Marshall Center Lecture Series presents Gordon S. Wood

welcome everyone I'm Dan Palazzolo the co-director of the Marshall Center and with my colleague Jerry McDowell like to welcome you to another talk we have here in our speaker series the way it normally runs is we go for about an hour 5:00 5:30 will be our ending point and our speaker will be happy to take some questions after you make some remarks and then after we will have a reception and an opportunity for a book signing so what I welcome you here today and I also want to welcome to the stage dr. Sandra Pierre who is the dean of the Jepson school of leadership studies thank you Dan it's a great pleasure to be here this afternoon and to welcome all of you this afternoon and it's also my pleasure to introduce our speaker today the very eminent historian and author Gordon s wood dr. wood as you can see from the slide or yes as you can see from the slide is the Alva alway University professor and professor emeritus of history at Brown University his books as I'm sure you know have received numerous awards including the Pulitzer the Bancroft and the John H Dunning prizes as well as the National Book Award nomination and the New York Historical Society award in American prize in American history among other honors dr. wood is a 2011 recipient of the National Humanities medal his latest book friends divided John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was released just yesterday our timing as Dan palazzolo said to me earlier this week is impeccable at the Marshall Center it's already receiving strong praise which some of you may have seen including Alan Taylor's Wall Street Journal review in which he called it a lucid and learned dual biography in a recent contribution of his own dr. wood wrote quote during the first decade of our nation's history the presidential contests of 1796 and 1800 where as clearly and coherently expressive of conservatives BISM and liberalism as any elections since dr. wood reminds us that the partisan campaigns of the time whereas he put it bitter and scurrilous and he argues that Adams and Jefferson the leaders of conservativism and liberalism at the time started as friends grew apart over their differences and then reconciled demonstrating that the most partisan passions could be moderated a lesson as dr. would put it worth remembering today I agree agree enthusiastically please join me in welcoming Gordon s wood [Applause] well thank you for that wonderful introduction I'm pleased to be back here I gave a lecture here I think probably 12 years ago when he was a much smaller auditorium I want to thank Darren of Dowell for the invitation he wrote me a few weeks ago and I'm delighted that he did and I also want to thank Shannon Shannon best the administrator who is a jewel that you must God carefully she is a wonderful person and made my visit here so easy and efficient well this is a story this book of mine is the story of two revolutionaries Adams and Jefferson who died on the same day July 4th 1826 50 years after 1776 the Jubilee celebration of the Declaration of Independence now that was such a marvelous coincidence for a religious minded people that they could only assume Providence was looking after their deaths this coincidence alone I think has linked the two men forever after in our national consciousness but our memory and our celebration of the two Patriots have differed greatly until recently Jefferson has dominated America's historical memory we are continually asking ourselves whether Jefferson still survives or what is still living in the thought of Thomas Jefferson and we quote him on every side of every issue you can think of no figure in our past has embodied so much of our heritage and so many of our hopes most Americans think of Jefferson much as our first professional biographer James Parton did if Jefferson was wrong wrote Parton in 1874 America is wrong if America is right Jefferson was right no one no one says that about John Adams indeed until recently a few Americans paid much attention to Adams and even now the two men command very different degrees of affection and attention as founders while Jefferson has hundreds if not thousands of books devoted through every aspect of his wide-ranging life Adams has had relatively few works written about him with most of these focused on his apparently archaic political theory Jefferson's mountaintop home Monticello has become a world heritage site visited every year by hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world by contrast Adams is modest home in Quincy Massachusetts maintained by the National Park Service is is hard to get to and and receives only a small fraction of the visitors that that go to Monticello Jefferson as many of you know has a huge memorial dedicated to him located on the tidal basin just off the mall in in Washington Adams has no monument in Washington and those who would like to erect one have struggled for nearly two decades without any any success in 1776 no American could have predicted that the reputations of addison Adams and Jefferson would have would have so diverged indeed at the time of Independence Adams was the mountain more by far the more well known of the two no one had contributed more to the movement for independence than Adams and Jefferson admired Adams and when he joined the Continental Congress the Second Continental Congress he was not there at the first when he joined the continent the Congress he admired him and shared his passion for American rights and for American independence those were two they thought alike