First Family

by Joseph J. Ellis

  If the political battle between John and Hamilton had become a duel to the death—and it had—then John could only relish the realization that, despite his own gloomy political prospects, he was taking Hamilton down with him. As he wandered through the Maryland woods on the way back to Abigail at Quincy, he had placed himself in a familiar position that fit squarely into the dominant pattern of his public life.

  He invariably focused his fire on opponents who achieved satanic status for blocking his path, such as Thomas Hutchinson, Benjamin Franklin, Vergennes, and now Alexander Hamilton, the latest entry in his rogues’ gallery. (Jefferson kept slipping on and off the list.) He was deeply attuned to the ambitions of his enemies, which he understood intuitively because the same ambitions were stirring in his own soul, so by eviscerating them he was assuming control of himself. His deepest energies were mobilized in defense of worthy causes that appeared lost, against enemies who embodied the formidable strengths of his own darker side.

  As he began the long trek back to Quincy, then, even though the forces aligned against him constituted a political version of the perfect storm, the interior forces of the Adams soul were perfectly aligned in their most potent pattern. The fact that the Republicans and ultra-Federalists had deployed their forces to defeat him was a reassuring sign that his own course was correct. The fact that he was likely to lose the election was also greatly satisfying, since it meant that political motives had played no role in shaping his policies, which had only the long-term interests of the American republic as a guide. Singular acts of defiance had become his trademark from the day he decided to defend the British troops after the Boston Massacre. So now he would be going out as he came in, like a cannonball aimed at the center of American history, primed for one final explosion.

  EXIT

  Soon after he had settled in at Quincy, John received an extraordinary letter from Hamilton: “It has been repeatedly mentioned to me,” wrote Hamilton,

  that you have on different occasions asserted the existence of a British Faction in this Country, embracing a number of leading or influential characters of the Federal Party (as usually denominated) and that you have named me … As one of this description of persons … I must Sir take it for granted that you cannot have made such assertions without being willing to avow them and to assign reason to a party who may conceive himself injured by them.64

  As John surely recognized, this was the language of an affair of honor, the preliminary verbal etiquette that preceded a challenge. Hamilton had obviously crossed another line in his headlong descent toward self-destruction, carrying his political competition with the president of the United States to the brink of a duel.

  A few weeks later a series of essays began appearing in the newspapers entitled Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States. Although it stopped short of calling John crazy, it did accuse him of being mentally unstable and unfit to serve as president. Hamilton described his nemesis as “a man of imagination sublimated and eccentric; propitious neither to the regular display of sound judgment or to steady perseverance in a systematic plan of conduct … that to this defect are added the unfortunate foibles of a vanity without bounds, and a jealousy capable of discoloring every subject.” Material that McHenry and Pickering had confided to Hamilton was cited to document John’s irritable and volatile behavior in cabinet meetings and “the disgusting egotism, the distempered jealousy, and the ungovernable indiscretion of Mr. ADAMS’ temper.”65

  The dominant reaction, even among Hamilton’s most devoted disciples in the Federalist camp, was that the pamphlet was conclusive evidence that Hamilton himself had lost his mind. (The Republicans were overjoyed to see the Federalists engaged in public bloodletting that clinched Jefferson’s election.) John’s somewhat disingenuous reaction was to express regret: “I am confident it will do him more harm than me.” Abigail regarded the episode as confirmation of her original assessment of Hamilton as a diabolical egomaniac, who was, in fact, “a mere Sparrow,” and further evidence that the electoral politics of the infant republic had become an intellectual swamp fit only for scandalmongers and ideological fanatics. It would be an enormous relief to be free of this increasingly toxic atmosphere, she claimed, and leave Jefferson to navigate among the floating piles of muck, which he would surely describe as “a turbulent Sea of Liberty.”66

  When John left for Washington in October, the only question was whether Abigail should risk the difficult trip to join him. They had obviously talked at some length about the looming public and private tribulations coming their way: the near-certain loss of the presidency, and the deteriorating condition of Charles, which raised domestic questions about their obligations to his wife and children. It was clearly time for the Adams family to circle the proverbial wagons in preparation for the imminent blows.

  In early November John wrote from the still unfinished presidential mansion, urging Abigail to join him: “It is fit and proper,” he explained, “that you and I should retire together.” (In the same letter he penned the words later inscribed into the mantel of the fireplace at the White House: “May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.”) Thomas volunteered to accompany his mother on the final leg of the trip from Philadelphia to Washington. They arrived at the fledging capital on November 16, 1800, Abigail pronouncing that “the country is romantic but wild, a wilderness at present.”67

