With little to do aboard ship but brood, John Adams became convinced that he was returning home to a country that neither respected nor appreciated him. While he was in London he had written a book, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. It stressed the importance of a balanced government, with power distributed between the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. With typical Adams bluntness, he did not hesitate to say the British government was a good working example of what he meant. The book had been assailed by some Americans who thought most if not all of the power should be given to the legislature, where the voice of the average voter would be decisive. Several critics wondered whether Adams’s sojourn in the British capital had aroused a long concealed fondness for monarchy. Was he facing a future of ostracism and obloquy?
Instead, like John’s nemesis, Ben Franklin, the Adamses received a splendid greeting. When their ship docked at the Long Wharf in Boston on June 17, 1788, John Hancock, the governor of Massachusetts, sent a warm note of welcome as well as his glistening coach to transport them to his mansion. Cannon boomed, church bells clanged, and the wharf was crowded with cheering people. John could see no hint of hostility among the smiling faces along the streets as they rode to Governor Hancock’s opulent home.
Back in Braintree, John and Abigail were dismayed to discover that repairs and extensions to the new house they had purchased while they were in England were unfinished. The handsome furniture they had bought in London had been badly packed and was a chipped and scarred mess. The house was larger than their earlier Braintree homestead, but it still seemed small compared with the spacious quarters they had enjoyed in Paris and London. Abigail called it “a wren’s house.” John, ecstatic at becoming a farmer again, rushed out and bought six cows, which he presented to Abigail. She acidly pointed out they did not have a barn in which to keep them. That did not stop him from buying a herd of heifers a few weeks later.
Meanwhile there were relatives by the dozen to greet—including John’s mother, still amazingly spry at seventy-nine after burying two husbands. Sons John Quincy and Charles and Thomas were among the first to embrace them. Twenty-one-year-old John Quincy had graduated from Harvard with highest honors and was reading law under a prominent attorney in Newburyport. Eighteen-year-old Charles, Abigail reported to his sister Nabby, “wins the heart as usual.” Fifteen-year-old Thomas had become “the cutup of the family.” The two younger boys were still at Harvard.
Nabby and her husband had sailed to New York to meet Colonel Smith’s large family and settle there. She was pregnant with her second child, and Abigail decided to depart for that city as soon as possible, leaving John to figure out how to milk his six cows on his own. John’s concern was more practical. He tiptoed around the subject in a long letter and finally asked Nabby what Mr. Smith planned to do for a living. Unable to disguise his own feelings as usual, he blurted out the hope that Smith would not devote himself to seeking “public employment.” It was a virtual guarantee of ending up “the most unhappy of all men.” He would like to see Smith become a lawyer—a profession that guaranteed a man true independence. “I had rather dig my subsistence out of the earth with my own hands than be dependent on any favour, public or private, and this has been the invariable maxim of my life,” he wrote.
This was self-delusion. John Adams had now spent fourteen of the prime years of his adult life in public service, dependent on the “favour” of his supporters in Congress. He was a politician, and there was nothing wrong, and certainly nothing immoral, about a man like Colonel Smith, an authentic war hero, considering a political career. The idea that there was something low or unworthy in seeking political support from other men was John’s True Whig bugaboo at work—the notion that even a smidgen of self-interest was wrong.
Nabby glumly replied that she agreed about the law as a path to personal independence, but she did not think it was a practical choice for her husband. He was too old to begin a career that required years of study and preparation. Mrs. Smith proceeded to give her father some unexpected advice. She was living with her mother-in-law in Jamaica, Long Island, not far from New York City, and was picking up lots of political vibrations from her in-laws. “The general voice” that she was hearing in New York agreed that George Washington was certain to be the nation’s first president. But the second-highest honor, the vice presidency, was by no means decided. Many people had told Nabby the post belonged to John Adams. “I confess I wish it, and that you may accept it,” she wrote.1
To Braintree came corpulent, affable General Henry Knox, another soldier who had decided to devote himself to public life. He spoke as a representative of General Washington’s former aide, Alexander Hamilton, who had become the leader of the country’s first political party, the Federalists. They had been the backers of the Constitution in the struggle to win its ratification. Their opponents were called “Anti-Federalists” at the moment and were widely scorned for failing to recognize the need for a strong central government. Knox reported that Colonel Hamilton thought John Adams deserved to be vice president and wanted to know how he felt about the office. Adams replied that he was not in any way, shape, or form seeking the job. But if it was offered to him, he intimated that he would accept it.