on the radical step they wanted to take in breaking from the Empire and because of that I think they too became good friends particularly since Jefferson deferred to Adams as the older man he was eight years younger than then Adams during their missions abroad in the 1780s their friendship was enriched and deepened Jefferson was the was a widower alone and we later had his children too two daughters but but he often mingled with the Adams family and they became really close friends he would take John Quincy to to a symphony or to a museum and and he and they they came to think of John Quincy as he came to think or John Adams said later you came to think of my my son as your son so the friendship was enriched but then the French Revolution broke out and partisan politics of the 1790 strained their relationship in 1796 vice president adams succeeded washington as president with jefferson elected as vice president he won only in 1796 by three electoral votes more than Jefferson Adams assumed that he liked Washington would be a real Ekta to a second term in 1800 when after a very bitter bitter campaign in 1800 Jefferson defeated him for the presidency Adams was humiliated and and the break between the the form of friends seemed irreparable he was so angry that he refused to attend the inauguration of Jefferson left at 4:00 on a stage at 4:00 a.m. and he's the only president who only person who's ever done that not attended the his successors inauguration actually I think when you look at the two men it's amazing that they became friends now no doubt the two had a lot in common they were members of the Continental Congress together they both were ministers abroad and both were vice president and president and no doubt they agreed on the rightness of of resisting Great Britain Iran the significance of the American Revolution another thing they had in common was their deep deep hatred of Hal exam to Hamilton that that was a bond that was never broken but despite all that the these two patriot leaders really were very different from one another in fact they were linked they were divided in almost every fundamental way in temperament in their ideas of government in their assumptions of human nature in their notions of society in their attitudes towards religion in their conception of America in fact in every single thing that mattered they were apart they differed they were of course physically very different a virtual mutton Jeff that really dates me I how many people know who mutton Jeff was but you can look it up it's in they made Wikipedia Jefferson was tall perhaps 6-2 or so and lean and gangly he had a reddish freckled complexion bright hazel eyes and reddish blond hair which he tended to wear powdered in a cute he bowed to everyone he met and he usually talked with his arms folded in front of him a kind of sign I think of his reserved his reserved nature by contrast Adams was short five seven or so and stout by my physical Constitution he admitted I am but an ordinary man he had shocked blue eyes and he often covered a covered his thinning light brown hair with a wig william McClay the classic scotch-irish senator from western pennsylvania had few kind words for anyone in his journal but he was especially contemptuous of adams who was vice president of the new federal government and in 1789 and and thus president of the senate and and adams attended the senate in a way that subsequent vice presidents have not and he participated in the debates of the Senate Adams wrote McClay was a childish man with a very silly kind of laugh who was usually wrapped up in the contemplation of his own importance whenever he looked at Adams presiding in his chair with his wig and his small sword McClay said he could not help thinking of a monkey just put into britches there's no doubt that Adams could sometimes appear ridiculous in the eyes of others but that was not true of Jefferson although Jefferson was often hated and ridiculed in print for his public by his political enemies no one think fun of him in quite the way they did Adams Jefferson possessed the dignity that Adams lacked indeed for many Jefferson was the model of an 18th century gentleman he was learning genteel and he possessed perfect self-control and serenity of spirit Adamson's temperament could not have been more different he was high-strung irascible he had no serenity of spirit whatsoever and to his great regret he lacked what he called the gift of silence something possessed by both Washington in his mind in Washington and Jefferson whereas in the Continental Congress Adams was always on his feet arguing debating pushing his colleagues toward independence often sarcastically assaulting them Jefferson really said anything publicly he was far more effective in small groups it was no orator Jefferson hated personal confrontations and valued politeness treating even his enemies with grace and courtesy Jefferson's extreme politeness his sensitivity to the feelings of others and his keen desire not to offend anyone I think was the secret of much of a success in life but since his polite words and his good human behavior two people could never be an accurate expression of his real feelings he was always open to accusations of Duke city and deceit of being two-faced Adams of course was the opposite he was excitable and had little a Jefferson sense of of restraint he was as his physician friend dr. Benjamin Rush described him fearless of men and of the consequences of a bold assertion of opinion in all his speeches he had a sharp sarcastic tongue and he used it often sometimes in the