  Her chief task was to make the presidential mansion habitable. As it turned out, this was not easy. The plaster on the walls was still drying, the staircases were unfinished, there was not enough wood to keep the twelve fireplaces going sufficiently to dry the paint on the walls, and the roof leaked so badly that twelve tubs were needed to catch the water during a storm. The grounds around the building, a huge mud pile, were being landscaped by slaves: “I have amused myself from day to day in looking at the labour of 12 negroes from my window loading dirt in carts,” she observed, but working at a leisurely pace that two hardy New England laborers would easily outstrip. Washington was a decidedly southern city, she reported to Nabby, which meant that it was cursed by the stain of slavery, the unmentionable centerpiece of Jefferson’s “true Republicanism.”68

  The expected bad news came all at once in the first week of December. The tandem of Jefferson and Burr had received seventy-three electoral votes to sixty-five for John and sixty-four for Pinckney. It was actually much closer than Abigail and John had expected. John ran ahead of the Federalist candidates for Congress and, apart from the New York vote, ahead of his margin in the previous election. “The deflection of New York has been the source,” Abigail observed, adding that “at my age and with my bodily infirmities I shall be happier at Quincy.” John chimed in with a similar sentiment: “I feel my shoulders relieved from a burden,” he informed Thomas. “The short remainder of my days will be the happiest of my life.” They had been preparing themselves for this moment for several months, and now that it had arrived, they both were eager to move past it.69

  The second blow arrived almost simultaneously with the election results, and although they had been anxiously anticipating it as well, the news that Charles had died on December 1 produced emotional tremors that shook both parents to the core. “The melancholy death of your brother is an affliction of a more serious nature to this family than any other,” John apprised Thomas. “Oh! That I had died for him if that would have relieved him from his faults as well as his disease.” Having renounced Charles while he was still alive, now that he was gone John felt free to express his love for him again.70

  Abigail feared this was so deep a wound that it would never completely heal. Political defeat was a bitter pill, to be sure, but the loss of a son was a tragedy beyond words. She intended to banish from her mind “all the frailties and offences of my dear departed son” and to focus her memories on the young child whose beguiling personality had made him the most popular boy in the neighborhood and “a favorite w
here ever he went.” She kept asking herself if there was something she could have done as a mother to avert the tragedy, but kept reaching the conclusion that Charles was the victim of his own demons. She informed Charles’s widow that she and John stood ready to assist with the two children in whatever way seemed appropriate. The political defeat was actually a godsend on this score, because it meant that they would now have the time and energy to become dutiful grandparents.71

  A piece of splendid news cast at least one beam of light into the prevailing darkness. Secretary of State Marshall had kept John apprised of the dispatches from France, which suggested that the peace negotiations were proceeding apace. Soon after the election results became known, official word arrived that a new Franco-American treaty, named the Treaty of Morfontaine, had been signed ending the “quasi-war.” Although the French had refused to pay compensation to American merchants for losses suffered, an unnecessary war that threatened to undermine the entire American government was now avoided. And since this had been the central goal of his presidency, John could plausibly say that he had steered the American ship of state through stormy seas and into a safe port.

  As it turned out, while it was clear that John had lost the election of 1800, it was not clear who had won. The same flaw in constitutional procedure that had made Jefferson his vice president in 1796 this time permitted Jefferson and Burr to tie in the Electoral College at seventy-three votes apiece. The decision was therefore thrown into the House of Representatives, as mandated by the Constitution, and eventually required six weeks and thirty-six highly contentious ballots to resolve.

  Both Abigail and John assumed that Jefferson would win and that he was the vastly preferable candidate. (So, ironically, did Hamilton, who lobbied against Burr behind the scenes, which helped pave the way to their deadly encounter nearly four years later.) Abigail thought that Burr had “risen upon Stilts,” meaning that none of the voters had intended to elect him as president, and that if he were to sneak in, “God save the United States of America.” John concurred, describing Burr as “ambitious, insinuating, a voluptuary … and a much more dangerous Man than Mr. Jefferson.” John came under some pressure to make a public statement on Jefferson’s behalf, but he refused, claiming that such interference would be inappropriate. Moreover, his own mind had already moved on to planning his retirement, he claimed somewhat disingenuously. Jefferson’s fate, he joked, was of less concern to him than the fruit trees, cucumbers, and new potato field he was contemplating as “The Farmer of Stoneyfield.”72

  At Abigail’s urging, they did make a social statement of sorts in Jefferson’s behalf by inviting him to dinner in early January. “Mr. Jefferson dines with us,” she informed Thomas, “and in a card of replie to the President’s invitation, he begs him to be assured of his Homage and high consideration.” Although neither member of the Adams team was yet prepared to forgive Jefferson’s duplicities during the campaign, Jefferson was apparently disposed to forget them. Abigail was surprised during their dinner conversation that he seemed less informed about the provisions of the new French treaty than she was, and that she had to introduce him to members of the House, fellow guests, who, in fact, would soon determine his fate. Jefferson could only laugh when Abigail joked that he obviously needed her to serve as his political manager.73

  While it was somewhat true that John had little to do as a lame-duck president other than daydream about fruit trees and cucumbers, circumstance presented him with the opportunity to make one final decision that turned out to be one of the most consequential acts of his presidency. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth chose to resign, creating a vacancy that John was still empowered to fill. He then offered the post to John Marshall, who had impressed John with his uncommon sense, massive probity, and total loyalty.

