David McCullough on John Adams 1735-1826 - The John Adams Institute

thank you all for coming the two Seles you have been just been listening to you our Fernando Ventura and Jamie McLaren thank you for no no Jamie for your recital good evening ladies and gentlemen mr. ambassador mr. and mrs. uncle tonight's lecture marked the first lecture in our special programme this season to honor John Adams and commemorate his arrival in the Netherlands 225 years ago that visit proved the starting point for official touch American relations at the John Adams Institute we thought it was now about about time to plan a program around these facts so this year we are celebrating Adams arrival here and focusing closely on the theme of Dutch American transatlantic ties as director of the Institute I am extremely pleased we have been able to persuade a speaker we have had on a wish list for years to give the first annual John Adams lecture who could better start our year of celebrations than Dean biographer of John Adams mr. McCullough who owned the prestigious food surprise for his John Adams a book that raised the awareness the awareness of the American public for Adams historical and political significance now we have mr. McCullough here ready to enrich Holland with his scholarship historian Hammond Balian professor of American Studies at the University of Amsterdam of which this church is the main auditorium will briefly introduce mr. McCullough mr. McCullough will speak for about 3540 minutes and we then immediately launch into a discussion in a small Q&A here in this hall the formal part of this evening will close at around 9:30 and please remember to switch off your cell phones if you haven't already done so may I now invite Hammond Balian to take over thank you [Applause] ladies and gentlemen I feel privileged to introduce to you David McCullough the writer of an abundantly praised biography of John Adams a New England revolutionary a writer of the Declaration of Independence and the second President of the United States are the personal achievements of a person like John Adams sufficient for a best-seller no for that he needed David McCullough the brilliant biographer McCullough studied English at Yale not history but English at Yale in the 50s he has spoken on several occasions about his past at Yale and he speaks very warmly but the intellectual challenges he experienced in his alma mater after Yale he worked as an apprentice as he says for time in life then at the u.s. Information Agency and then at American heritage a string of causes and circumstances convinced him to be a writer the Johnstown Flood was his first book published in 1968 the research for the book started after he saw rather accidentally at the Library of Congress a number of photographs of a flood he knew already Johnston Pennsylvania was a coal town steel town in the mountains above the city was an old dam that had been hastily reconstructed to provide for a lake that was meant to be a place for an exclusive summer resort for the rich the upper class people who controlled the town as well on May 31 18 9018 89 the dam burst killing more than 2,000 people this is a story he choose to write his first epic and epic is the name he is a writer of an epic sword of history a sword of biography after this book he stayed in the 19th century with the three following books the great bridge on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge published in 1972 the past between the seas on the building of the Panama Canal in 1977 and mornings on horseback on Theodore Roosevelt that was the change to a much more personal kind of book a biography of Theodore Roosevelt in in his family it was probably in 1982 brave companions series of seventeen two lives was published in 1992 and then came the biography of Harry Truman followed by a fellow president in 2001 John Adams twice the Pulitzer Prize the National Book Award and the Francis Parkman prize to name only the most prestigious that's not all mr. McCullough has been a familiar voice and face on public television in America as host of Smithsonian world in the American experience and narrator in numerous documentaries including Rick burns the Civil War his last book John Adams was not a best-seller but the mega seller I bought my copy at an airport the place where book shops only sell books for the general reader which is a huge compliment for an academic to reach divided a world later I read in an Internet article that the number of piece of the hardback edition was 1.6 million at that moment it's a book on an 18th century figure not the most obvious person and time to get so much attention the Dutch in the audience I invite to think about a Dutch figure of the 18th century that would create a stir like the book of mystery about John Adams did in the United States we will talk about the differences I think of historical visionary in historical sense between America and then others later on in the interview in academia the world of the universities there are signs that people are losing interest in the era of the founders and the founding fathers and this book conquered the nation I cannot explain why but I can show you a very good reason behind the success by reading the introduction of the book on the subject that will be addressed tonight by mr. McCullough John Adams when you expect a biography to start at the birth of the main figure you will find yourself in a totally different text now in the cold nearly colorless light of a New England winter two men on horseback traveled the coast road below Boston heading north a foot of more a foot or more of snow covered the landscape the remnants of a Christmas storm that had blanketed Massachusetts from one end of the province to the other beneath the snow after weeks of severe cold the ground was Thrall frozen solid to a depth of two feet packed ice in the road ruts as hard as iron made the going hazardous and the riders my full of the horses kept at a walk nothing about the harsh landscape differed from other winters nor was there anything to distinguish two riders no signs of rank or title no liveried retinue bringing up the rear it might have been any year and they could have been anybody braving the weather for any number of reasons dressed as they were in heavy cloaks their hats pulled low against the wind they were buried barely distinguishable even from each other except that the older stouter of the two did most of the talking he was John Adams of Braintree and he loved to talk he was a known talker there was some even among his admirers who wasty for class he himself wished he talked less and he had particular regard for those like General Washington who somehow managed great reserve under almost any circumstance mr. McCullough is a truly epic writer on history on historical subjects great dramatic events and dramatic lives his histories and biographies are fed by a great feel for the past the reader is introduced to the strange and familiar aspects of lives in bygone times through a wealth of images in words I got very cold avert after reading this introduction tonight he will speak about John Adams and the Netherlands and something more I hope David [Applause] thank you sir thank you very much and let me say that it is not just an honor and a pleasure it's a thrill for me to be invited to speak here in Amsterdam in this historic building on your university premises as a guest of the Adams Institute and I'm here with a wonderful group of people called the Madison Council of the Library of Congress who are sitting over here some 40 strong and they're as happy as I am to be in your country I wouldn't be here today this evening I wouldn't have written John Adams I wouldn't have written anything that I've done in my writing life I wouldn't have had my writing life as it's been without my editor-in-chief and I want to stress that because she is a vital part of everything that I do and she is with me she is also in our family mission control she is my wife she is the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Ethics Committee and I would like to introduce Rosalie Macao [Applause] I'm very pleased to that we're going to have questions discussion afterward I enjoy that part of the of an evening especially and especially on a university campus we were in California recently and the technique there was that people wrote their questions out and then the sort of the master of ceremonies for the evening chose different questions for me to answer and after the evening was over he said I've got one question here that I think you might like to save I didn't use it tonight but I'm sure you'll want to keep it and he handed it to me