First Family

by Joseph J. Ellis

  37. JA to AA(2), 31 January 1796, UFC; JA to AA, 28 December 1794, UFC.

  38. JA to AA, 13 February 1796, UFC.

  39. JA to AA, 2 February 1796, UFC.

  40. AA to JA, 26 February 1794, 8 March 1794, UFC; JA to AA, 16 January 1795, UFC.

  41. AA to AA(2), 14 December 1795, 21 February 1791, AFC, vol. 9.

  42. WSS to JA, 21 October 1791, AFC, vol. 9; JA to AA, 2 March 1793, AFC, vol. 9.

  43. JA to AA, 21 January 1794, UFC.

  44. JA to JQA, 4 October 1790, AFC, vol. 9; JA to JQA, 8 September 1790, 17 October 1790, AFC, vol. 9.

  45. JA to Thomas Welsh, 13 September 1790, AFC, vol. 9; JA to AA, 19 May 1794, UFC.

  46. AA to Mary Cranch Smith, 12 March 1791, AFC, vol. 9; JA to AA, 14 January 1794, UFC.

  47. JA to JQA, 30 May 1794, UFC; Martha Washington to AA, 19 July 1794, UFC; JA to JQA, 19 September 1795, UFC, in which John provides the quotation from Washington.

  48. JA to JQA, 25 August 1795, UFC.

  49. AA to JA, 22 April 1789, AFC 8:334; JQA to William Cranch, 27 May 1789, AFC 8:361. See also AA(2) to JQA, 30 March 1789, AFC 8:363.

  50. AA to JA, 20 October 1789, AFC 8:427; AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 9 January 1790, AFC, vol. 9; JA to JQA, 8 September 1790, AFC, vol. 9.

  51. The correspondence started on 23 December 1793 and ended on 17 May 1794. The early letters are in AFC, vol. 9, the remainder in UFC. The question is from JA to CA, 11 May 1794, UFC.

  52. JA to CA, 25 December 1794, UFC.

  53. JA to CA, 7 February 1795, UFC. My interpretation here cannot be proved conclusively, but strikes me as the most plausible explanation based on a considerable body of circumstantial evidence.

  54. JA to AA, 8 December 1792, AFC, vol. 9. John took offense at the support for Clinton, calling him “a mere cipher, a logroller in New York politics, a man of mere ambition and no virtue.” JA to AA, 19 December 1792, AFC, vol. 9.

  55. JA to AA, 4 February 1794, 8 February 1794, AFC, vol. 9.

  56. JA to AA, 19 November 1794, UFC; JA to AA, 23 November 1794, UFC; AA to JA, 13 February 1795, UFC.

  57. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 April 1792, 25 March 1792, AFC, vol. 9.

  58. JA to AA, 26 January 1794, UFC; JA to AA, 14 January 1793, AFC, vol. 9.

  59. The best secondary account of this crowded moment is in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 330–84. See also my American Creation, ch. 5, and CA to JA, 29 July 1793, AFC, vol. 9; JA to AA, 12 December 1793, AFC, vol. 9; JA to AA, 17 February 1793, AFC, vol. 9.

  60. JA to AA, 28 December 1792, AFC, vol. 9.

  61. JA to AA, 3 February 1793, AFC, vol. 9.

  62. JA to JQA, 3 January 1794, UFC. See also JA to AA, 6 January 1794, UFC.

  63. Jerald A. Combs, The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers (Berkeley, 1970), is the standard account. Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 406–50, is superb on the diplomatic twists and turns.

  64. JA to CA, 13 December 1795, UFC; AA to JQA, 15 September 1795, UFC.

  65. JA to AA, 9, 14, 23, and 29 June 1795, UFC, for John’s report on the debate in the Senate. AA to JQA, 10 February 1795 and JA to CA, 20 April 1796, UFC, for the quotations.

  66. JA to AA, 21 and 26 April 1796, UFC, for John’s description of the melting Republican majority. JA to AA, 28 April 1796, UFC, for reference to Madison’s condition.