presence of the recipient of his derision in the Congress of in 1777 he even publicly took on what he called the veneration which is paid to General Washington Adams was not taken with politeness and hiding his feelings he was as rush putted a stranger to dissimulation the very characteristic Jefferson was Austin often accused of having Jefferson was reserved intended to use his good manners and relaxed cordiality to keep people at a distance Adams was different familiarity with with acquaintances tended to breed amiability in 1787 his Harvard classmate Jonathan Sewell who had become a loyalist met Adams in London and was reminded of the appeal Adams had had for him back in Massachusetts Adams he told a judge back in in in Massachusetts has a heart formed for friendship and susceptible of its finest feelings he is humane generous and open warm too friendly attachments though perhaps rather implacable to those he thinks his enemies once Adam has felt at ease with someone he could be much more jovial and open than Jefferson more familiar and more revealing of his feelings as Sewell suggested people who got to know Adams got to know him well found him utterly likable his candor and his unvarnished honesty won their hearts but these qualities of forthrightness did not work well in public Adams never quite learned to Taylor's remarks to his audience in the way Jefferson did consequently he lacked Jefferson's suave and expert political skills the two men had even more fundamental differences Jefferson was an aristocrat a Virginia planter a well-connected slave holder a patriotic as he called himself read in a hierarchical slaveholding society he inherited land and slaves from his father and acquired more land and more slaves from his father-in-law by the early 1770s he had become one of the wealthiest planners in Virginia although there was no one in America who knew more about more things than Jefferson and I include Franklin in that it was not his obvious intelligence and learning that catapulted him into membership into the Virginia House of Burgesses his political position flowed naturally as it did for all those slaveholding planters from his wealth and social eminence by contrast Adams was a middling born in a Massachusetts society that as we know us was far more egalitarian than any society in the south Adams had few connections outside of his town of Braintree and his rise was due almost entirely to merit to his intelligence his learning and his hard work as a lawyer by the early 1770s he'd become the busiest lawyer in Massachusetts in the colony and in many eyes he was the most respected for the breadth and depth of his legal and historical knowledge most of his wealth such as it was was acquired from his law practice he became reasonably well off from his legal career but he never became one of the wealthiest members of Massachusetts society something that always rankled him but even more important than these differences were their political differences Jefferson was a radical 18th century style liberal who is as extreme in his views of a popularly as a popularly elected official could be and privately he was a real a log a liberal radical in his attitude it's government especially the federal government he did not resemble of course a modern liberal convinced that people were naturally sociable if only the government did not interfere he believed in the least government possible this was the progressive position at the time she had by Thomas Paine and William Godwin the founder of anarchism as he's been called in other radicals instead of the strong modern and integrated fiscal military state that Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists wanted to to create Jefferson as he said in his inaugural address sought only a wise and frugal government one that kept its citizens from injuring one another but otherwise left them free to regulate their own pursuits of Industry and improvement while at the same time avoiding taking from the mouths of of Labor the bread it is earned in this respect he sounds like a modern conservative in his but you have to understand that that was not the the conservative position it was the liberal or the progressive position at the time Jefferson and Payne if Jefferson had written out his ideas of government they would have been like the rights of man that pain became famous for Jefferson's federal government was charged as he put it charged with the external and mutual relations only of these states all the other governmental responsibilities the principal care of our persons our property and our reputation constituting the great fields of human concerns he said were to be left to the states his government would be the smallest possible one without patronage without bureaucracy without a military establishment and without all the other forms coercive instruments of power in fact the national government he preferred closely resembled the Articles of Confederation that presumably had been laid to waste in the Philadelphia Convention of a 1787 you're living under Jefferson's administration you scarcely knew that there was a federal government except for the delivery of the mail now like most liberals at the time Jefferson had a magnanimous view of human nature he believed literally and I mean this literally in what he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal now in his case only all white men but he believed that literally and that the obvious differences among individuals were due to the effects of the environment the way they were raised and developed through time in