Tag: John Adams

Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 1776

On By Rob OrrisonIn 1776, America 250, Battlefields & Historic Places, Continental Congress, Continental Leadership, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment
The rebuilt Jacob Graff House

July 4, 1776 was not an unusual day when it began for Thomas Jefferson. It started off as any normal Thursday. Jefferson documented that he woke up around at dawn on the second floor of the Jacob Graff House at the corner of Market and 7th Streets. He spent the morning shopping in nearby Philadelphia stores. He documented the temperature that day at an ironic high of 76 degrees (much cooler than the expected 100+ degree heat on July 4, 2026). As he perused the stores on Philadelphia that morning, he purchased seven thermometers as well as women’s gloves. Jefferson also noted donating one shilling six pence to charity.

Jefferson was on hand as the Second Continental Congress convened at 9:00am in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House. The day before, Jefferson sat through discussion on editing his draft of the Declaration of Independence. He would also spend this morning listening to others editing down his document by one-third. Jefferson took great offense to the edits and preserved his original draft for posterity.

Jefferson used this chair in the Graff House to write the declaration. Today the chair is on display at the American
Philosophical Society

After some time spent finishing the edits to Jefferson’s Declaration, the Congress approved the document later that morning. Congress then ordered local printer John Dunlap to print 200 copies of the Declaration now known as the “Dunlap Broadsides.” Dunlap worked quickly to set his printer’s type and began printing the copies the night of July 4th. For Jefferson and the other members of Congress, the rest of the day was spent on various items around defense, relations with native tribes and other committee work. No noted celebration of the occasion of passing the Declaration. Congress also directed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to design a new “Great Seal” for the new nation. [2]

It was not until later in life did men such as Adams and Jefferson give the day its prominence in American ethos. Though Adams called on Americans to celebrate July 2, today we celebrate the day that the Declaration was adopted. Both days are surely worth their own celebrations.

[1] – Jefferson the Virginian by Dumas Malone, pg. 229.

[2] – Letters of Delegate of the First and Second Continental Congresses,1774-1789. edited by Edmund C. Burnett

July 2, 1776: “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America”

On By Kevin PawlakIn 1776, America 250, Continental Congress, PoliticsLeave a comment

At 11 a.m. on July 2, 1776, Second Continental Congress Secretary Charles Thomson called the roll of the colonies in the vote for independence from Great Britain. The debates were over (they lasted most of the legislative session on July 1). Now was the time to formalize Richard Henry Lee’s resolution, first introduced to the Congress on June 7, 1776, “That these United Colonies, are, and of right ought to be, free and Independent States …”

It only took perhaps a few minutes for Thomson to query each colony and record their vote. Before noon, 12 colonies unanimously voted for independence while New York abstained. They were no longer colonies, but states. All the men in the Pennsylvania State House knew the importance of the occasion. Abraham Clark, one of New Jersey’s delegates, wrote, “We are now … embarked on a most Tempestuous Sea. Life very uncertain. Seeming dangers Scattered thick around us …. Let us prepare for the worst, we can Die here but once. May all our Business, all our purposes & pursuits tend to fit us for that important event.”

John Adams, one of the champions of the independence movement, reflected on the importance of July 2 the next day in a letter to his wife Abigail:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

While the Declaration of Independence would still not be signed for several weeks, July 2, 1776, and the vote for independence marked a point of no return for the members of the Continental Congress.

The Anticipation of Late June 1776

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, Adams, John and Abigail, PoliticsLeave a comment

Do you remember those 1970s-era TV commercials for Heinz ketchup? A young boy, with his glass ketchup bottle turned upside down over a hamburger, waits for the ketchup to flow. In the background, Carly Simon sang, “Anticipation”: “It’s making me wait. It’s keeping me way-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yayting.”

Had Carly Simon been alive 250 years ago, I have no doubt her song would have been playing in the background for Thomas Jefferson on June 29, 1776. The day before, June 28, he and his four colleagues on the “Committee of Five” had formally submitted their draft of the Declaration of Independence. Congress accepted the draft, but delegates were not yet ready to take up the document as a piece of business. They would not do so until July 1.