  67. JA to JQA, 29 November 1795, UFC.

  68. JA to AA, 5, 7, and 20 January 1796, UFC.

  69. AA to JA, 21 January and 14 February 1796, UFC.

  70. JA to AA, 15 February 1796, 10 February 1796, UFC.

  71. AA to JA, 20 February 1796, UFC; JA to AA, 1 March 1796, UFC.

  72. AA to JA, 28 February 1796, UFC.

  73. JA to AA, 9 April 1796, UFC; AA to JA, 4 December 1796, UFC.

  74. JA to AA, 8 December 1796, 7 December 1796, UFC.

  75. AA to JA, 1 January 1797, UFC.

  76. JA to AA, 27 December 1796, UFC.

  77. AA to JA, 31 December 1796, UFC.

  78. AA to JA, 15 January 1797, UFC.

  CHAPTER SIX. 1796–1801

  1. TJ to James Madison, 8 January 1797, JM 2:955; Aurora, 6 March 1797; William Duane, “A Letter to Washington” (Philadelphia, 1796); AA to JA, 23 December 1796, UFC.

  2. AA to JA, 15 January 1797, UFC; AA to JA, 31 December 1796, UFC; AA to JA, 28 January 1797, UFC. The standard account of the Adams presidency is Stephen G. Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, 1784–1800 (Philadelphia, 1957).

  3. JA to Elbridge Gerry, 20 February 1797, AP, reel 117; TJ to James Madison, 1 January 1797, 22 January 1798, JM 2:953, 959–60.

  4. TJ to JA, 28 December 1796, JM 2:961–62; JA to AA, 1 and 3 January 1797, UFC; AA to JA, 18 March 1797, UFC.

  5. James Madison to TJ, 15 January 1797, JM 2:956–58.

  6. I have told this story in somewhat greater detail in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York, 2000), 184; John’s recollection of the episode is in Works 9:285.

  7. JA to AA, 13 March 1797, UFC; AA to JA, 2 March 1797, UFC; JA to JQA, 3 November 1797, UFC. On Jefferson’s machinations, see Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 566.

  8. JA to AA, 17 March 1797, UFC

  9. JA to AA, 5, 9, 17, and 27 March 1797, UFC.

  10. JQA to JA, 3 February, 4 March, and 20 May 1797, UFC, for John Quincy’s quite extraordinary analysis of French policy toward the United States.

  11. JQA to JA, 21 May 1797, UFC.

  12. AA to JA, 26 April 1797, UFC.

  13. Alexander Hamilton to James McHenry, 21 April 1797, HP 20:574–75. An excellent account of Hamilton’s behind-the-scenes behavior is in John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville, 1995), 343.

  14. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 23 June 1797, UFC.

  15. Aurora, 16 June 1798.

  16. George Washington to JA, 28 February 1797, Works 8:529–30.

  17. JA to JQA, 25 October and 3 November 1797; AA to JQA, 3 November 1797, UFC; JQA to AA, 28 December 1797, UFC.

  18. Aurora, 17 May 1797, 26 May 1797.

  19. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 6 June 1797, UFC; AA to Mercy Otis Warren, 1 October 1797, UFC.

  20. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 and 27 March 1798, UFC; AA to Hannah Cushing, 9 March 1798, UFC.

  21. JQA to AA, 29 December 1797, UFC; JA to Cotton Tufts, 18 November 1797, UFC.

  22. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 20 March 1798, UFC.

  23. AA to TBA, 4 April 1798, UFC.

  24. AA to TBA, 1 May 1798, UFC.

  25. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 10 May 1798, UFC.

  26. JQA to JA, 15 April 1798, UFC.

  27. AA to WSS, 8 April 1798, UFC; AA to Norton Quincy, 12 April 1798, UFC; AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 13 April 1798, UFC.

  28. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 22 April and 26 May 1798, UFC; AA to JQA, 26 May 1798, UFC.

  29. The standard work is James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, 1956). For a somewhat less harsh assessment of Adams, see Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 590–93, which cautions against imposing our modern notion of civil liberties on an era that was still groping toward a more expansive version of First Amendment protections.

  30. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 21 May 1798, UFC; AA to Cotton Tufts, 25 May 1798, UFC; AA to WSS, 20 March 1798, UFC.