and the question read as follows aside from Harry Truman and John Adams how many other presidents have you interviewed we began our visit here with the Madison Council the Library of Congress yes at the Rijksmuseum with the Night Watch and I thought I would begin my remarks this evening with another painting a painting that hangs in our national capital it's the most famous painting ever done by an American it is seen by more people than any other painting ever painted by an American as it hangs there where millions go through as visitors every year it's John Trumbull signing of the Declaration of Independence it is July 4th 1776 and almost everything about it is inaccurate the room didn't look like the room is portrayed the curtains that the windows are not the same the furniture is wrong the doors are in the wrong place the the Declaration of Independence was not signed on the 4th of July 1776 they didn't begin signing it until August of 1776 and not everyone was present for the signing because many of them hadn't returned to Congress yet some of them didn't show up until fall and one man didn't get back until 1777 but there is one thing about it that's entirely accurate and those are the faces of the people portrayed the signers of the Declaration a declaration set out that set out to really change the world and it wasn't something handed bound down by a king or a potentate or czar but at the decision of a group of citizens acting on their own acting very bravely on their own because by signing that document they were signing their death warrants they were committing treason if captured they would be hanged so when it says at the end we pledged Our Lives our Fortunes our sacred sacred honor that's not just rhetoric that's not just talk that's the literal truth if you study the painting you'll notice that all the lines of perspective all come down to three characters in the foreground John Adams Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who were the three responsible for the document itself Jefferson did the draft Adams and Franklin worth sort of his collaborators but if you study it further you'll see that the figure that stands in the exact center of the painting and clearly the intention of the artist is to draw your eye to him his John Adams John Adams was not the author of the Declaration of Independence he chose the author of the Declaration of Independence he said it must be written by Jefferson what he did was make it happen he got the Congress to vote for he was the driving spirit if Jefferson was the pen Adams was the voice he was in that sense one of the most important Americans who ever lived and had he done nothing else with his career he would be a figure that we would know about from that time we know very little about what he said in his great speech we know very little about what he said in any of his speeches because all the sessions of Congress were conducted behind closed doors in secrecy Philadelphia was full of spies it was every chance that the word would get out Adams went on then to have one of the most astonishing careers in all of American history he became our emissary to France with Franklin he became his own emissary to the Netherlands spent two years here and succeeded on his own against all kinds of odds without authorization to begin with not knowing the language not knowing anybody here bringing two of his little boys with him he succeeded in negotiating a loan from the Netherlands from the Dutch bankers of five million guilders or two million dollars at a point where we were in desperate need of money to fight the war 1782 there was by no means any guarantee that we would win the war in fact every sign suggested that we had a chance but there were some people who would not give up and Alice was one of them he then after the war became our first ambassador to the court of st. James's as at the same time he was still the ambassador to the Netherlands because the government did not put anybody else here and as a consequence he came back and forth many times from London to Amsterdam and the hague to negotiate further loans his love of this country was extremely sincere and very great as was his wife's impression in the one time she was here he was often critical of the Dutch he was often demoralized by the attitude particularly of people in high positions in the government who shunned him who in effect snubbed him for years until I find finally he succeeded in selling if you will lobbying for recognition of the United States by going from province to province in a very much seems to be in retrospect American political tradition after he left the court of st. James's he returned to the United States to become our first vice president and then succeeded George Washington as president he served one term went after which he was defeated by Thomas Jefferson in one of the most rancorous difficult closest elections in our history with vicious charges being made on both sides and a contest that wound up in the House of Representatives and was only settled after 36 votes when one man changed his vote so when we read about presidents of the United States becoming president by a very slim margin or by a controversial contest it all is a very old story Adams then returned to his home in Braintree Massachusetts where he lived for another 25 years now here was a man who travelled farther in the service of his country at greater risk and the greater discomfort and greater chance of his losing his life not to say his livelihood to support his family of any of the major figures of that time who when he went home never went anywhere else the next 25 years and as a biographer I was concerned how would I sustain the life of such a active protium figure when he simply goes back and lives 25 years never goes anywhere has no influence has very few friends and begins to lose so much that he loves in the way of his family his health and physical strength but it was a lesson in why we often worry about the wrong things because what I found was that the inward journey began after his retirement and the real story of John Adams struggle with John Adams began to unfold and his courage in the face of adversity in the last part of his life is to me one of the most exemplary passages in the whole chronicle of this extremely courageous man I've often stopped in recent years to try to figure out what it is I've been writing about in my writing life for a long time I thought maybe I must have a water obsession the first book was about the Johnstown Flood the second was about a bridge over the East River the third was about the Panama Canal and now I've been drawn to the Netherlands and but I think that route everything that I have been trying to do in my work is about courage and principally chiefly the courage of one's convictions and the story of John Adams again and again and again is a story of courage I want to begin by reading you something he wrote about himself and he wrote this when he was feeling quite low he had not succeeded very well in his first turn at diplomacy in France and he was going home after a relatively relatively brief stay and he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror and he wrote about his face about himself he said by my physical Constitution I am but an ordinary man the times alone have destiny to fame he saw too much weakness and languor in his nature when I look in the glass my eye my forehead my brow my cheeks my lips all betray this relaxation yet he could be roused he knew yet some great events some cutting expressions some means scandals hypocrisy 'he's have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth sleep and littleness into a rage a little like a lion that's John Adams he is a flesh-and-blood human being and when he says by my physical condition I am but an ordinary man the times alone have destined me to thing you I can guarantee you that he's fishing he doesn't believe it for a minute he knows he's not an ordinary man he's anything but ordinary now he is commonly thought of as a rich Boston Blue Blood he was none of those he wasn't rich he wasn't a Bostonian he wasn't a blueblood he was a farmer's son a farmer's son who through a scholarship had the good fortune to go to to go to Harvard his father we know could read write his name but that's about all his mother almost certainly was illiterate and when he went to Harvard as he said I discovered books and I read forever he became the most widely and deeply read American of that very bookish day and he knew right away that he wanted to excel now that's a little different from ambition he wanted to excel he wanted to be good at what he did and he wanted