What might those days of limbo have felt like?

Continue reading “The Anticipation of Late June 1776” →

250 Years Ago Today: Drafting the Declaration’s Drafting Committee

On By Chris MackowskiIn Uncategorized1 Comment

“You do it.”

“No, you do it.”

“No, you do it.”

“No. YOU do it. You’re a Virginian, and you write ten times better than me.”

“Okay.”

To read John Adams’s telling of the tale, that’s basically how he, as chair of the drafting committee, drafted Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence.[1] Jefferson’s version, of course, sounds a little different: “[T]hey unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it. . . .”[2]

While we may never know the details of the discussion, we do know that the drafting committee first met 250 years ago today, on June 11, 1776. Along with Adams and Jefferson—representing Massachusetts and Virginia—the committee included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.

Livingston and Sherman tend to end up as footnotes to the story of the committee. Livingston, an ally of John Dickinson, was added to the committee as a concession to those cool, conservative men. Sherman, meanwhile, had a knack for footnote-ism. Aside from serving as an asterisk on the drafting committee, he’s also famous as a trivia answer for being the only person to sign all four Founding documents: the charter of the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution.

Franklin’s presence on the committee surprised no one. As the most famous man in America—and, by extension, in the Congress—his celebrity would provide a useful boost to the committee’s final work. It helped, too, that much of his fame came from his pen, which made him a natural fit for the committee.

Adams had the legal mind and the deepest knowledge of government and politics. He was not slouch as a writer, either. But Jefferson had earned his very place in Congress because of his felicity of expression with a pen. His Summary View of the Rights of British Americans (1774) earned him wide recognition in his native Virginia and appointment to the Second Continental Congress. The ideas he expressed also clearly marked him as a radical aligned with the independence movement. Adams admired Jefferson for being “prompt, frank, explicit and decisive” even if he was also notoriously silent for most of his time in Congress.

Jefferson didn’t want to be in Philadelphia to begin with, and in fact, he absented himself from August 1, 1775 until May 14, 1776, citing his wife’s ill health and obligations at home. When he returned to Congress, he did so only from a begrudging sense of obligation. “I am here in the same uneasy, anxious state in which I was in the fall without Mrs. Jefferson, who could not come with me,” he wrote.[3]

Yet Jefferson and his “masterly Pen,” as Adams called it, returned to Philadelphia just in time to put that pen to use. On the drafting committee. Jefferson really wanted to be putting that pen to use writing the constitution for the state of Virginia. He would even go so far as to draft a Constitution of his own and send it to Williamsburg since he couldn’t be there himself, but the document never received consideration. George Mason would end up leading that effort.

By all accounts, the members of the drafting committee saw the task as a throwaway assignment. When Congress eventually voted in favor of independence on July 2, John Adams thought that would be the day the nation would forever commemorate; no one thought of the first public reading of the Declaration on July 4 as being much more than a formality.

Only later, once the document assumed a position in American myth, did the members begin to attach significance to their participation in the drafting process—ergo the dueling versions Adams and Jefferson recalled in their (much) later years. Adams laid out his version in 1822; Jefferson in 1823.

Jefferson took about two weeks to write the first draft, then showed it to Franklin and Adams, “requesting their corrections; because they were the two members of whose judgments and amendments I wished most to have the benefit before presenting it to the Committee. . . .”[4] (Apparently, this established the practice of treating Livingston and Sherman as footnotes.) Adams and Franklin suggested a few important refinements. For instance, Franklin deftly turned “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” into the subtler but more powerful “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Adams’s handwriting on the original document shows him adding a reference to “their Creator” in an astute instance of knowing his audience. Overall, though, Adams “was delighted with its high tone, and the flights of Oratory with which it abounded,” he later wrote.[5] (Walter Isaacson’s recent The Greatest Sentence Ever Written offers a wonderful exploration of the writing and editing process.)

On June 28, Jefferson would submit his final draft, which Congress would take up for discussion and approval on July 3 (after a painful editing-by-committee process that made Jefferson nearly despondent).