other words nurture not nature was all-important to Jefferson and to most other Americas he wasn't saying anything new which is what made the Declaration and it's famous opening paragraphs so appealing consequently like most Americans today especially progressives he put an enormous emphasis on education indeed education became for Americans an obsession and the panacea for all of our problems like other liberals Jefferson was optimistic and confident of the future he was a virtual Pollyanna about almost everything his expectations always outran reality he was the pure American innocent he had little understanding of man's capacity for evil and he had no tragic sense whatsoever that is he had no sense of the limitations of life he had no sense of people being constrained by circumstances over which they had little or no control now this to me is amazing given the fact that he was a slave holder who hated slavery but assumed were claimed that he could do nothing about it Jefferson thought that the educated American electorate would choose as its leaders only natural aristocrats virtuous and talented men like himself he believed that the world was getting better become a freer becoming freer and more democratic and that the New Republic of the United States had a special role a special role to play and fulfilling that future America he said was a chosen treat and the world's best hope it was Jefferson who invented the idea of American exceptionalism despising monarchy he became a true believer in the Republican revolutions that he hoped would spread everywhere in the world his support for the French Revolution was unbounded and was worth as he said all the bloodshed all the lives lost in its name when his Protege who has succeeded him wrote back to him in 1793 mr. Jefferson your aristocratic friends are being guillotine by the thousands Jefferson said well so be it if only in Adam and Eve were left alive in every country but left free he wrote in 1793 it would be better than it is now when corner crews O'Brien the Irish journalist and historian he wrote a book in the South 1990s about Jefferson in the 90s when he read that letter he said Jefferson is the pot Paul of the 18th century referring to the Cambodian leader who killed millions on behalf of the Communist cause a true believer it obviously Jefferson would not have gone gone through the bloodshed of that sort but he rhetorically felt that way that it was worth it that the cause was so so necessary that that he could put up with what the French were doing the French revolutionaries real fear was was doing in the terror obviously the Federalist John Adams was very different he was a conservative perhaps the most conservative president we've ever had Russell Kirk in his influential book the conservative mind considered Adams and I'm quoting here to be the founder of true conservatism in America but Alice was anything but a Ronald Reagan type conservative in a sour and cynical view of human nature he was pessimistic about the future and a severe critic of the Jeffersonian conception of of American Judaism Adam said over and over that Adams that America was no different from other countries Americans were just as vicious just as sinful just as corrupt as other nations there was he said no special Providence for the United States indeed Adams was the ultimate realist committed to what are you often referred to as stubborn facts he challenged every American dream every American myth especially the belief that all men are created equal he believed that we were all born unequal and that education could not do much about the inherent differences among people that's a very unamerican point of view he didn't know much about genes and DNA but he certainly was convinced that nature not nurture was what mattered most he told Jefferson that he had visited a foundlings Hospital in France and had observed babies that were only four days old and he was struck by the great inequalities that he could see among these babies some were ugly others beautiful some were stupid others smart they were all born to equal rights he admitted but two very different fortunes two very different degrees of success and influence in life those are powerful views society said was inherently unequal and unlike Jefferson he believed that the aristocrats who would inevitably rise he had an iron law believing an iron law of oligarchy these aristocrats who inevitably rise to the top in Republican America would not necessarily be the best and wisest men they will more apt to be the richest the most attractive the most ambitious and the wiliest Adams did not disparage big government as Jefferson did but he did fear the unrestrained power of government and perhaps the most profound statement he ever made and surely his greatest contribution to American constitutionalism he declared that power was never to be trusted without a check Adams had little confidence in democracy and the virtue of the American people and consequently he was willing to borrow some of the elements of the English monarchy to offset the populism of American republicanism he was a great admirer of the English Constitution the finest in the world he said since he believed that England was a republic a monarchical Republic he no doubt but still Republic he had difficulty relating his ideas to his fellow Americans most of them simply could not understand most historians can't understand either how what he meant by calling England with a king the Republic Adams thought that sooner or later America's elections I don't know if he'd reached if he'd be impressed