That meeting made John Adams vice president. Only much later did he learn that Hamilton had considered a half dozen other candidates but learned Adams had the backing of New England Federalists. Hamilton had to accept him or create a breach in the party. That was not Hamilton’s only worry. Under the new constitution, each state chose electors who cast the decisive votes for the presidency. But the drafters of the constitution had carelessly decided to let the candidates for president and vice president run on the same ballot. Whoever got the most votes would win. What if one or two electors, for reasons unknown, did not vote for Washington? If they and everyone else voted for Adams, he would become president. That was unthinkable as far as Hamilton was concerned.
Hamilton wrote letters to the leaders of several states, asking them to make sure their electors dropped three or four votes for Adams. His goal was modest—to have Adams come in second by perhaps a dozen votes. But in his hurry, Hamilton forgot that there were several other candidates on the ballot. These men, too, attracted electoral votes for vice president. Early in March the final tally reached the Adamses in Braintree. Washington had received all sixty-nine electoral votes and was elected president unanimously. John Adams was vice president—with thirty-four votes.
For a while, the “scurvy manner” in which he was chosen made John consider resigning. He declaimed to one correspondent that it was “an indelible stain on our country, countrymen and constitution.” Only fear that his resignation might endanger the fragile new federal system, which depended on support from all parts of the nation, persuaded him to accept the election.
John’s journey to New York to take the oath of office was satisfyingly rich in receptions and plaudits in various cities along his route. He left Abigail behind to run the farm until he located a suitable house in which they could live. When the new government convened, Adams became the president of the Senate. He solemnly informed the senators that he needed their advice about what to do when and if President Washington addressed their august body. While the two men were in the Senate, were they equal in power and authority? How should he address the president, and how should Washington address him?
Although the Constitution specified that the chief executive would be called “the president of the United States,” Adams insisted on forming a committee that recommended, with his backing, “His Highness, the President of the United States, and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” In letters and formal addresses, he thought Washington should be called “His Majesty.” He said the vice president deserved the same title.
Adams was oblivious to the large political fact that the Senate and the House of Representatives had many members who belonged to the Anti-Federalist party and who feared the new government was going to transmute into something very close to monarchy if given too much power. Everything the vice president said seemed to confirm these fears.
Honest John became the butt of jokes for his titular extremism. Congressmen and senators began calling each other “Your Highness” with grins on their faces. Senator Ralph Izard, whose acid tongue had left stains on Benjamin Franklin’s reputation in Paris, won the ridicule prize by nicknaming Adams “His Rotundity”—a label that stuck. Meanwhile the House of Representatives, under the leadership of James Madison, voted overwhelmingly to call General Washington “The President of the United States.” Defiant to the bitter end, Vice President Adams could only watch the Senate agree, after mocking and finally consigning his magnificent but absurd titles to oblivion.