Like all great myths, the details of the committee’s work—from its origins to its final revisions—are brilliantly gauzy enough that we can see what we want to if we squint just right. The real story never quite comes into focus. That’s the frustrating reality for historians but the bewitching charm for everyone else.

And it’s a perfect metaphor for the entire Founding, isn’t it: Adams and Jefferson, both there at the beginning, both explaining a different interpretation of events. Their visions continue to duel today—and if we’re wise, we’ll listen to what both of them have to say.

Chris Mackowski is the author of Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution, part of the Emerging Revolutionary War Series from Savas Beatie.

[1] Adams’s full account can be found here: “From John Adams to Timothy Pickering, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

[2] Jefferson’s account can be found here: “From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 August 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3728. 

[3] “From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Nelson, 16 May 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0153. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 292–293.]

[4] “Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 August 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-03-02-0113. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Retirement Series, vol. 3, 1 March 1823 – 24 February 1826, ed. David B. Mattern, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, and Katherine E. Harbury. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, pp. 114–116.]

[5] “From John Adams to Timothy Pickering, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

“They are, after all, so very much like us:” Jeff Shaara’s John Adams

On By erwguestIn Memory, Personalities6 Comments

Emerging Revolutionary War is pleased to welcome guest author Marianne Holdzkom, author of Remembering John Adams: The Second President in History, Memory and Popular Culture.

Several years ago, I set out to write a comprehensive history and memory study of John Adams. I did not want to write a straight biography of him.  Other scholars have done this, and I could not add anything to their work. What I wanted to do instead is examine how historians and creative artists have represented him. I also wanted to discuss how he has been memorialized—or not as in the case of Washington, D.C.

The result of my efforts was Remembering John Adams: The Second President in History, Memory and Popular Culture (McFarland, 2023). I finished the manuscript knowing that I had covered all my bases, proud of what I had accomplished. I had even done my best to wade through the difficult poetry of Ezra Pound for the project!

Yet, I missed something. I believed I had found all the literature references to John Adams, but one book escaped my attention. I am not sure how that happened because I am familiar with the author and his other works. Still, Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion (2001) in which John Adams plays a significant role, escaped my attention.  This is an oversight that I regret, and I would like to rectify it now.

Rise to Rebellion isa novel about the beginning of the American Revolution.  In it, Shaara followed a formula designed to humanize the history he covered by focusing on key players and centering the narrative around their perspectives. Understanding that the Revolution was not just the war, Shaara traced developments on both sides of the Atlantic through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin, General Thomas Gage, George Washington, and John Adams. In reflecting on his character choices for this novel, Shaara made a keen observation about the world of 2001:

It has become fashionable in our modern, more cynical time to reexamine our history, to throw a supposedly new light on those who are famous for their accomplishments, to instead expose their faults, to topple the statue of the hero, to replace the honor and respect with the sensational and the shameful, as though it were the only meaningful way these characters can be relevant to today’s world. I most adamantly disagree.[1]

Shaara continued by arguing that these people are “so very much like us.” [2]   It is this understanding that leads Shaara to the humanity of all his characters, including John Adams.  While the writer does not put Adams on a pedestal, he also avoids the more popular portrayals of the founder.  The “obnoxious and disliked” trope so often attached to John Adams robs him of his three-dimensionality. In this novel, as in other works of literature, Adams is more than the impatient, shrill annoyance that the public often sees in popular culture. In Shaara’s book, the reader sees his journey from successful lawyer to reluctant yet passionate revolutionary.  This is, in part, because of the period the book covers.