by our last one American thought that sooner or later American America's elections would become so partisan and so corrupt they would have to turn to having our office whole to serve for life eventually he said we would have to follow the example of England to make the president and the Senate hereditary I don't know if we reached that point yet now despite these obvious differences between the political opponents these two political opponents however there were bonds of friendship that ultimately made their reconciliation possible in 1812 as Adams is partisan passions faded there early a friendship was painstakingly restored almost entirely through the efforts of dr. Benjamin Rush who knew both of them both of them but knew Adams much better than than Jefferson he admired a Russia admired both men and believed that the nation and posterity required the reconciliation of these two great Patriot leaders he considered Adams and Jefferson as he put it as the north and south poles of the American Revolution some talks some wrote and some fought to promote and establish it but he told Adams you and mr. Jefferson thought for us but as I've suggested the two revolutionaries did not think alike by any means but over the next 14 years Adams and Jefferson exchanged over 150 letters with Adams writing three times as many as as as Jefferson but but Jefferson had a an excuse at one point Adams said - how many letters do you get in a year I forget the exact number was 2000 and something which he felt duty to answer Adams that same year received about 200 we have to understand that Jefferson was an international celebrity he was talking to Humboldt letters to Humboldt letters to the Czar of Russia there was nothing like that in Adams correspondence Jefferson however made the reconciliation work his characteristic courtesies politeness his aversion to any sort of confrontation I think saved it although James Madison Jefferson's close friend as you know could never he never understood what Jefferson saw in Adams Jefferson realized that Adams was a man of what he called rigorous honesty and realistic judgment Jefferson claimed that once one broke through Adams his crusty surface the irascible Yankee was as warm and amiable as a person could be Jefferson tolerated better than anyone but then most anyone Adams is facetious and teasing manner I mean it's the kind of thing that Adams would say to him 1815 Napoleon is defeated Waterloo is over the Bourbons are back in the throne and what does Adams say he couldn't help ribbing Jefferson what do you think of the French Revolution now mr. Jefferson Jefferson colliders always suffered all this razzing in in good humor the two men valued their correspondents too much to endanger it and thus they tended to avoid controversial subjects especially slavery they talked about it briefly in 1819 20 with the Missouri crisis and Adams was once was really sensitive to the issue and he said to mr. Jefferson I'm not a never been a slaveholder I opposed the institution but I'm not going to blast you guys down there I'll leave it up to you planners to see you slaveholders to solve the problem that was the view Adams took of it but in their exchange of letters the two men came to realize I think that they both equally and deeply love their country they had always been polite to one another personally they had never said anything personally I said things in letters to other people about them but never to one another and that civility I think made their reconciliation problem possible they knew that their combination of idealism and realism had helped create the country and that realization was enough I think to sustain the revival of their friendship but Adams always knew he said this several times that it was an unequal relationship even though he wrote three times the number of letters which is which it was a sign of the inequality he always knew that he would never never have the the acclaim from his fellow Americans that Jefferson had and that would he would continue that Jefferson would continue to have an Alice may have been honest and realistic telling us Americans what we needed to know truths about ourselves that that we find difficult if not impossible to bear but however true however correct however in accord with stubborn facts and Adams his ideas and States statements may have been they were incapable I think an are incapable of inspiring and sustaining the United States or any nation for that matter Adams even doubted whether the United States whether America could be a real nation in America we said there was nothing like the patria of the of the dot or a coterie of the Romans the fatherland of the Dutch or the Patri of the French all he saw in America was an appalling an appalling diversity of religious denominations and ethnicities in 1813 he counted at least 19 different religious sects in the country we are such a hodgepodge of people he concluded such an omnium gathering of English Irish German Dutch Swedes French etc that is difficult to give a name to the country characteristic of the people by contrast Jefferson's ideas and statements could and did inspire and nourish the diverse people of the United States despite or perhaps because of his innocence and naive optimism he offered his fellow Americans a set of stirring ideals that has carried us in our country through all of our many ordeals ezekiah Niles who was the most prominent journalist of the early 19th century knew the importance of Jefferson he wanted to help establish a national character for Americans and and despite the victory