were widely scorned for failing to recognize the need for a strong central government. Knox reported that Colonel Hamilton thought John Adams deserved to be vice president and wanted to know how he felt about the office. Adams replied that he was not in any way, shape, or form seeking the job. But if it was offered to him, he intimated that he would accept it.

  That meeting made John Adams vice president. Only much later did he learn that Hamilton had considered a half dozen other candidates but learned Adams had the backing of New England Federalists. Hamilton had to accept him or create a breach in the party. That was not Hamilton’s only worry. Under the new constitution, each state chose electors who cast the decisive votes for the presidency. But the drafters of the constitution had carelessly decided to let the candidates for president and vice president run on the same ballot. Whoever got the most votes would win. What if one or two electors, for reasons unknown, did not vote for Washington? If they and everyone else voted for Adams, he would become president. That was unthinkable as far as Hamilton was concerned.

  Hamilton wrote letters to the leaders of several states, asking them to make sure their electors dropped three or four votes for Adams. His goal was modest—to have Adams come in second by perhaps a dozen votes. But in his hurry, Hamilton forgot that there were several other candidates on the ballot. These men, too, attracted electoral votes for vice president. Early in March the final tally reached the Adamses in Braintree. Washington had received all sixty-nine electoral votes and was elected president unanimously. John Adams was vice president—with thirty-four votes.

  For a while, the “scurvy manner” in which he was chosen made John consider resigning. He declaimed to one correspondent that it was “an indelible stain on our country, countrymen and constitution.” Only fear that his resignation might endanger the fragile new federal system, which depended on support from all parts of the nation, persuaded him to accept the election.

  John’s journey to New York to take the oath of office was satisfyingly rich in receptions and plaudits in various cities along his route. He left Abigail behind to run the farm until he located a suitable house in which they could live. When the new government convened, Adams became the president of the Senate. He solemnly informed the senators that he needed their advice about what to do when and if President Washington addressed their august body. While the two men were in the Senate, were they equal in power and authority? How should he address the president, and how should Washington address him?

  Although the Constitution specified that the chief executive would be called “the president of the United States,” Adams insisted on forming a committee that recommended, with his backing, “His Highness, the President of the United States, and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” In letters and formal addresses, he thought Washington should be called “His Majesty.” He said the vice president deserved the same title.

  Adams was oblivious to the large political fact that the Senate and the House of Representatives had many members who belonged to the Anti-Federalist party and who feared the new government was going to transmute into something very close to monarchy if given too much power. Everything the vice president said seemed to confirm these fears.

  Honest John became the butt of jokes for his titular extremism. Congressmen and senators began calling each other “Your Highness” with grins on their faces. Senator Ralph Izard, whose acid tongue had left stains on Benjamin Franklin’s reputation in Paris, won the ridicule prize by nicknaming Adams “His Rotundity”—a label that stuck. Meanwhile the House of Representatives, under the leadership of James Madison, voted overwhelmingly to call General Washington “The President of the United States.” Defiant to the bitter end, Vice President Adams could only watch the Senate agree, after mocking and finally consigning his magnificent but absurd titles to oblivion.

  A dismayed and disconsolate John
Adams wrote to Abigail, begging her to come to New York as soon as possible. If she did not have enough money available, she should borrow it from a friend. “If you cannot borrow enough, you must sell horses, oxen, sheep, cowes [sic], anything at any rate rather than not come on. If no one will take the place [the farm] leave it to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field…. It has been a great dammage [sic] that you did not come with me.”2

  II

  Abigail was soon on her way. With her came Charles, who had graduated from Harvard—and become a worry. He had succumbed to “being spoilt by the…caresses of his acquaintance[s],” as Abigail put it. Charles loved being everyone’s favorite companion, and his good looks and genial temperament gave him a head start over most men his age. Young women admired his style on the dance floor and gravitated to him. He soon developed a fondness for liquor and at one point led a campus rebellion. Another report, although fragmentary, seems to connect him to running naked, either solo or with a group, across Harvard Yard. John Quincy, who observed him for a year, came away fearing the worst. “Charles does not like to be censured,” he said. This sensitivity soon made him almost morbidly averse to letters from his father or mother, exhorting him to behave.3