Shaara focused this novel on a timeframe from March 1770 through the summer of 1776. The so-called Boston Massacre of 1770 marked a turning point in the relationship between England and Massachusetts, but it also brought John Adams to the forefront of the conflict.  Adams played a key role in the Boston Massacre trials, not as an advocate for the five victims of the shootings, but as the defense attorney for the soldiers accused of murder. Shaara began his narrative by recreating the events of March 5, 1770, through the eyes of these soldiers. We first meet John Adams as he is responding to the shooting. In these early scenes, Shaara revealed several layers of Adams’s personality.  We see the citizen of Boston, confused over what has happened and desperately seeking answers, but we also see the husband and father, concerned for the safety of his family. We meet his remarkable wife, Abigail, for the first time, pregnant and amazingly calm given the circumstances. Shaara took this opportunity to recount the grief John and Abigail were still feeling over the death of their baby daughter, Suzanna. This is part of their storyline that is rarely covered in popular culture.[3] Adding this to his narrative adds a dimension to Adams that is refreshing.

One of Shaara’s talents as a writer is to depict introspection. To know the characters of this novel, the reader must see their thought processes. For John Adams, Shaara placed him where he was most happy: his farm in Braintree.  In a remarkable section of chapter five, we see Adams enjoying a summer day, walking his land and thinking about how the crisis with England had evolved. We witness John’s perspective, his struggle to understand what had changed and why the English were reacting in the way they were. At the same time, Shaara provided the reader with needed exposition. As Adams traces the events since 1765 to the moment of the Boston Massacre, the reader is led through the history to that point. Yet this is also personal for Adams. We see him understand the English perspective, but we also witness his anger at them and his dark thoughts about where the crisis would end both for the colonies and for him. This brooding is quintessential John Adams and Shaara captured it brilliantly. Yet Shaara also examines why John’s introspection did not consume him. That was thanks to Abigail.

As with other artists and historians, Shaara could not ignore the relationship between John and Abigail. We have a keen understanding of the bond between them thanks to their correspondence. Some 1100 letters between them exist. Using this source, Shaara gives his reader a glimpse into their marriage. As a result, he further humanizes John.

John confides to Abigail his concerns about his own ambition but also predicts to her that unless things change in London, there will be a revolution in America. He laments not being present for his children, but vows to be a father of whom they can be proud. She reassures him every step of the way, but she also shares her own concerns.

In one scene, Shaara creates a moment between John and Abigail, the conversation born from Abigail’s most famous letter to John. John is home in December 1775 and lamenting all that she has to do while he is away. She, in turn, is telling him about all that she has learned to do out of necessity. As she is wondering about independence and government, she asks, “when you speak of the people just whom are you referring to? In your new code of laws can it be hoped that you will perhaps remember the ladies? Can it be within your male spirit to allow some authority to flow our way?”[4] Recreating this exchange in this way, we witness Abigail making John squirm. He responds awkwardly, explaining the complexities of suffrage. She does not let him off the hook, but laughs and says, “All those fancy words and they may as well fall in a jumble over a cliff.”[5] This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire novel for in it, we see the remarkable relationship between these two complicated people.

As events move toward the vote for independence in the congress, John, once again in Philadelphia, has embraced his leadership role. Like other creative artists, Shaara, out of necessity, invents the speech that John gives in favor of independence. We don’t know exactly what Adams said during the final debate on July 1st; his words were not recorded. Adams never recollected what he said. Perhaps this is because he had said it all before. In a letter to fellow delegate, Samual Chase, he lamented, “That Debate took up the most of the day, but it was an idle Mispence of Time for nothing was Said, but what had been repeated and hackneyed in that Room before an hundred Times for Six Months past.”[6] 

At the end of the created speech Adams gives in the novel, Shaara set up a wonderful moment between Adams and Franklin. “We are a people who have shown the world we can help ourselves, that we have the God-given strength to stand for our liberty.  God help us? No, sir.  May God bless us.” After the vote for independence, Adams then asks Benjamin Franklin, “Was I right, Doctor?  Will God bless us?” Franklin responds, “He already has, Mr. Adams.”[7]

Throughout Rise to Rebellion, John Adams emerges as a man centered in the law and his farm but conflicted about the changing world around him. We see a warm relationship with Abigail and his children while, at the same time, we witness the leader he became. Jeff Shaara has presented his readers with a three-dimensional human being, not perfect by any means. He is driven by passion, his love for his family, and the law, yet he is not always secure in his own abilities. The historical John Adams would approve.