A dismayed and disconsolate John Adams wrote to Abigail, begging her to come to New York as soon as possible. If she did not have enough money available, she should borrow it from a friend. “If you cannot borrow enough, you must sell horses, oxen, sheep, cowes [sic], anything at any rate rather than not come on. If no one will take the place [the farm] leave it to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field…. It has been a great dammage [sic] that you did not come with me.”2
II
Abigail was soon on her way. With her came Charles, who had graduated from Harvard—and become a worry. He had succumbed to “being spoilt by the…caresses of his acquaintance[s],” as Abigail put it. Charles loved being everyone’s favorite companion, and his good looks and genial temperament gave him a head start over most men his age. Young women admired his style on the dance floor and gravitated to him. He soon developed a fondness for liquor and at one point led a campus rebellion. Another report, although fragmentary, seems to connect him to running naked, either solo or with a group, across Harvard Yard. John Quincy, who observed him for a year, came away fearing the worst. “Charles does not like to be censured,” he said. This sensitivity soon made him almost morbidly averse to letters from his father or mother, exhorting him to behave.3
The Adamses’ youngest son, Thomas, had another set of problems. His brothers, above all John Quincy, had attractive personal and intellectual gifts. Thomas was shy and often melancholy. He was the only child who never went to Europe—which may explain his surly refusal to write letters to his parents when he was old enough to do so. Abigail’s sisters thought it was a mistake to send Thomas to Harvard at the age of fifteen. John and Abigail paid no attention to them—or to John Quincy’s warning that Thomas was “too young to be left so much to himself.” Abigail compounded this error by writing the boy strident letters, scolding him for failing to study and running wild in various ways. She had no evidence for these accusations; she simply assumed on the basis of most freshmen’s conduct that Thomas was guilty.
In fact, Thomas was studying far into the night and angrily accused his mother of slandering him. Abigail apologized—but in the four-month gap in sending and receiving letters between Britain and America, Thomas had lots of time to brood about the way his parents treated him. He was probably not cheered by Abigail’s apology—she added to it a lecture on virtue. Nothing less than perfection should be his goal in conduct and studies, the already stretched student was told.4
John Quincy was not such an obvious worry to his parents. Studious almost beyond belief, he was fluent in French, Latin, and Greek. But he, too, felt the pressure of their high expectations, especially after his graduation. He had also inherited his father’s youthful interest in the opposite sex. He told a female cousin that he found women “irresistible” and fell in and out of love several times a month. On the other hand, as an Adams, he disapproved of this predilection. At Harvard he gave a speech before the Phi Beta Kappa society in which he condemned marriages based on passion.
Although John Quincy could not bring himself to admit it, he had little enthusiasm for spending three years in Newburyport becoming a lawyer. He told his aunt, Mary Cranch, that it was a place where “he cared for nobody and nobody cared for him.” Slipping into typical Adams gloom, he told his diary: “I am good for nothing and cannot even carry myself forward in the world.” Before long this gifted young man was calling himself a “cypher” and begging God to “take me from this world before I curse the day of my birth.” His mother, oblivious to psychological explanations, diagnosed his problem as an acid stomach.5
III
In New York, Vice President Adams rented a large, attractive country house, Richmond Hill, a mile outside the 1789 city limits. (Today the site is in Greenwich Village.) The house had a lovely garden and a superb view of the Hudson River and the New Jersey shore. When Abigail arrived, she was delighted to find that Nabby and her husband had already moved in with their two boys. Colonel Smith was still in search of a way to make a living. John Adams was growing more and more disillusioned with him, and so was Nabby. But Abigail remained a captive of Smith’s roguish charms and she adored the children, especially the older boy, who bore a strong resemblance to Grandpa John.
Meanwhile, John was being harassed via the mails by dozens of people who sought jobs in the new federal government. One of the most disturbing came from their old friend Mercy Otis Warren, who asked John to help her husband, James. In the heady days of 1776 he had been John’s favorite correspondent. But the decade of separation had left them semi-strangers. James Warren had refused to support the Constitution, thanks largely to a feud with John Hancock, and drifted into political isolation. Mercy Warren denounced the ungrateful citizens of Massachusetts for their mistreatment of him.
Vice President Adams was not even slightly sympathetic. He curtly told Mercy that he had no patronage to dispense and if he had any, neither his own children nor close friends like the Warrens would get any of it. That would be a violation of his principles. Mrs. Warren retreated into aggrieved silence. In years to come, she would exact exquisite revenge.