  The Adamses’ youngest son, Thomas, had another set of problems. His brothers, above all John Quincy, had attractive personal and intellectual gifts. Thomas was shy and often melancholy. He was the only child who never went to Europe—which may explain his surly refusal to write letters to his parents when he was old enough to do so. Abigail’s sisters thought it was a mistake to send Thomas to Harvard at the age of fifteen. John and Abigail paid no attention to them—or to John Quincy’s warning that Thomas was “too young to be left so much to himself.” Abigail compounded this error by writing the boy strident letters, scolding him for failing to study and running wild in various ways. She had no evidence for these accusations; she simply assumed on the basis of most freshmen’s conduct that Thomas was guilty.

  In fact, Thomas was studying far into the night and angrily accused his mother of slandering him. Abigail apologized—but in the four-month gap in sending and receiving letters between Britain and America, Thomas had lots of time to brood about the way his parents treated him. He was probably not cheered by Abigail’s apology—she added to it a lecture on virtue. Nothing less than perfection should be his goal in conduct and studies, the already stretched student was told.4

  John Quincy was not such an obvious worry to his parents. Studious almost beyond belief, he was fluent in French, Latin, and Greek. But he, too, felt the pressure of their high expectations, especially after his graduation. He had also inherited his father’s youthful interest in the opposite sex. He told a female cousin that he found women “irresistible” and fell in and out of love several times a month. On the other hand, as an Adams, he disapproved of this predilection. At Harvard he gave a speech before the Phi Beta Kappa society in which he condemned marriages based on passion.

  Although John Quincy could not bring himself to admit it, he had little enthusiasm for spending three years in Newburyport becoming a lawyer. He told his aunt, Mary Cranch, that it was a place where “he cared for nobody and nobody cared for him.” Slipping into typical Adams gloom, he told his diary: “I am good for nothing and cannot even carry myself forward in the world.” Before long this gifted young man was calling himself a “cypher” and begging God to “take me from this world before I curse the day of my birth.” His mother, oblivious to psychological explanations, diagnosed his problem as an acid stomach.5

  III

  In New York, Vice President Adams rented a large, attractive country house, Richmond Hill, a mile outside the 1789 city limits. (Today the site is in Greenwich Village.) The house had a lovely garden and a superb view of the Hudson River and the New Jersey shore. When Abigail arrived, she was delighted to find that Nabby and her husband had already moved in with their two boys. Colonel Smith was still in search of a way to make a living. John Adams was growing more and more disillusioned with him, and so was Nabby. But Abigail remained a captive of Smith’s roguish charms and she adored the children, especially the older boy, who bore a strong resemblance to Grandpa John.

  Meanwhile, John was being harassed via the mails by dozens of people who sought jobs in the new federal government. One of the most disturbing came from their old friend Mercy Otis Warren, who asked John to help her husband, James. In the heady days of 1776 he had been John’s favorite correspondent. But the decade of separation had left them semi-strangers. James Warren had refused to support the Constitution, thanks largely to a feud with John Hancock, and drifted into political isolation. Mercy Warren denounced the ungrateful citizens of Massachusetts for their mistreatment of him.

  Vice President Adams was not even slightly sympathetic. He curtly told Mercy that he had no patronage to dispense and if he had any, neither his own children nor close friends like the Warrens would get any of it. That would be a violation of his principles. Mrs. Warren retreated into aggrieved silence. In years to come, she would exact exquisite revenge.

  Friends and relatives continued to bombard Adams with pleas for help. He kept saying no, no, no. But at home, John found himself forced to surrender his true whig principles to domestic pressure. Colonel William Smith wanted an appointment as U.S. marshal for the district of New York. Nabby and Abigail added their pleas, and the vice president asked President Washington to make the appointment. Washington did so without the slightest hesitation.

