Meaning Well

[He] means well for his Country, is always an honest Man, often a Wise One, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.

Benjamin Franklin on John Adams

On this date in 1789, John Adams was inaugurated as the first Vice President of the United States of America.  He would go on to serve another term as VP before becoming our second President.

Franklin's assessment, correct in all respects, was based upon his experience with Adams at the Second Continental Congress, where they served on the five man committee responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence, and on their time then together in France during the war for independence.  Adams impatient and impolitic style contrasted greatly with Franklin's more subtle, and successful, approach to diplomacy aimed at securing the all important military and financial alliance with that country.

Adams was thin-skinned, voluble, with a temper that, on occasion, led him erupt with remarks that his enemies could use against him.  His books and essays seem turgid by modern standards and, even by those of his times, were not a source of memorable phrases.  As President, Adams could not control his own cabinet, and was responsible for the Alien & Sedition Acts, the greatest assault on free speech in peacetime in our history, until those of the current administration.

At the same time, John Adams was one of the leading proponents for resistance to the British attempts to interfere with the historical liberties of American colonials.  He successfully defended, at the urging of Samuel Adams and others, the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre of 1770.  As delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1777, he nominated George Washington to be commander in chief of the new army, was a leading and influential voice for independence, and served on the committee that drafted the Declaration.  In 1780 Adams drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, the oldest functioning written Constitution in the world.  During the war for independence, along with serving as Commissioner to France, he served as Minister to the Netherlands where he secured a critical loan for the American government and then, along with John Jay, was America's primary negotiator in securing the Treaty of Paris in which Britain recognized American independence and then becoming our first minister to Britain.

While his presidency was mostly unsuccessful due to, in addition to his own shortcomings, vicious anonymous press assaults (secretly promoted by his old friend Thomas Jefferson) and undermining by his rival Alexander Hamilton, Adams, for the good of the country, and at great personal political cost, avoided war with France.  When he lost his bid for reelection after brutal political campaign of 1800, Adams facilitated the first peaceful transition of power to another political party in Western history.

Adams is a difficult figure to relate to for 21st century Americans.  He could be stuffy and pretentious but his impulsive nature and reactions actually makes him more relatable than more remote figures like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, or Hamilton (though none can approach Franklin as a recognizable human figure to us).  We can see it in his correspondence after he and Jefferson reconciled in 1812 (after an earlier failed effort - see Abigail Writes Thomas).  For every letter Jefferson writes, Adams writes three.  He simply cannot contain himself, revealing much more about himself than the ever guarded Jefferson.

In the book I'm reading on Lafayette's tour of America in 1824-5, the Frenchman's secretary describes visiting the retired president, nearing his 89th birthday, at his modest home in Braintree, Massachusetts.

Our carriages stopped at the door of a very simple small house, built of wood and brick, and but one story high.  I was somewhat astonished to learn that this was the resident of an Ex-President of the United States. . . . He received and welcomed us with touching kindness: the sight of his ancient friend imparted a pleasure and satisfaction, which appeared to renew his youth.  During the whole of dinner time, he kept up the conversation with an ease and readiness of memory . . . 

At the moment of our visit, although he could not go out of his chamber, could scarcely raise himself from his chair, and his hands were unable to convey the food to his mouth without the pious assistance of his children or grand children, his heart and head felt not less ardour for every thing good.  The affairs of his country afforded him the most pleasant occupation. . . . We left him, filled with admiration at the courage with which he supported the pains and infirmities which the lapse of nearly a century had necessarily accumulated upon him.

Adams died on July 4, 1826, the same day as his old friend and rival, Thomas Jefferson.