Friends and relatives continued to bombard Adams with pleas for help. He kept saying no, no, no. But at home, John found himself forced to surrender his true whig principles to domestic pressure. Colonel William Smith wanted an appointment as U.S. marshal for the district of New York. Nabby and Abigail added their pleas, and the vice president asked President Washington to make the appointment. Washington did so without the slightest hesitation.
On another front, John decided to make his son Charles a lawyer. He dispatched him to Alexander Hamilton’s office with a note, asking the New Yorker to take him under his guidance. Hamilton was about to become secretary of the treasury in President Washington’s cabinet. Although it was evident to him and others that Charles had little or no enthusiasm for the profession, Hamilton arranged for him to study with another experienced New York attorney.
Although everyone had rejected his grandiose titles, John was determined to display a lifestyle worthy of the vice presidency. Each morning he rode from Richmond Hill in a handsome coach, often accompanied by Charles. Presiding in the Senate, John wore a powdered wig and the expensive clothes he had bought while serving as ambassador in London. Critics began calling him “The Duke of Braintree.” A Boston writer assailed him in a ferociously satiric poem that warned him not to “sully your fame” by “daubing patriot” with a “lacker’d name.”6
Abigail was deeply upset by this and similar assaults and did her best to defend John in numerous letters. She was inclined to agree with her husband’s preference for titles. In some letters she playfully referred to herself in the third person as “Her Ladyship.” At the same time she was anxious to retain her republican humility. She asked Mary Cranch to warn her if she (Abigail) showed any sign of treating her friends and acquaintances with arrogance or condescension. Abigail found it especially galling that no one criticized President Washington for his lifestyle. He had “powdered lackies” waiting at his door to announce visitors—and this scribbler accused John of aristocratic faults!
Typically, John Adams met his critics head on by writing another book, Discourses on Davila, which ran in newspapers in weekly installments. Among many topics, the book included a ferocious attack on the idea of equality. John took special aim at the French Revolution’s frequent proclamations on this subject, dismissing their faith in human perfectibility as a fable. Mankind was not going to improve anytime soon. The only way to achieve social happiness was to maintain a balanced government that took into consideration humanity’s inequalities and limitations.
The reaction to these ideas was so negative that Adams was forced to abandon newspaper publication. John and Abigail were especially dismayed when Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, with whom they had been friendly in France, referred to the book as a collection of “political heresies.”
IV
The Adamses entertained often and lavishly at Richmond Hill and sometimes dined with the Washingtons at their house on Cherry Street. Abigail’s fondness for Martha Washington grew pronounced. She was “dignified and feminine, not even the tincture of hauteur about her,” she told her sister, Mary Cranch. Abigail ruefully added that Martha, although somewhat plump, had “a much better figure” than she did.
Later in the year Abigail took Nabby and Charles to one of Martha’s weekly receptions, where she reported the president displayed “grace, dig nity and ease” in chatting with his guests. She thought he was far better company than King George III at similar receptions in his London palace. Abigail was invariably invited to sit beside Martha Washington. In the shifting conversations, other ladies occasionally occupied this place of honor. The moment President Washington noticed that Abigail had been displaced, he would lead her back to the coveted position and explain that it belonged to Mrs. Adams. This small gesture of concern pleased Abigail enormously.
Much as she liked Richmond Hill, Abigail found it very expensive to maintain, especially in the winter, when the fireplaces devoured cord after cord of costly wood. She regularly gave dinner parties for as many as twenty-four people. Counting her relatives and servants, there were eighteen people in the house to be fed daily. John Adams’s salary was only $5,000 a year—perhaps $100,000 in modern money—and the farm at Braintree was producing little or no income. Abigail’s favorite relatives, her sister Mary Cranch and her husband, Richard, were getting old and frequently ran short of cash. Abigail loaned them modest sums without hesitation.