  31. JA to George Washington, 7 July 1798, Works 8:575.

  32. JA to James McHenry, 22 October 1798, Works 8:612–13.

  33. HP 21:381–447.

  34. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York, 2004), 546–68, provides the fullest and fairest account.

  35. Ibid., 568.

  36. AA to WSS, 7 July 1798, UFC.

  37. AA(2) to JQA, 28 September 1798, UFC, for a description of Abigail’s ailments; AA to JQA, 20 July 1798, UFC.

  38. JA to AA, 1 February 1799, UFC.

  39. JQA to JA, 25 September 1798, UFC.

  40. JA to AA, 25 Februar
y 1799, UFC.

  41. AA to JA, 27 February 1799, UFC.

  42. JA to AA, 22 February 1799, UFC.

  43. Pickering’s comment is in HP, 22:494–95.

  44. AA to JA, 3 March 1799, UFC.

  45. AA to JQA, 15 November 1998; AA to JA, 25 January 1799, UFC.

  46. The correspondence with his cabinet during the Quincy seclusion is in Works 8:626–69.

  47. JA to Benjamin Stoddert, 21 September 1799, Works 9:32–34.

  48. JA to AA, 5 January 1799, UFC.

  49. JA to WSS, 22 May 1799, Works 8:652.

  50. AA to JA, 14 February 1799, UFC, for the first explicit mention of Charles’s condition, prompted by the loss of John Quincy’s money.

  51. JA to JQA, 28 February 1800, UFC.

  52. AA to WSS, 6 September 1799, UFC.

  53. JA to AA, 12 October 1799, UFC.

  54. Works 9:254–55, for John’s recollection in 1809; JA to AA, 30 October 1799, UFC.

  55. Works 9:154–55; AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 30 December 1799, UFC.

  56. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 24 April 1800, UFC.

  57. Marshall quoted in Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, 728; Alexander Hamilton to Charles Carroll, 1 July 1800, UFC.

  58. James T. Callender, The Prospect Before Us (Philadelphia, 1800), 12–14, 47–48, 67; TJ to James Monroe, 26 May 1800, quoted in Ellis, American Sphinx, 219.

  59. AA to JQA, 1 September 1800, UFC.

  60. AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 24 April 1800, UFC.

  61. Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 612–14, provides the fullest treatment of McHenry’s hyperbolic account of the incident. Hamilton was especially upset at the firings because he believed that McHenry and Pickering worked for him.

  62. JA to AA, 13 June 1800, UFC.

  63. AA to JA, 22 May 1800, UFC.

  64. Alexander Hamilton to JA, 1 August 1800, HP 25:51.

  65. HP 25:187–88, 190, 208–9.

  66. JA to Uzal Ogden, 3 December 1800, HP 25:183; AA to TBA, 12 October 1800, UFC.

  67. JA to AA, 2 November 1800, UFC; AA to Mary Smith Cranch, 21 November 1800, UFC.

  68. AA to AA(2), 21 and 28 November 1800, UFC.

  69. AA to TBA, 13 December 1800, UFC; JA to TBA, 11 December 1800, UFC.

  70. JA to TBA, 18 December 1800, UFC.

  71. AA to Sarah Smith Adams, 8 December 1800, UFC.

  72. AA to TBA, 3 January 1801, UFC; JA to TBA, 25 January 1801, UFC; JA to Cotton Tufts, 26 December 1800, UFC.

  73. AA to TBA, 3 January 1801, UFC; A Conversation Between Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson [January 1801], UFC.

  74. AA to TBA, 3 February 1801, UFC; JA to AA, 16 February 1801, UFC.

  75. Aurora, 11 March 1801.

  76. Washington Federalist, 21 January 1801.

  CHAPTER SEVEN. 1801–8

  1. JQA to AA, 14 April 1801, UFC.

  2. JA to William Tudor, 20 January 1801, AP, reel 123; JA to William Dexter, 23 March 1801, Works 10:580–81.

  3. AA to TBA, 23 April 1801, UFC; AA to WSS, 3 May 1801, UFC.

  4. JA to TBA, 12 July and 15 September 1801, UFC.

  5. See Nagel, Descent from Glory, 56–135, for the complicated domestic situation at Quincy. In my judgment, Nagel’s work on the Quincy years is simultaneously invaluable and unreliable, in the latter case because he seems to have a vendetta against Abigail, and because he provides no documentation for his judgments.