  On another front, John decided to make his son Charles a lawyer. He dispatched him to Alexander Hamilton’s office with a note, asking the New Yorker to take him under his guidance. Hamilton was about to become secretary of the treasury in President Washington’s cabinet. Although it was evident to him and others that Charles had little or no enthusiasm for the profession, Hamilton arranged for him to study with another experienced New York attorney.

  Although everyone had rejected his grandiose titles, John was determined to display a lifestyle worthy of the vice presidency. Each morning he rode from Richmond Hill in a handsome coach, often accompanied by Charles. Presiding in the Senate, John wore a powdered wig and the expensive clothes he had bought while serving as ambassador in London. Critics began calling him “The Duke of Braintree.” A Boston writer assailed him in a ferociously satiric poem that warned him not to “sully your fame” by “daubing patriot” with a “lacker’d name.”6

  Abigail was deeply upset by this and similar assaults and did her best to defend John in numerous letters. She was inclined to agree with her husband’s preference for titles. In some letters she playfully referred to herself in the third person as “Her Ladyship.” At the same time she was anxious to retain her republican humility. She asked Mary Cranch to warn her if she (Abigail) showed any sign of treating her friends and acquaintances with arrogance or condescension. Abigail found it especially galling that no one criticized President Washington for his lifestyle. He had “powdered lackies” waiting at his door to announce visitors—and this scribbler accused John of aristocratic faults!

  Typically, John Adams met his critics head on by writing another book, Discourses on Davila, which ran in newspapers in weekly installments. Among many topics, the book included a ferocious attack on the idea of equality. John took special aim at the French Revolution’s frequent proclamations on this subject, dismissing their faith in human perfectibility as a fable. Mankind was not going to improve anytime soon. The only way to achieve social happiness was to maintain a balanced government that took into consideration humanity’s inequalities and limitations.

  The reaction to these ideas was so negative that Adams was forced to abandon newspaper publication. John and Abigail were especially dismayed when Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, with whom they had been friendly in France, referred to the book as a collection of “political heresies.”

  IV

  The Adamses entertained often and lavishly at Richmond Hill and sometimes dined with the Washingtons at t
heir house on Cherry Street. Abigail’s fondness for Martha Washington grew pronounced. She was “dignified and feminine, not even the tincture of hauteur about her,” she told her sister, Mary Cranch. Abigail ruefully added that Martha, although somewhat plump, had “a much better figure” than she did.

  Later in the year Abigail took Nabby and Charles to one of Martha’s weekly receptions, where she reported the president displayed “grace, dig nity and ease” in chatting with his guests. She thought he was far better company than King George III at similar receptions in his London palace. Abigail was invariably invited to sit beside Martha Washington. In the shifting conversations, other ladies occasionally occupied this place of honor. The moment President Washington noticed that Abigail had been displaced, he would lead her back to the coveted position and explain that it belonged to Mrs. Adams. This small gesture of concern pleased Abigail enormously.

  Much as she liked Richmond Hill, Abigail found it very expensive to maintain, especially in the winter, when the fireplaces devoured cord after cord of costly wood. She regularly gave dinner parties for as many as twenty-four people. Counting her relatives and servants, there were eighteen people in the house to be fed daily. John Adams’s salary was only $5,000 a year—perhaps $100,000 in modern money—and the farm at Braintree was producing little or no income. Abigail’s favorite relatives, her sister Mary Cranch and her husband, Richard, were getting old and frequently ran short of cash. Abigail loaned them modest sums without hesitation.

  V

  John and Abigail were dismayed by Congress’s decision to move the national capital to Philadelphia for ten years and thereafter settle themselves in Washington, D.C. The Adamses had to leave Nabby and William Smith in New York, along with Charles Adams, who was still studying to become a lawyer. Their son Thomas had joined them after graduating from Harvard, and John decided to take him along as his secretary. The duties of the job were minimal, and his parents began debating how he should make his living. In the end, the only solution that satisfied them was the law. John would find a Philadelphia lawyer under whom he might study.