V
John and Abigail were dismayed by Congress’s decision to move the national capital to Philadelphia for ten years and thereafter settle themselves in Washington, D.C. The Adamses had to leave Nabby and William Smith in New York, along with Charles Adams, who was still studying to become a lawyer. Their son Thomas had joined them after graduating from Harvard, and John decided to take him along as his secretary. The duties of the job were minimal, and his parents began debating how he should make his living. In the end, the only solution that satisfied them was the law. John would find a Philadelphia lawyer under whom he might study.
Thomas began the three-year slog to the legal profession with as much good humor as he could muster. Like his brothers, he was dependent on his parents’ checkbook, and he hesitated to strike out on his own for fear of disappointing them. John Quincy summed up the prevailing psychology when he wrote that he feared he would make John and Abigail “lament as ineffectual the pains they have taken to render me worthy of them.” The connection between their father’s fame and fear of failure burdened all three sons. Thomas soon found himself struggling with what he called “the blue devils”—depression.7
VI
John Quincy Adams was not much happier. He had completed his three years of study at Newburyport and had opened an office in the front room of an Adams-owned house on Court Street in Boston. His clients were few and he made a botch of his first case, discovering that he had no ability to speak extemporaneously before a jury. He was also passionately in love with Mary Frazier, a beautiful young woman he had met in Newburyport.
Throughout the first six months of 1790, John Quincy saw Mary constantly. He refrained from mentioning her to his mother and father. But he confessed his passion to his brother Thomas and a few other friends. Mary inspired him to write poems to her beauty, several of which were published in local newspapers, exciting a dream of becoming a writer in John Quincy’s troubled head. “All my hopes of future happiness in this life center in the possession of that girl,” he told his former Harvard roommate, James Bridge.
But time was running out for the lovers. Although his law office was still virtually bare of clients, John Quincy told his sister Nabby that he was thinking of marrying Mary. Nabby apparently told Thomas, who told Charles—and Abigail. Charles, in typical younger-brother style, mocked Mary’s charms: “Nothing so like perfection in human shape, [has] appeared since the world began.”8
Abigail Adams was not amused. Nor was her mind changed by warm letters from her sisters, Eliza Shaw and Mary Cranch, urging her to bless the match. Abigail unleashed a barrage of letters on her oldest son, telling him that his romance was unacceptable and must be abandoned without even momentary hesitation on his part. John Quincy promised to obey, but he found it emotionally impossible. In desperation, he tried to persuade Mary Frazier to agree to an informal engagement. But her family intervened, warning her that a woman who remained linked to a man in that way soon endangered her reputation and hopes of marrying anyone else.
After months of agonizing, John informed his mother she could stop worrying about Mary Frazier. He was “perfectly free” and there was no need to fret about any future entanglement that might “give you pain.” But to Eliza Shaw, he poured out his bitterness. He predicted that he would never be able to love anyone again. This tender-hearted woman wrote him a wise, consoling letter that he kept among his papers for the rest of his life.
VII
In spite of his personal woes, John Quincy retained a lively interest in politics—hardly surprising after his heady exposure to the subject at the age of eleven. Writing under pen names such as Publicola, Columbus, Marcellus, and Barnveld, he argued with skill and fervor for a strong central government and attacked, often ferociously, the anti-federalists who were coalescing into a political party led by Thomas Jefferson. John Quincy sided emphatically with Washington’s commitment to a strong presidency and backed him when he issued a proclamation of neutrality in the war between England and France. His parents were delighted by his forays. The vice president said there was more “mother wit” in these essays than he had heard in the Senate “in a whole week.”9
On June 3, 1794, a letter from the vice president informed John Quincy that he had been named American ambassador to the Netherlands at a salary of $4,500 a year. Along with the glorious news came a pious claim that John Adams had had nothing to do with the appointment. President Washington was rewarding John Quincy for his vigorous support of the Federalist Party in the newspapers—and was aware, thanks to his youthful years in Europe, that he had the background and experience to handle the job. Unmentioned were the vice president’s several conversations with Edmund Randolph, who had succeeded Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state, in which John had not too subtly urged his son’s appointment.