to serve the public good the Americans at that time had no history they had no history to read no history to have as part of their own sense of who they were what they had was classical history educated Americans and most of the founders were educated men they had not just learned to read and write in Latin and Greek but they knew Roman history and Greek history and they know from the Roman and Greek history the classic models of valor of Honor public of the public good and virtue when Adams finished Harvard he went just to become a schoolteacher he was the first of our presidents to begin his career as a school teacher and in that period when he's searching to find out what he's going to do with his life what he's gonna make of his life he poured out his innermost feelings as he would all of his life in writing on paper and those little Diaries have all survived they're about the size of the palm of your hand and they're in a microscopic handwriting I had to use a magnifying glass to read it and of course that's in part because paper was so expensive and this boy this young man had no money I will read you an excerpt from July 21st 1756 in other words 20 years before 1776 he's 20 years old I am resolved to rise with the Sun and to study scriptures on Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday mornings and to study some Latin author and the other three morning's knowns and nights I intend to ring read English authors I will rouse up my mind and fix my attention I will stand collected within myself and think upon what I read and what I see I will strive with all my soul to be something more than persons who have had less advantage than myself now clearly that is a young man with a rare eye idea of what he might be in a very good mind it's so admirable but then the next morning he slept until 7 o'clock and the one line entry following week in the following week a very rainy day dreamed away all my time when I read that I knew I had my man here's somebody that I can identify with he's a human being he finally decides that he is not going to be a school teacher and he's not going to be a minister as his father had hoped as most parents of students who went to Harvard hoped as most of the faculty expected the students to become preachers ministers Protestant ministers instead he decides he will become a lawyer he will enter public life and this was a great struggle because he knew he was going against his father's wishes and he adored his father and one Sunday after church he was a very devout Christian I should emphasize inspired by the sermon he had heard and also by a it would seem a feeling of relief that he was not going to become a preacher he went out under the night sky to behold the glorious spectacle of a starry night and beholding the night sky he wrote the amazing concave of heavens sprinkled and glittered with stars I am thrown into a kind of transport he knew that such wonders were the gifts of God and then he writes but the greatest of all was the gift of an inquiring mind but of all the provisions that he has made for the gratification of our senses this same twenty year old wrote are much inferior to the provision the wonderful provision that he has made for the gratification of our nobler nobler powers of intelligence and reason he has given us reason to find out the truth and the real design and true end of our existence he then says it will be hard work to become an attorney to learn the law to qualify for the bar but the more difficult and dangerous the enterprise the higher the crown of laurel is bestowed on the conqueror exactly the same spirit that he brings to his crusade here in the Netherlands but the point is now determined I shall have the Liberty to think for myself now what did the founders of our country believe what did they think when they talked about the pursuit of happiness they didn't mean long vacations they didn't mean travel to foreign exotic places they didn't mean a nice comfortable afternoon in a hammock or a lot of expensive possessions what they meant what they were talking about was an extension and enlargement of the experience of life through the life of the mind and the life of the Spirit and they all talked about this is not some notion imposed upon them by latter-day biographers and historians Jefferson said any nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never can be in other words you cannot have a self-governing system without a population that is educated George Washington who did not have the benefit of a college education and who believes strongly in the importance of a college education gave an enormous endowment for at for his time to what is now Washington and Lee University in Virginia he also provided the funding to send of the son of a friend to Princeton and he wrote that the boys education would not only promote his own happiness the boy but the future welfare of others and then he went on to say knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness Adams story could very well be taken as a metaphor for the transforming miracle of education and it's it's all through his life and it is most dramatically and I think most memorably illustrated by the fact that he brought John Quincy here with him to Europe and later on the second trip John Quincy and Charles who was even younger little boys and they were not big boys that were small for their age who came across in the wintertime on two voyages the first voyage was absolutely horrendous everything that could have gone wrong went wrong they were hit by a hurricane they engaged closed with the British warship fought a battle people were killed up the they were stalled in the sea they were becalmed for days on end the food was wretched the accommodations were miserable in the in the winters months on the North Atlantic virtually no one was out there who valued his life even even in peacetime nobody from New England went to sea in the wintertime if it could possibly be avoided and Adams did it twice and twice he took these young boys with him why would he do that why would his wife their mother risk their lives and the answer is very simple their education she wanted them and one can not underestimate the importance of Abigail Adams not just in the story of John Adams but in the history of what happened to Adams Jefferson and so many of them she was without question one of the most remarkable Americans of all time she wanted that young boy to come because she wanted him to have an example of his father to live with see down a day-to-day basis she knew that he was coming to Europe at the time of the Enlightenment that he would have the chance to be with the great French intellectuals and the intellectuals in other countries that he would have the chance to learn different languages all of which he did all of which happened now after the horrendous voyage of the first trip over and he had returned to the United States with his father and his father was called back here and his mother said you're going again he said no I'd done that and it was so terrifying he didn't want to leave a second time so she wrote him a letter a letter in which she spelled out what she expected of him and I don't think there's anything that I know of in all of the the writings of literature of 18th century Americans that's expresses it quite so well what was it that was moving these people these very imperfect people none of whom was was a god home was unplowed she said to him these are 10 remember she's writing to a little kid not a grown-up but you'd never know it from the way she expresses herself the vocabulary she uses and the ideas she's giving across these are the times in which a genius would wish to live it's not in the still calm of life of the repose of a Pacific station that great characters are formed the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties great necessities call out great virtues great necessities call out great virtues when a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart then those qualities which otherwise would lay dormant waken to life and form the character of the hero and the Statesman well you know he had to go after reading that but keep in mind in that last sentence she is referred to the mind and the life of the mind several times before she comes to that last sentence but then in the last sentence she makes the point well when a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant waken to life in other words you have to have it here too not just here Adam felt this very strongly and when his sons were enrolled at the University of Leyden he could not have been more proud one must always remember that when Americans