John Adams: The Indispensable Man Nobody Remembers
History has a habit of forgetting the people who made the famous people possible. John Adams understood this about himself. “The history of our Revolution,” he bitterly wrote in 1790, “will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's electrical rod smote the earth and out sprang General Washington.” Adams knew exactly where he stood in public opinion. He was not wrong.
However, consider what the Revolution actually required from John Adams and what it cost him.
It was Adams who, in the spring of 1775, stood before the Continental Congress and nominated George Washington to command the Continental Army. He commented later that he chose Washington not because he was the most experienced officer, but because a Virginian at the head of a New England force would drive national unity. It was a political move as much as a military one, and it was exactly right.
It was Adams who made the case for independence on the floor of Congress, day after day, in the summer of 1776. Jefferson wrote the Declaration, but Adams argued it into existence. Jefferson himself called Adams “the pillar of its support on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered.” When the final vote came on July 2, 1776, the day Adams believed would be forever celebrated, it was Adams who had done the grinding work to persuade and move others.
He was then sent to France, and arrived to find Franklin already firmly established, loved, and uninterested in sharing the diplomatic spotlight. Adams threw himself into the work anyways, reorganizing the American mission's finances and communicated with his characteristically focused efficiency. The French court found him exhausting. He returned home, was immediately sent back, and spent years away from his wife Abigail and his children, living in cold European apartments, with bad food and horrible sleep.
Abigail Adams, whom he addressed in letters as “Miss Adorable” and “Dearest Friend,” raised their children essentially alone through the Revolution. She managed the family farm, handled their finances, educated their children, and wrote some of the most interesting letters in American history while her husband was changing the world on the other side of the ocean. Adams knew the price she was paying, but he could not stop paying it.
He became the first Vice President saying it was “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived,” he admitted. He became the second President, served one term, was defeated by his own Vice President, and rode home to Quincy, Massachusetts in the dark before Jefferson's inauguration rather than witness it.
He and Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day after the Declaration. Adams's last words, by most accounts, were: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” He did not know that Jefferson had died hours before.
Some men hold the roof up. They are rarely the ones we remember.
Sources
McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Ellis, Joseph J. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams. New York: Norton, 1993.
Adams, John. Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 4, 1790. Founders Online, National Archives.
Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to Timothy Pickering, August 6, 1822. Founders Online, National Archives.
Ferling, John. John Adams: A Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1992.