John Quincy’s first reaction was nausea. He took to his bed for the better part or two weeks, apparently wrestling with the inescapable fact that he had to accept this offer—and simultaneously loathing the idea that he was once more obeying the parents who had destroyed his hope of happiness with Mary Frazier. But he finally rose and packed his trunk for the trip to Philadelphia to get his instructions for the job. He told one of his friends that his father “was more gratified than myself at my appointment.” But he admitted the bright side of it to another friend—he was “my own man again.”10
VIII
Not a little of John and Abigail’s determination to manage the careers of John Quincy and their younger sons may have flowed from the continued woes of Abigail Adams Smith. Four months after Nabby gave birth to a daughter—her third child in four years—Colonel Smith quit his job as U.S. marshal and headed for England—only a few days before Christmas. Abigail found his timing almost as hard to take as his decision to leave the government payroll. Smith told Nabby and his numerous friends that he was going to make a fortune from collecting debts owed to his merchant father in England.
Nabby was left alone once more, with barely enough money to feed her family. Abigail could do nothing but write frantic letters from Philadelphia. The Adamses’ vice-presidential expenses were so high in the city of brotherly love that they had little or no cash to send Nabby. Then came news of a woebegone letter from Colonel Smith, telling a New York friend from whom he had already borrowed money that he could not leave England unless the friend sent him more cash to pay his debts.
Once more, salvation came from George Washington. Whether John Adams intervened or Smith’s friends appealed to the president for help remains unclear. At any rate, the vice president urgently informed the colonel that he had been appointed supervisor of revenue for New York State. His chief responsibility would be the collection of money from the federal liquor tax. The job paid $800 a year and a percentage of the money he took in. John urged him to return to America without delay. Abigail, underscoring their joint anxiety, wrote another letter, calling the salary “handsome” and all but begging him to accept the job “as soon as possible.”11
This gift of the political gods soon proved to be no more than a temporary solution to the fortunes of Nabby and her wayward spouse. A year later, Smith abandoned his handsome salary and took his entire family to England, this time certain he would make an immense fortune. He was deep in a speculative bubble that would entrance him and many other Americans for the rest of the decade. All these gamblers were certain that mountains of money could be made selling millions of acres of American land to gullible European investors. Robert Morris of Philadelphia led the way, making immense sums on his first two speculations.
The defects of land speculation soon became apparent. The money was never paid in full. The seller was obligated to obtain a clear title to the land from resident Indians and other local claimants, including state governments. The seller had to survey the tract and divide it into salable parcels. Then he and the purchasers had to hope some settlers would show up, because the buyers left themselves numerous loopholes to escape from the deal if the golden promises turned to dross. This started to happen because of the appearance of that frequent historical intruder, the unexpected. War broke out between England and Revolutionary France early in 1793, indefinitely postponing large-scale immigration to America. Colonel Smith got into this game just as the land bubble was beginning to deflate.
Operating on little but nerve and faith in his luck, Smith returned to New York exuding affluence. He had reportedly bought five townships in northern New York and had sold thousands of acres to eager British investors. In New York, he bought twenty-three acres of land along the East River and began building a mansion that he dubbed Mount Vernon. On paper, it was to be a replica of President Washington’s home. But his creditors were closing in, and the colonel never managed to complete more than the frame before he was forced to sell it to stay out of debtors’ prison.
Meanwhile, Smith inveigled Charles Adams into his schemes. To John and Abigail’s dismay, Charles had married Smith’s sister Sally in 1795. The Adamses thought one Smith in the family was more than enough trouble for a lifetime. They had written numerous letters to Charles warning him against a premature marriage, but he had mastered the technique of ignoring their advice.