arrived in your country or in France or in England they were overwhelmed by the level of culture they had never seen great paintings they'd never seen great buildings they had never seen broad boulevards there wasn't as I've said to my friends on this trip there wasn't a single bridge between Boston and Philadelphia the route that Adams would ride regularly to go to Congress not one and in this one city there were more than 500 when he arrived here they were overwhelmed by by the music by the portraits by the statuary and by the level of education Harvard University at the time that Adams knew at the time that he went there was buildings in the Faculty of seven a little Academy not the Harvard University that we think of today and to have his son home sons over there was to him a high accomplishment he was asked why he was doing this why are you subjecting your family at home to their loneliness and to the deprivation of that you bring upon them by not being there to help what are you doing it for and he summed it up in a memorable paragraph that I think is also expressive of exactly what they meant by the pursuit of happiness I'm a study politics and war he wrote that my sons have Liberty to study mathematics and philosophy my sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy geography Natural History naval architecture navigation Commerce and agriculture in order to give their children and notice he doesn't say sons he says children implying that it could be education for women in this coming generation the right to study paintings poetry music architecture statuary tapestry and porcelain that is the upward climb he sees the necessities are his generation the kind of practicalities of the philosophy natural history geography that's all for the next year but beyond that will be music poetry literature you may all know this other famous line from one of that john adams letters i hope if you don't that you'll remember it his point of this is that reading education the life of the Spirit has expressed through the language is a source of happiness he's studying at the University of John Quincy is the University of Leyden and the father's writing to him almost every day it is the most touching example of paternal affection and pride and aspiration for the son that I know of he says it's very important that you'd be reading Cicero and the knees and the classics from that time but he also says you should be reading the great writers in your own language and that you should take a book with you everywhere you go never go anywhere without a book and to read the poet's especially and he asks him if anybody at the university has ever suggested to him that happiness was to be found that way read somewhat in the English poets everyday you will find them elegant entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life in all the dispositions you have heard consider meaning at the University concerning the happiness of life has never been recommended to you to read poetry and then he says you will never be alone with a poet in your pocket I've suggested that should be a banner flying over every poet Poetry Society in America he brought all of this to a kind of focus in a brilliant exercise of intellect and a concern for the public good that's unmatched in the history of our country which was and which was unprecedented and that is in the Massachusetts Constitution the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which was like unlike any other Constitution that had ever been written before and it is the oldest written constitution still in use in the world today it is older but by ten years than our National Constitution and in many ways it's a rough sketch of our American Constitution and it had a bill of rights right from the beginning as our National Constitution did not Adams wrote the whole thing he wrote it in a matter of about two weeks at a plain pine stand up lawyers desk about the size of this podium and in that constitution there is a paragraph a single paragraph which still determines public education in the state of Massachusetts wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue the few generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties you cannot preserve your rights and liberties unless there's wisdom and knowledge and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education the various parts of the country and among the different orders of the people it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences and all seminaries of them and then he goes on to say what he means by education for the arts sciences commerce trades manufacturers and Natural History to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence there is in our country a running debate about whether we should be teaching values in our schools if the question arises is that what the founders intended absolutely here it is to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence public and private charity industry and frugality honesty we will teach honesty punctuality sincerity good humor there will be good good humor it's in our Constitution in Massachusetts and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people now that last rays generous sentiments among the people does not just mean financial generosity it means generosity of spirit generosity of spirit among fellow citizens neighbors friends John Adams had an immensely successful life but for him the real success was in seeing his son sons and daughter arise as thinking independent good citizens the most noteworthy of all of whom was John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams is a whole subject unto himself but let me just say briefly that I believe that if it were possible to give all the presidents of the United States an IQ test John Quincy Adams would come in at the front even ahead of his father John Quincy Adams became the first full-fledged ambassador to the Netherlands in that he was the first to be appointed by a president of the United States when he was 29 years old and he was the most well equipped the most gifted the most appropriate ambassador that Washington appointed in all of his presidency at 29 years old he became a very distinguished diplomat in a long diplomatic career which began by the way when he was 15 years old when he left here with Francis Dana who had been sent by our government as an emissary to the court of Catherine the Great that fifteen-year-old boy left here to go with Francis Namath Dana to serve as his interpreter and translator in French he was there for a year he was a diplomat at fifteen when his time there was up and it was time for you he returned by himself at age fifteen all the way across from st. Petersburg here to the Netherlands which in that time was like traveling to the moon and back and on his own now you see that boy wasn't just brilliant he had been raised to be that way and he'd been raised to be grown up an adult and responsible far earlier than we raise our children that way today much more so he became president and he was not a particularly effective or successful president he was not a failure as a president but he was not one of our great presidents and we don't for some reason or other there are probably good explanations we don't include one-term presidents in the pantheon of great American presence unless they're killed in office and then they they rise to the top and neither John Adams nor John Quincy Adams served more than one term but it was after John Quincy Adams left the presidency that his heroic and important time in our history begins because he was the only president the only former president before or since who went back to serve in the House of Representatives which was thought at the time to be at such a step down as to be almost embarrassing but he said to his credit and he meant it because no Adams ever said anything they didn't mean which was part of the disadvantage they operated under as diplomats and politicians he said that he considered it to be the highest honor he'd ever had and what happened was he went back to Washington and went into the Congress went into the House of Representatives now statuary hall and there's a mark on the floor in Statuary Hall the old House of Representative marking the spot where he battled slavery day in day out year in year out he was called old man eloquent and he died there died with his boots on as we say fighting the good fight to the end and most interestingly his mother and father were very strongly anti-slavery all their lives John Adams was the only I hope you know this if you don't I hope you won't forget it John Adams were the only one of our founders