Marianne Holdzkom, Professor of History at Kennesaw State University, is the author of Remembering John Adams: The Second President in History, Memory and Popular Culture. She is also an Adams Memorial Foundation Scholar.

[1] Jeff Shaara, Rise to Rebellion: A Novel of the American Revolution (New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2001;2002), x.

[2] Ibid.

[3] One of the few exceptions is the PBS series The Adams Chronicles. 

[4] Shaara, 448.

[5] Shaara, 449.

[6] John Adams to Samuel Chase, 1 July 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0142. 

[7] Shaara, 523; 527.

The Post Office Disses Sam Adams for America’s 250

On By Chris MackowskiIn America 250, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory1 Comment

“Without the character of Samuel Adams, the true history of the American Revolution can never be written,” John Adams once said of his cousin.

Well, someone better tell the United States Postal Service!

On April 10, the USPS issued a new set of stamps, “Figures of the American Revolution,” as part of its ongoing initiative to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. (See the USPS’s full press release below.) The set features 25 of the most important people related to the American Founding.

Sam Adams, apparently, isn’t one of them.

Never mind Sam’s instrumental role as an organizer in Boston’s Sons of Liberty or his role in managing public opinion. Never mind the Committees of Correspondence he helped organize throughout Massachusetts and across the colonies. Never mind his masterful use of propaganda to implant events like the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party in American imagination—let alone the effective use of those events as tools of protest. Never mind the central leadership role he played at the First Continental Congress. Never mind Boston’s centrality in the start of open hostilities with Great Britain.  

And yet, somehow, Sam didn’t leave enough of a stamp on the American Revolution!

In fairness to the Postal Service, a collection like the Figures of the American Revolution is like a retrospective “greatest hits” collection from a band: decisions have to be made about what gets included and what gets left off.

So, if you were to add Sam Adams to the collection, who’s currently on the sheet that you would remove to make room for him?

The figures appear in alphabetical order. Here’s the full list:

  • Abigail Adams
  • John Adams
  • Agwalongdongwas
  • James Armistead
  • Cornplanter
  • John Dickinson
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Elizabeth Freeman
  • Bernardo de Gálvez
  • Nathanael Greene
  • Alexander Hamilton
  • Lemuel Haynes
  • Patrick Henry
  • John Jay
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Thaddeus Kosciuszko
  • Marquis de Lafayette
  • James Madison
  • Thomas Paine
  • Esther De Berdt Reed
  • Paul Revere
  • Deborah Sampson
  • Baron von Steuben
  • Mercy Otis Warren
  • George Washington

Here’s the USPS’s press release:

Continue reading “The Post Office Disses Sam Adams for America’s 250” →

Why 1776?

On By jmmcdonald28In 1775, America 250, Continental Congress, Continental Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Politics, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

The American Revolution lasted eight years, 1775-1783. Why then do we celebrate 1776 and not the end of the war? Continental Congress presented the Declaration of Independence to the world on July 4, 1776. That’s the big deal. 

There was something different about this revolution against British authority. The colonies were better organized. The people, policymakers, and military worked in harmony, though imperfect, toward freeing themselves from the bonds of the British Empire. Lexington and Concord had loudly proclaimed the shots heard round the world in April 1775.

By the second year, the colonial armies already had two significant military achievements in the winter and early spring. The militia turned back the invading southern British army at the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, North Carolina, in February. This victory contained the Redcoats in the southern theater to South Carolina. Up north, the British army withdrew from Boston in March, giving the colonists a physical and moral achievement. The leaders of the Glorious Cause, however, knew violence and blood wouldn’t be enough to win the war as failed Scottish and Irish uprisings had demonstrated all too well.

It was now up to the Continental Congress to fire a political shot. Congress tasked a committee of five to draft a declaration in June 1776. The members included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson was the principal author. By July 1776, a final version was signed and submitted. It was only two paragraphs, but its words were, and still are, heard round the world.

The Declaration of Independence succinctly describes two of the five “Ws” of the war. Why we were fighting, or the main political goal, was first to be put forth. The colonists demanded a political divorce from British rule. As the committee wrote, at times “…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another …” Instead, the colonies wanted to form their own government based on a constitutional republic. It would be equal in standing to all other sovereign nations. That was the Why.  