  Marshall went on to serve for thirty-four years, without much question the most towering and influential chief justice in American history and, beyond any question, the most relentlessly effective opponent of Jefferson’s state-centered view of the Constitution. Marshall was even more of a Trojan horse, planted squarely in the Jefferson administration, than Jefferson had been in the Adams administration.

  Abigail decided that she should leave the capital before John, despite his wish that they go out together. The roads and rivers between Washington and Philadelphia were notoriously difficult to negotiate in winter. (The absence of bridges meant that riders had to travel out onto the ice, crash through, then move on to locate safer crossings.) She dreaded this adventure and wanted to get it behind her. Jefferson visited her before her departure, a gracious gesture, “more than I expected,” she declared, and she kept the conversation focused on practical matters like rugs and furniture in the presidential mansion. It was the last time they saw each other. She began the trek back to Quincy on February 13. The House elected Jefferson as the next president three days later.74

  The Aurora chose to treat John in the same abusive way it had treated Washington when he prepared to exit the office. The editors described him as a pathetic malingerer who “needed to be cast like polluted water out the back door, and who should immediately leave for Quincy, that Mrs. Adams may wash his befuddled brains clear.” He could certainly be forgiven for cringing at such stings, for he had, in the space of four years, lost his mother, a son, and the presidency, and almost lost his wife. (One might add that he had also supervised the suicide of the Federalist Party, but that was really Hamilton’s work.) He was, in several senses of the term, a beaten man.75

  But, rather remarkably, he did not feel beaten so much as buoyant. When a fire broke out at the Treasury Department building next door to the presidential mansion, the local newspapers described the scene: “Through the exertions of the citizens, animated by the example of the President of the United States (who on this occasion fell into the ranks and aided in passing the buckets), the fire was at length subdued.” It was a trademark Adams act, defiantly energetic when most wounded, at his best when the situation was at its worst. For beyond the litany of losses, there were two overarching victories: his policy of neutrality and peace, which he was confident would become the keystone of his presidential legacy over the years, had been vindicated; and Abigail had neither died nor become a permanent invalid, but was waiting for him at Quincy at something approaching full force. These were the true essentials, and they were both in place.76

  On March 4, 1801, the day of Jefferson’s inauguration, John boarded the four o’clock morning stage out of town. His absence at his successor’s installation attracted criticism then, and has ever since, as a petulant gesture. More likely, he did not think he was supposed to be present. There was no precedent for a defeated candidate to attend the inauguration of his successor, and he wished neither to complicate Jefferson’s moment of triumph nor to lend a hand in its celebration.

  Matters of ceremony were the furthest thing from his mind, an unfortunate fact given that his presence would have added symbolic significance to the first peaceful and routine transfer of power from one party to another in American history. But his mind was elsewhere: on the awkward realization that he had outlived a son; on the best design for his potato field; on the melting ice in the rivers that would delay his trek back to Quincy; mostly, on the time remaining to him, which he presumed would be brief, and the woman with whom he wished to spend it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1801–18

  “I wish I could lie down beside her and die too.”

  FOR MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS Abigail had been urging her husband to retire from public life and join her beside the hearth at Quincy. Now, at last, he was finally doing so, albeit at the insistence of the American electorate rather than by any choice of his own. John Quincy, writing from Berlin, observed that his father should not be surprised at being hurled from office, since such was the fate that, by his own analysis, awaited all public servants determined to lead rather than listen to popular opinion. “I knew he was aware that in contributing to found a great republic,” John Quincy n
oted to his mother, “that he was not preparing a school for public gratitude … and that he himself in all probability would be one of the most signal instances of patriotism sacrificed to intrigue and envy.” Indeed, as John Quincy himself was destined to discover, a conspicuous flair for alienating voters while acting in their long-term interest, much like premature baldness, was bred into the genes of all prominent male members of the Adams line.1

  At least publicly, John claimed to realize that his political defeat had been inevitable: “I am not about to write lamentations or jeremiads over my fate nor panegyrics upon my life and conduct,” he told a friend. “You may think me disappointed. I am not. All my life I expected it.” He also knew that, according to the Ciceronian code, he was supposed to affect the posture of a world-weary pilgrim who had at last reached the Promised Land that was his Quincy farm, where blessedly bucolic rhythms would replace the frenzied and often frantic pace of political life. John, for his part, preferred to sound a more irreverent note: “I found about a hundred loads of sea weed in my barnyard,” he joked. “I thought I had made a good exchange … of honors and virtues for manure.”2

  Abigail shared his joking mood. All the well-coiffed and turned-out ladies of Washington would surely be impressed to see her skimming milk at dawn in her nightgown. It had been a cold, wet, and sour spring in Quincy, she added: “They call it Jeffersonian weather here.”3