  6. AA to TBA, 26 April and 8 May 1803, UFC; a splendid summary of the legal transactions is in McCullough, Adams, 576.

  7. AA to TBA, 12 July 1801, UFC.

  8. AA to TBA, 12 June 1801, UFC.

  9. AA to TBA, 12 June and 5 July 1801, UFC; JA to Thomas McKean, 21 June 1812, Works 10:16.

  10. AA to JQA, 22 March 1816, AP, reel 430.

  11. AA to TBA, 27 December 1801, UFC.

  12. LCA, The Adventures of a Nobody, AP, reel 269.

  13. JA to Benjamin Rush, 17 August 1813, in Alexander Biddle, ed., Old Family Letters (Philadelphia, 1892), 420.

  14. JQA to JA, 19 November 1804, UFC; JA to JQA, 6 December 1804, UFC.

  15. DA 2:253.

  16. DA i:xliv-xlvi.

  17. DA 3:435–36.

  18. AA to Mercy Otis Warren, 16 January 1803, UFC.

  19. Mercy Otis Warren, History of the American Revolution, 3 vols. (Boston, 1805), 3:394–95.

  20. JA to Mercy Otis Warren, 11 July, 27 July, and 3 August 1807, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., “Correspondence Between John Adams and Mercy Otis Warren,” reprinted in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 4 (1878), 354, 358, 411; Mercy Otis Warren to JA, 15 August 1807, ibid., 422–23, 449.

  21. JA to Mercy Otis Warren, 27 July 1807, ibid., 354.

  22. JA to William Cunningham, 27 February 1809, [Anonymous], in Correspondence Between the Hon. John Adams … and the Late William Cunningham, Esq. (Boston, 1823), 93; Works 10:310; JA to Nicholas Boylston, 3 November 1819, AP, reel 124.

  23. The standard biography of Rush is David F. Hawke, Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly (New York, 1971). The Adams-Rush correspondence is available in John A. Schutz and Douglas Adair, eds., The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush (San Marino, Calif., 1966).

  24. JA to Benjamin Rush, 29 November 1812, in Schutz and Adair, Spur of Fame, 254–55.

  25. JA to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1806, ibid., 72–73.

  26. Benjamin Rush to JA, 4 June 1812, ibid., 233; JA to Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1810, ibid., 170; JA to Benjamin Rush, 26 March 1806, ibid., 52.

  27. JA to Benjamin Rush, 14 May 1812, 8 January 1812, ibid., 216–17, 204.

  28. JA to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1807, 31 August 1809, ibid., 97–99, 152.

  29. JA to Richard Rush, 2 May 1814, AP, reel 95.

  30. JA to Benjamin Rush, 23 July 1806, in Schutz and Adair, Spur of Fame, 61.

  31. AA to TJ, 20 May 1804, AJ 1:268–69.

  32. TJ to AA, 14 June 1804, AJ 1:270–71.

  33. AA to TJ, 1 July 1804, AJ 1:271–74.

  34. TJ to AA, 22 July 1804, AJ 1:274_76, 279–80.

  35. AA to TJ, 25 October 1804, AJ 1:280–82. The marginal note by John is printed at the end of this letter.

  36. AA to LCA, 8 December 1804, UFC.

  37. LCA to AA, 11 May 1806, UFC.

  38. AA to JQA and LCA, 29 November 1805, UFC.

  39. JA to JQA, 27 August 1815, AP, reel 122.

  40. AA to AA(2), 23 May 1809, UFC.

  41. AA to Caroline Amelia Smith, 2 February 1809, UFC; Benjamin Rush to JA, 20 September 1811, AP, reel 412.

  42. AA to JQA, 17 November 1811, AP, reel 412.

  43. AA to JQA, 17 November 1811, AP, reel 116.

  44. AA to JQA, 13 September, 24 September, and 22 October 1813, AP, reel 116.

  45. JA to Shelton Jones, 11 March 1809, AP, reel 118; JA to Francis Vanderkemp, 5 July 1814, AP, reel 116; JA to Benjamin Rush, 15 January 1813, AP, reel 116.