Then our founding fathers pulled the trigger and laid out the What, the reasons or “unalienable rights” we were fighting for against the crown. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The King and Parliament hadn’t given these rights to any of their colonies or even their own citizens.

In fact, quite the reverse, British rule had subjugated the American colonies in “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Redcoats threw colonists in jail without due process. Colonists were hung without a trial or after an unfair trial. Parliament levied taxes on colonial goods at a whim. We were subjects. We were here to serve the crown. Facing such despotism, the colonies had every right to abolish political ties with the British Empire and pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

It’s these three rights that we will soon be celebrating by commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the document that declared those rights, the Declaration of Independence.  

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written?

On By Chris MackowskiIn Book ReviewLeave a comment

Is the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence the greatest sentence ever written?

That’s the contention of historian Walter Isaacson in his slim new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. As a refresher:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“[E]ach of its words and concepts bears scrutiny and appreciation,” Isaacson says, and then goes about in short chapter-length essays to do just that.[1]

Or almost so. His execution doesn’t go off with quite that kind of exactness. For instance, “hold” doesn’t get any particular attention. The verbs is always the most important word in a sentence because it’s the engine that drives the action. One could spend a little time on “hold” and its specific meaning and the perils inherent in it (anything held can be dropped!). Isaacson may or may not have missed opportunities by skipping some of the words that he apparently deemed unimportant.

But where he does parse out parts of the sentence, he shines. He explores the common ground of “We,” what made “truths” “self-evident,” and the restrictiveness behind the seemingly inclusive “all men.” What is “equality” in the context of the rest of the sentence? What did the Founders mean by any of these things?

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The Adams Book Club: “John Adams: Party of One” by James Grant

On By erwpostIn Adams, John and Abigail2 Comments

Emerging Revolutionary War is pleased to partner with the Adams Memorial Foundation to share some reading about America’s “Founding Family.” The Foundation holds a monthly book club, hosted by Board President Jackie Cushman. In special arrangement with the Adams Memorial Foundation, ERW is sharing links to the first few conversations from that book club.

The next book highlighted in our series is John Adams: Party of One by James Grant (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

Continue reading “The Adams Book Club: “John Adams: Party of One” by James Grant” →

Thoughts on “Thoughts on Government”

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, America 250, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Politics, Rev War RevelryLeave a comment

For weeks, colleagues in the Continental Congress had been asking John Adams for advice. If the colonies were to break away from Great Britain and established governments of their own, what should those governments look like?

The first request came from North Carolinians William Hooper and John Penn in late March. The duo had been recalled from Philadelphia so they could join in conversations about a new government for their home state. Before departing, they each asked Adams for his thoughts. Adams “wrote with his own Hand, a Sketch,” and gave copies to both delegates.[1] The ensuing discussions in North Carolina led to the April 12, 1776 passage of the Halifax Resolves, which authorized the colony’s Congressional delegation to vote in favor of independence—the first colony to formally grant such authorization. 

Next came a request from George Wythe of Virginia and then one from John Dickinson Sergeant of New Jersey. Finally, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia asked for a copy.

Adams had already given the topic considerable thought. He had touched on it in early 1775 in a series of newspaper articles that he’d signed “Novanglus,” and during a trip home in late 1775, he had addressed it for the Massachusetts colonial assembly. “The Happiness of the People is the sole End of Government, so the Consent of the People is the only Foundation of it,” he had written.[2] “Happiness,” in Adams’s vocabulary, meant “ease, comfort, security.”[3]

As Adams sketched out his ideas for his colleagues, he took the same approach, and each letter allowed him to develop and refine his ideas even further. By the time he wrote out his thoughts for Wythe, those ideas had become so clear and well articulated that the impressed Lee asked if he could have the letter published. Adams agreed. Using Wythe’s letter as the basis, Lee threw it into shape and “put it under the Types.”[4]

Continue reading “Thoughts on “Thoughts on Government”” →