who did not own a slave ever as a matter of principle Abigail Adams in the worst years of the early years of the Revolution when everything seemed to be going wrong when pestilence disease were sweeping through her part of Massachusetts said I wonder if our sufferings are not the punished God's punishment for the sin of slavery so there years later is the son battling on the floor of the Congress against slavery he was his father and mother's son to a very large degree these are people who seem to rise up because the need was there the occasion was there and in that sense John Adams was right when he said the times alone have made me Abigale like to quote a line from an English poet adversity is a good man's shining time and this is true of so many of them they knew they weren't perfect as human beings and they knew what they had done wasn't perfect to attain a life where all men were created equal would take a long lot of hard work and struggles and grief and disappointment but that was the idea that was the advantage they created the ideal and the successors were supposed to achieve it in the theme of the American experiment as an ongoing experiment and we we are still working in it they set this they set true north forests in effect and we've been trying to reach it ever since and will continue to do so and they were such noble people in their willingness to serve the country and their heartfelt belief in what was at stake now some of them did not feel that Washington's army had deserters by the thousands deserters and people who went over to the other side people who quit people who quit the Congress people in Congress who went over to the other side they were by no means all heroes but enough of them work and the greatest of them by far of all was Washington there would not have been the country we have have it hadn't been for Washington so when people say that John Adams was eclipsed by Washington or he was in the shadow of Washington of course he was we have never had a figure in our country who had the same power over people as George Washington be and the fact that he was there at the beginning was probably as lucky as any of the many lucky breaks that we had at the beginning he was a figure of Union he was a figure of Union during the war and a figure of Union after he became president but already the country was starting to pull apart because of factions and rivalries based in large part on slavery section sectionalism they were very great men and quite imperfect and they they changed the world when George Washington turned over his command of the Continental Army to the Congress relinquished power as no General had ever done before no conquering general every time George the 3rd King George the 3rd had heard that this might happen and he said if he does that he will be the greatest man in the world that was the example which goes back of course to Cincinnatus the Roman model so they were learning from history profiting from history drawing strength from history not the same history we've draw strength from our examples from but a different history but we should draw history from their example and we should draw a sense of what humanity can be from their example now some historians write political history diplomatic history economic history and they write it as though it is not connected in any way with life I don't believe that I think there's diplomatic history and life economic history and life political history and life and if you don't understand the lives of the people who were involved you cannot understand why things went the way they did and if you don't understand that they had no more idea of how things were going to turn out that we do then you don't understand what it was like for them in a way nobody ever lived in the past there is no such thing as the past Jefferson Adams Washington the great figures of the Netherlands that worked with atoms like Johan Lucas they didn't walk around saying isn't this fascinating living in the past aren't we quaint in our funny clothes they were living in the present but it was their present not ours and it was different from ours which means that they were different and you can't understand you can't understand what happened without understanding them and you can't understand them without understanding what we would call the culture around them I wish there were a better word than culture it's too fancy it's too precious it means the architecture the newspapers the music what they ate do you ever notice how a few biographers ever to give their subjects a chance to sit down and have something to eat do you ever notice how few biographers ever have suggests that there were many days that were extremely boring or to suggest that maybe there were moments when they didn't have the faintest idea of what to do next that's life and it has to be understood just as had the reaction of these Americans to Europe and to the Netherlands France has to be understood by understanding the impact of the weight the size the volume the thrill of the culture of this country France England and the rest but you also have to understand what's in here just as Abigail suggested so I want to finish my remarks tonight not by reading something to you about history or the Netherlands or about the United States of America but about living about life about a human being who once was here and from whom we can learn an immense amount what had happened was this John Adams in his final journey had come to the conclusion that contrary to the ideals of the Enlightenment that everything could not be explained that there were inevitable mysteries and that that was a good thing that we need mysteries it's the idea of vocht in the dusty of Sookie's brothers karamatsu if everything were rational nothing would happen and as he grew older he became more interested in what he could not explain but what he felt he began to lose everything his friends his beloved daughter died of a hideous mastectomy performed in the room beside his own and Abigail's bedroom as was done of course to everyone then without the benefit of anesthetics the horror of that operation is beyond our imagining just is the anguish of those two parents standing outside the door waiting then Abigail died his others one of his other sons had destroyed himself with alcohol he had seen his son become president United States but he'd lost his friends he'd lost his hair he'd lost his teeth he couldn't ride a horse anymore everything it would seem was gone and everything was there to make this supposedly pessimistic man even more pessimistic than ever but a very curious thing had happened he became increasingly optimistic with age and then one night there was a terrible ice storm and what he had left that he loved and believe me you can tell an awful lot about a person by what they love if you want to write a biography if we want to understand figures from the past apart from their professional contributions or their particular talents take a look at what that they loved truly loved and Adams loved his trees and his farm he adored them he was a man of the soil at heart at the very end as he'd been much of his life and in the ice storm most all of the trees were destroyed It was as if the Lord had destroyed the last thing he had and he woke up the next morning and he looked out the window and if you come to Quincy Massachusetts you can see the same desk that he wrote this letter his eyeglasses you can look out at the same garden through the same glass it's all still there everything that belonged to them is there and here's what he wrote now I would like to suggest you just listen to this as a piece of great humane if this had been written by some of the greatest writers of all time they couldn't have done it much better but beyond that think of what it's telling us about the heart in this very human theme a rain had fallen from some warmer region in the skies when the cold here below was intense to an extreme every drop was frozen wherever it fell down the in the trees and clung to the limbs and sprigs as if it'd been fastened by hooks of Steel the earth was never more universally covered with snow and the rain had frozen upon a crust and the surface was shown with the brightness of burnished silver the icicles on every sprig glowed and all the luster of diamonds every tree was a chandelier of cut glass I have seen the Queen of France Marie Antoinette with 18 millions of livres of diamonds upon her person and I declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels did not make an impression on me equal to that presented by every shrub and the whole world was glittering with precious stones that's