  46. JA to John Adams Smith, 15 October 1811, UFC.

  47. JA to Benjamin Waterhouse, 16 August 1812, in Worthington C. Ford, ed., Statesman and Friend: Correspondence of John Adams and Benjamin Waterhouse, 1784–1822 (Boston, 1927), 81; JA to Josiah Quincy, 9 February 1811, Works 9:630.

  48. JA to Francis Vanderkemp, 27 December 1816, Works 10:235.

  49. JA to Benjamin Rush, 25 December 1811, in Schutz and Adair, Spur of Fame, 200–202; Benjamin Rush to JA, 17 February 1812, ibid., 211; Benjamin Rush to JA, 16 October 1809, ibid., 156–57.

  50. Donald Stewart and George Clark, “Misanthrope or Humanitarian: John Adams in Retirement,” NEQ 28 (1955), 232.

  51. Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past (Boston, 1883), 79–80. It should be noted that this discussion of the Adams-Jefferson correspondence makes no pretense of being a comprehensive account. If this were a biography of John and not a book about the partnership between Abigail and John, the treatment of the Adams-Jefferson letters would be considerably expanded. See, for example, my Founding Brothers, 206–48; American Sphinx, 235–51;
and Passionate Sage, 113–42, for fuller treatments.

  52. JA to TJ, 15 July 1813, AJ 2:358, where the quote is from Abigail’s appended note.

  53. TJ to JA, 21 January 1812, and JA to TJ, 3 February 1812, AJ 2:291, 298.

  54. JA to TJ, 15 July 1813, AJ 2:358.

  55. TJ to JA, 5 July 1814, and JA to TJ, 16 July 1814, AJ 2:430, 435.

  56. JA to TJ, 1 May 1812, and TJ to JA, 27 May 1813, AJ 2:301, 324.

  57. TJ to JA, 11 January 1816, AJ 2:458–61.

  58. JA to TJ, 3 February 1816, AJ 2:458–61.

  59. The key letters are: TJ to JA, 27 June 1813; JA to TJ, 15 July 1813; and JA to TJ, 14 August 1813, AJ 2:335–36, 358, 365.

  60. TJ to JA, 28 October 1813, and JA to TJ, 16 July 1814, AJ 2:387–92, 437–38. The subject ignited all of John’s long-suppressed convictions about human inequality and the intractable power of elites in all societies. Virtually all his letters during the summer and fall of 1813, twenty in total, deal with this fundamental disagreement between the two patriarchs.

  61. AA to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 10 February 1814, 29 December 1811, UFC.

  62. While these glimpses into the day-to-day interactions of Abigail and John are partly conjecture on my part, they are based on the few shreds of testimony from visitors and offhand observations in the couple’s correspondence with each other.

  63. AA to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 18 July 1809, UFC.

  64. The best biography of John Quincy is Lynn Hudson Parsons, John Quincy Adams (Lanham, Md., 1998). The quotation is the title for chapter 4, which covers his diplomatic career in St. Petersburg.

  65. JA to JQA, 13 November 1816, and 26 November 1816, AP, reel 123.

  66. JA to JQA, 10 August 1817, UFC; AA to Harriet Welsh, 18 August 1817, AP, reel 438; McCullough., John Adams, 620–21.

  67. Will of Abigail Adams, 18 January 1816, AP, reel 429. You could develop an interpretation of Abigail’s independence on the basis of this final statement, and Woody Holton has done so in his recent biography, Abigail Adams (New York, 2009), which strikes me as superb.

  68. JA to JQA, 6 July 1816, UFC.

  69. JA to TJ, 20 October 1818, AJ 2:529; John’s remark is reported in Harriet Welsh to Louisa C. A. de Windt, November 1818, AP, reel 445.

  70. See Nagel, Descent from Glory, 130–33, for an excellent account of the death scene and the quotation from Louisa Catherine; JA to Francis Vanderkemp, 25 September 1819, AP, reel 124; JA to JQA, 10 November 1818, UFC.