For a while, Charles seemed to be prospering as a lawyer. When John Adams visited him in December 1795, he was living in a house with a fine view of the East River. Friends told the vice president that his son had “twice or thrice the employment he ever had before.” John was delighted to find him in his office, conversing with three new clients. He was equally pleased to learn that many people considered Charles a wit. Not long after he married Sally Smith, a man asked him if “the fever” was spreading in New York. Charles replied, “Do you mean the yellow fever or the Smith fever?” In the large Smith family, marriage had become so frequent it was being described as an epidemic.12
John Lawrence, the attorney under whom Charles studied law, was a speculator who also infected Charles with dreams of a quick killing. All he needed was cash—and thanks to John Quincy, he suddenly had a supply. John Quincy had asked Charles to invest a handsome sum John and Abigail had bestowed on him when he became a diplomat. Charles started putting his brother’s money into speculative ventures, no doubt thinking of how much he (Charles) would make if the gambles succeeded. But the time when speculators could make a quick fortune was gone. Cheerful Charles was sowing seeds that would humiliate and destroy him.
IX
In spite of Nabby’s woes and the wider worries over the turmoil the French Revolution was stirring in America, John and Abigail remained devoted partners. But they had little or no enthusiasm for participating in the political world of Philadelphia. The mounting feud between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton was creating two political parties that attacked each other with rabidly partisan venom. Abigail disliked the French styles that prevailed in the Quaker city. She thought they were much too revealing and encouraged the sexual license that had become associated with France’s revolution. She had no difficulty persuading John that they could save a great deal of money if she retreated to Massachusetts and he pursued a bachelor life in Philadelphia while Congress was in session.
Around this time they decided to give their Massachusetts home a name—Peacefield. They may have been motivated by the town of Braintree’s decision to upgrade its name to Quincy in 1792. But Peacefield was also a revealing indication of their feelings about acrimonious Philadelphia. A pleasant dividend of Abigail’s decision to flee the political fray was the letters they began writing to each other with much of their old warmth and candor. Both now began their reports with “My Dearest Friend.”
In one of his first letters, John regaled Abigail with the way Governor John Hancock revealed his petty envy and hunger for popularity. “I would not entertain you with this political tittle-tattle,” he added, “if I had anything of more importance to say. One thing of more importance to me, but no news to you, is that I am yours with unabated esteem and affection forever.”
Abigail told him of the pleasure of spending Thanksgiving Day with their family—mostly Smiths and John’s mother. She was alarmed by John’s reports of the way the country was dividing into two political parties. He took some consolation from the way he was unanimously elected for another term as vice president by the states who backed the Federalists—and just as unanimously opposed by the states controlled by the anti-Federalists. He was especially dismayed by “the blind spirit of party” that had seized the soul of his friend Thomas Jefferson. Somewhat ruefully, John noted that the vice presidency was regarded as an office that played no part in the raging partisan quarrels. “Poor me…I am left out of the question and pray I ever may.”13
Abigail disagreed with John that he was becoming—or had already become—a political nonentity. Although she took a dark view of the turbulent political scene—“The halcyon days of America are past, I fully believe”—she told John that in spite of the “limited office you hold” he had a “weight of character” thanks to his “former exertions and services” that was bound to exert a “benign influence” on the partisan quarrels. In fact, she was happy to note from the resolutely cheerful tone of his letters that “the only fault of your political character—which had always given me uneasiness was wearing away”—his “irritability.” It had sometimes thrown him off his guard and revealed “that a man is not always a hero.”14
No wonder John wrote in reply, “One day spent at home would afford me more inward delight and comfort than a week or a winter in this place.” Abigail’s letters, he assured her, “give me more entertainment than all the speeches I hear.” This frequent reiteration of his boredom as vice president makes it evident that the job had been another bad career choice for this complex man. John should have accepted election as a senator from Massachusetts, where his oratorical skills and political insights could have been influential in the political struggle that raged throughout these years. He might have developed a following that would have added weight to his presidential ambitions.
Instead John and Abigail convinced themselves that he was better off remaining aloof. The implications of this embrace of political purity would become painfully visible when John Adams became the second president of the volatile American republic.