the same fellow who went out under the stars and was so transformed transfixed by the glory of what he saw above him and who understood that the mind was the greatest gift of God of all and that he was free to think for himself history ought to be something that reminds us of who we are and what we stand for what we believe the previous librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin once said trying to approach the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers we must know history we must understand who these people were and all that they did for us and we must draw strength and confidence from them in the aftermath of September 11th in our country there were people on television writing in the newspapers who are saying this is the darkest most dangerous most uncertain time we have ever been through well it is a dark and dangerous and very uncertain time and September 11th was without question the worst day for our country in our history more so than Pearl Harbor because Pearl Harbor was a military target and there was some expectation that something of the kind could conceivably happen it wasn't a slaughter of innocent people just to make a point but it isn't the darkest time not by a long shot one of the darkest times was the year 1776 when Washington's army was down to less than 4,000 men about a 500 600 of whom were too sick almost to walk when it looked as though the war was over and we had lost but there were enough of them and most was most conspicuously George Washington who did not see it that way thank god another time was late 1941 early 1942 when Hitler's armies were at Moscow when Britain was on her last legs when we had no army our recruits were drilling with wooden rifles so all they had half of our Navy had been destroyed at Pearl Harbor we had no Air Force and there was no guarantee whatsoever that the Nazi machine could be stopped and destroyed that was a far darker time but there were enough people who kept the faith and my message night is this we are up against a foe all of us who believes in enforced ignorant and we don't and we never will thank [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ladies and gentlemen this is an American event it's started in 1775 and ended our present predicament the world after September 11th there's a lot of optimism that seems to be characteristic of Americans for a very long period but before we come to this conclusion of your speech I want to go back there were some high moments especially the moment when you said when you take an IQ test and the American presidents I wonder who came lost but that's not my question my quest my question in the first place is go back to your real opening of the other speech and you started at trumble's painting and of course you knew that you had to write about the main figure in vane tea but you also know had a book started you saw the painting later in in the later stage because please can you tell us first how you did because it is a kind of dual life I had been interested in Jefferson since I was a youngster and went to visit Monticello for the first time and I felt that Jefferson was a figure I would like to write about I had never been tchard into the 18th century and it was a country I felt I wanted to visit and now that I've been there I may never come back but I had the idea because I was very interested in the fact that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on the same day incredibly on the same day and that it was there in effect day of days July 4th the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence 1826 and I thought what if I began with the death of these two men these two very important and very different men representing entirely different parts of the country one must understand that Massachusetts in Virginia in 1871 576 in that period we're as different from one another as foreign countries they were settled by different kinds of people they had a whole different kind of society and economy and they believed in different virtues and aspirations and I thought if I could have the two of them as it were on stage I might see them in a different light than they had been seen before my concern was that how was I going to keep glamorous famous popular Thomas Jefferson from forever upstaging this short stout cranky Yankee John Adams and it was only when I got into the material that I realized that this was a biographers dream because primarily of the letters between John and Abigail Adams which take us inside their lives in a way nothing else could a writer's job is to get below the surface it seems to me and to do that with Jefferson would be extremely difficult because among other things he didn't want you to get below the surface any more than was necessary and as a consequence he destroyed every letter that his wife ever wrote to him in every letter she he wrote to her in fact we don't even know what she looked like by contrast there are over 1500 letters just between John and Abigail Adams neither one was capable of writing a adult letter or a short one and and they pour it out you know exactly what they felt you don't have to speculate I wonder how he felt about that follower well what kind of mood were they in that morning you know exactly because all their and they wrote such letters to their children and to many of their close friends so I was drawn by the material I was drawn by the importance of the of that protein formative time was drawn by the fact that how could it be that this tiny little population on that I wrote remote frontier keep in mind that the settlement of the United States at that point was only about 50 miles inland along the eastern seaboard that's all it was Massachusetts in 1776 was tilt still two-thirds forest not just woods forests as was Pennsylvania how did that how did they these men come to be how do they arise without the benefit of great education Zinn Europe and and the availability of books to everyone in the rest how did that happen that to me is is it it's close to a miracle and the more one reads about the revolution more one reads particularly about fighting the war because after all the Declaration of Independence was only that a declaration unless they won the war and weren't the more one understands about that I just finished writing a book about 1776 on the battlefields in the war and when you see what happened and why it happened you have to think again again it was it was very nearly a miracle that when when the direction of the wind had changed the course of history on one night so all of this is of extreme interest to me and those people there so endlessly interesting next question would be because we are here in between the two houses of John Adams and his son went to school little bit further on the canal we have to say something about his stay here in the Netherlands and when you write your biography it's a marvelous book then of course the perspective is totally on John Adams himself you right from his papers and you look at the world through his eyes and you're great at it have you ever sort of what those Dutch bankers with their sort from this weirdo from over there I've thought about it a great deal and I regret very much that I do not read Dutch and so it was to my mind virtually impossible to find first to find the letters and then to understand what they were about there are the letters of his friend van der Kemp Francis van der Kemp who became one of his closest friends and who later settled in the United States in fact some of the most poignant of all the letters of John Adams wrote were to his Dutch friend van der Kemp I have no doubt that they must have found him quite astonishing on the other hand all the indications are that the intellectuals that he cultivated and got to know really did like him and were quite taken by his energy by his warmth of spirit now keep in mind that just because John Adams could be quite caustic abrasive short-tempered tactless all those things he was a very warm-hearted affectionate voluble and loyal friend good friend he was a wonderful friend Jefferson would say again and again to know him is to love him they you once you get by this sometimes crusty exterior and you you got no if only to read the letters to Abigail understand how much heart was there I would love to know much more about what the Dutch were feeling particularly some of those at the Hague who snubbed him so who ostracized him who who spoke of him scornfully found him troublesome embarrassing he was all of that of course he was he was worried about those people fighting and dying back in the United States and he knew he had to get the money you cannot fight a war without money Washington wrote a wonderful letter to John Hancock reminding John Hancock the president of of the Congress a very wealthy man we can't fight this war without money and Adams knew that the outcome of the of the contest in at home for independence could depend on his success here and he was not going to just sort of go about diplomacy in the usual way waiting for when they would invite him to present his credentials being diplomatic in the usual way but I think his forthrightness is his hard work his love of books his devout sense of-of his Protestant faith all of those things were appealing to the people here and there's much in common between at least in my reading of eighteenth-century Netherlanders much in common with with the New England people making do with small space living in a in a difficult climate being raised with the idea that life is a battle there is no free ride you have to work hard do your best and who had a frontier to contend with here is the North Sea there was the frontier all around them Americans felt very at home in the and that's not just in the writings of John Adams it's right away they felt Frances Dana's letters were filled with it in the in the miracle of how much ingenuity was to be seen on every side they loved that and so I I would delight in reading what those people were saying about him if I could do it and maybe someday Jeremy banks will pitch in and let us know okay let me go to another subject now you said about historians academic historians in the United States that they are studying all kind of subjects distinct from life and I've read an awful lot of that literature and of course I can understand what you mean let's look at the deep Studies on the political language itself the main idea of those studies is that it's a language you can read but cannot understand at face value if that's true how can you fill in notions of your own understanding those people while ignoring the fact that they were talking in a language that was different from the English language today because you have a lot of continued Amy in your speech there's a lot of continuity not only the example but also about the kind of people 18th century people are in your idea the same kind of people know okay no no that's exactly was my point they weren't just like we are we can ever assume they were just they were nothing like we are in many many ways and I one of the ways I tried to get inside their lives was to try and read not just what they wrote but what they read so I tried to read all the writers that Abigail and John read to follow swift pope Cervantes Shakespeare and and what's so fascinating is to see how often they are not just picking up ideas or turns of phrases that but whole sentences whole thoughts that come word-for-word out of that English literature I don't I when I say that some people write diplomatic history and some people write military history I'm not saying that that's not the way to do it thank goodness they do it those are serious works by serious people about serious subjects and they're important they play a great part in the overall understanding of the past all I'm saying is that's not what I do and I I also do feel that you must understand the chemistry of it you can't possibly understand the Truman administration for example without understanding the nature of Harry Truman and of those people around him can you imagine two different figures in our story at least our history than Dean Acheson and Harry Truman of course the explanation is in both cases there was much more there than met the eye I think you can't understand people unless you understand where they came from where they grew up the vernacular the language the the things that the you know the sort of rules to live by taught to them by their parents you know the oldest Amos line of Harry Truman's you if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen that's a common expression in western Missouri that's not Harry Truman and and you you you you learned so far more about about life that's why I think it's when students are not interested in history when history is poorly taught and turns students away they are they are failing to have it to get the chance to better understand their how life works the the role of cause-and-effect in life for example well if they don't know about cause and effect in history they might not get the idea that happens in your own life self-made man self-made woman there ought to be no such expression there isn't any such thing all of these people like all of us each of us is the creation of many people who have helped influence and very often people we've never met because they live long ago they wrote the great symphony that moved us or the great novel where the poetry changed our lives and the teachers the professors who have thrown open the window for us as youngsters but when I come back to this question when they speak like Cicero luck Tully yes in in your language and are they still the same kind of people that you and I know in this audience or are they totally different and is then the story about the thing you love to talk about about life is that the same is his life a constant factor in the 18th century and in 21st century or are they different people is there and and that's mainly based on on the on the on the study of American Historians who did this partially they left a lot out and analyze the language it isn't one of the other and of course there are some aspects to their outlook their sense of right and wrong their fears their coping with their own mortality that's very like ours but they are different I'll give you one of my favorite examples we know that transportation was very slow and difficult in that time and by our terms that means the inconvenience a nuisance discomfort how did they put up with it he must have been so hard for them yes it was all of that we think of transportation and communications two different things two different worlds to them it was one because nothing could be communicated faster than somebody on a fast horse and if you were out of touch with your husband let's say or out of touch with your government back in the United States and you were making decisions here that was going to have that we're going to affect the lives of your countrymen your family at home the outcome of a deadly war if you're going to make a decision about whether to have your children inoculated for smallpox and you can't pick up the phone or get on the internet or send a fax or FedEx to get instant communication what does that mean it means it increases by geometric perforce proportions your individual burden of responsibility you can't spread the guilt or the responsibility Abigail Adams has to decide I'm going to take my children in and not have them inoculated for smallpox knowing that at best it'll make them wretchedly ill at worst they might die from it some of them I can't call up my husband say come on home on the next plane we've got to do this together just as when John Adams is here and he decides on April 19th and the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington in Concord to submit his his memento his his memo to to the government here stating what he is here for against the diplomatic conventions and timing taking a very bold very brash perhaps dangerous route he doesn't he can't call up the State Department or share his opinions with fellow ambassadors in France or England or whatever he has to assume complete responsibility for it that's different that's very different they didn't live in a world of 24 hours a day news coverage they didn't live in a world where one's reputation could be made or broken in 24 hours they didn't have anything like the speed of transportation or communication it was different they lived with death all around them all the time imagine going to the dentist in the 18th century imagine sleeping in places that were filled with lice it was a different time we have no idea how tough those people were how hard life was for them just in ordinary times let alone in times of difficulty and stress okay let's try for some help from the audience people who want to ask questions are requested to go to the microphone over there someone coming to show you the way don't try it from the audience because otherwise people we will hear it probably but the rest of the audience won't be happy enough to hear you your questions other people who want to address mr. McCullough on this lecture okay will you please go I just have one question in his letters you know you always called Abigail Portia after I think Merchant of Venice did you ever find out why he chose Portia and not another name from Shakespeare why did they call her a classical references and this was very common among young people to use a classical names or names from literature as a kind of in name of endearment or a code if you will it was a sign of love and seriousness and quite common love letters of that whole period are filled with that device it's sort of a kind of an eight eighteenth-century conceit well I'd have to go and I'd have to go and look again I don't know I don't remember someone else yes it is a question about when John Adams assumed the presidency he kept on the cabinet of Washington from the word go they were sharpening their daggers to stick them in a tea in his back why did he suffer this why did he go on with it why didn't he sex a lot after in three or four months it was a very great mistake and I think he knew it right away we kept remembered not that there never been a change of presidents before it wasn't known whether that was the president if he sacked dismissed all of Washington's cabinet would this be taken as an insult to Washington and nobody wished to insult Washington at that period let alone man who was trying to fill those very large shoes it was a it was a serious error and he paid for it it was a shame and not all of them of course betrayed him we're stuck the knife but a sufficient number to make his life quite miserable winter was here and the Netherlands recognized the United States as a state diplomatically I assume it put a large burden on the relationship between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom because of the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the in the colonies was such a burdensome decision for the discovere meant in your view something that was already shalt speak in the pipeline and where John Adams had a final push to cut the Dutch government over there versus really something that was improbable and was really driven by Adams to make the disc Offerman's recognize the United States outside again when the Netherlands recognized the United States yet at the time it put I guess major burden on the relationship between Holland and England the United Kingdom well Harlan in England by then were at war with each other okay because that's my question was it something that's really was tricked by John Adams himself or was it just something that was so obvious that the role that he played to catch the Dutch government over there no I was only small thing no in fact one of the one of the uphill the uphill climb he had was particularly steep because so many people in the Netherlands were fearful that any recognition of the United States would jeopardize what was then a very tenuous but important relationship with Britain and when the British ambassador walked off went home in a huff and soon followed by declarations of war at sea at least then there was more of a chance that the recognition would follow but it was really the reluctance to it to irritate or create more friction than necessary with with the British that kept so many of the people of the Netherlands from wanting to and jump in and endorse the revolution the lost what you so much time its passed under so much time is passed by since the time that you're writing and when you look at the United States now it seems to me that a lot that explains the United States is from the 19th and 20th centuries when you look at the effects of post-reconstruction politics of race of immigration of the reservations of the Vietnam War the wondering when you look at the politics the United States today what themes or strands do you see that have lasted through from the period of Adams and from the period of Washington and not from these later later themes that's a very very good question and of course not an easy one to answer let me put it this way I think if John Adams and Jefferson came back today to see what what was happening and what our country was like they would be astonished that the government that they put in place the structure of government the architecture of government let's say I was still functioning they would be amazed at two hundred and some years later we still have an executive legislative and judicial branch of the government that we still have an independent judiciary and so forth and so on the Bill of Rights is still there that slavery has been ended there would be much to cheer them I think what would distress John Adams the most would probably be the poisonous effect of money in our politics and that the the two-party system which he always feared would could be the cause of the breakup of our country or the or the breakdown of our values that the two-party system or the party system was in truth becoming a detriment and if in and even worse than a point a kind of poison he felt as did Washington that the problem with the party system is that the politicians the public servants would begin to be more concerned about the fortunes of the party than the fortunes of the country strange that anybody would ever imagine such a thing and I think that they would see what's happening in our country is proof of this and of course both parties are as guilty each party is as guilty as the other and its accelerated very fast Harry Truman was astonished appalled disgusted when he found out that the Kennedy administration were like was going to have $100 a plate dinners to raise money for the Democratic Party well it's more than just inflation that is at work of what it costs to go to one of those dinners today they would have also have a very difficult time understanding the role we have played in the world and continue to play and the and the responsibility the burden of that burden of it financially the burden of it in the criticism and abuse of individual personalities that consequently result by many but in terms of present-day politics and international relations they were virtually isolationist Adams emphasis on sea power would be seen as very farsighted certainly their their importance that they place on education would stand as a clear forefront sustaining theme in American life from then till now still the clause that I read about public education from the constitution of Massachusetts could have been written yesterday and in fact some important cases have been decided in Massachusetts in recent years based on the one word in that Constitution cherish would cherish the arts the sciences and so forth they tried to eliminate funding for the Arts and the schools and court decided that that was unconstitutional which of course was wonderful and there you've seen a single word reaching out from 200 years past and affecting life today in our country they would have a very hard time coping with the pace the the noise the clamor the complexity of American a world of life in the world today not just American life but they were so smart they'd probably catch on much faster than we do and maybe have answers that we don't have so let's end us on that thank you thank you so much mr. McCullough for giving us in such an eloquent inspiring and wonderful speech tonight and you were wonderful speaker Thank You professor Balian for introducing mr. McCullough when taking the questions from the audience and asking you questions yourself we'll have a mr. McCullough signing his books in the bookstore just across the street the name is open especially for us tonight so if you like to buy a book and I'll get you that his signature in the book you're welcome and to follow me and mr. McCullough to go across the street for those of you already have a signature in the book or we'll wait a little longer there are drinks just in the back for everybody and that's something I have to thank the University of Amsterdam for as well because it's only thanks to them we can can make that happen I also want to thank again the James Madison council group for for being here thank you all for coming actually and the only thing I wanted to say before I let you go is that the next event lecture events with the John Adams Institute is October 26 it's a totally different topic totally different speaker it's about literature actually it's a very young writer Arthur Phillips is coming here for a second book the Egyptologist you'll be right 26th of October and still tickets you can sign up you can also become a member and owner of the John Adams is - I really hope you will and I thank you all again for coming tonight thank you [Applause]

Channel: The John Adams Institute

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Keywords: David McCullough, John Adams 1735-1826, Lecture, John Adams Institute

Id: aMXsd83Nv1w

Length: 92min 50sec (5570 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018