over Britain in the war of 1812 Niles knew that eliminating the Old English habits of mind was essential to establishing that national character if we were to form a new nation Niles declared in a public appeal to Jefferson that he wrote in 1817 we needed new principles new ideas new ways of thinking we seek a new revolution not less important perhaps in its consequences than that of 1776 a revolution in letters are shaking off of the fetters of the mind to do this he said Niall said we must begin with the establishment of first principles which were best found in the Declaration of Independence thus the declaration said Niles shall be the base of all the rest the common reference to cases of doubt and difficulty now Abraham Lincoln probably never saw Niles appeal of 1817 that he made publicly - Jefferson was written in his in his paper but addressed to Jefferson but he had the same insight that nilesat had when when Lincoln said in 1858 all honor to Jefferson he paid homage to the one founder who he knew who could explain why the breakup of the Union could not be allowed and why so many lives had to be sacrificed to maintain that Union Lincoln knew what the revolution had been about and what it implied not just for Americans but for all humanity because Jefferson had told himself the United States was a new Republican nation in a world of monarchies in the aftermath of the failure of the revolutions of 1848 when he said it's a last best hope he was he was he that was meaningful because republicanism democracy had failed in Europe in 1848 it was a grand experiment in self-government conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal half the American people said Lincoln in 1858 had no direct blood connection to the founders of the nation and he goes on these German Irish French and Scandinavian citizens either had come from Europe themselves or their ancestors had and he said they had settled in America finding themselves our equals in all things although these immigrants may have had no actual connection in blood with a revolutionary generation that could make them feel part of the rest of the nation they had said Lincoln that old Declaration of Independence with its expression of the moral principle of equality to draw upon this moral principle which was applicable said Lincoln to all men in all times men all meant that all these different people's one made all these different peoples one with the founders and then he goes on in an image even today takes your breath away so astounding is it he says as though they were blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that declaration then he shifts in images this emphasis on liberty inequality said was the electric cord that links the hearts of patriotic and Liberty loving men together that will link these patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world now Lincoln of course could never have invoked Adams on behalf of his cause Adams was too crusty too contrary and too cynical to offer any such support for America's nationhood Adams had no answer for the great problem of American diversity how the great variety of individuals in America with all the different ethnicities races religions could be brought together into one nation Jefferson did have did have an answer and as Lincoln grass better than anyone Jefferson offered Americans a set of beliefs that through the generations have supplied a bond that holds together the most diverse nation the world has ever known since now the whole world is here in the United States nothing but Jefferson's ideals can turn such as assortment of different individuals into the one people that the Declaration says we are to be an American of course is not to be someone there's no American ethnicity but to believe in something and that's something is what Jefferson declared that's why we honor Jefferson and not Adams I'll be happy to answer questions if I can yes sir can I ask you about your their respective views of John Marshall Oh Marshall was appointed chief justice by John Adams one of his great accomplishments and Jefferson hated Marshall Jefferson Jefferson became a deep opponent of the Supreme Court as perhaps you know and especially of Marshall he just said Marshall had a skill you don't want to never let him get started on you because he could weave a set of logic that would just leave you stunned he had great respect in that sense from Marshalls legal ability but he deeply hated him and of course Jefferson never accepted the idea that the Supreme Court was the final arbiter of judicial of the Constitution he felt that all parts of the government the executive and the and the Congress could interpret the Constitution as along equally with the with the court Adams was much more traditional and he thought of course he could not have anticipated the court as it's emerged in the 20th century but he certainly thought he and Abigail both thought that the court would be the one to make decisions so they differed dramatically and Adams was very proud of having because he knew Marshall had become important and he was very proud of his having selected him as he was the second Marshall was the Secretary of State and then at the last he was one of the midnight judges one of the lat one of the things that Jefferson really disliked and hated that that Adams did you know there was a long time from the election in November at that time it was March before the new president took over and in January and February Adams is busy filling the judiciary with with he created the the Republican the Federalist created a whole new court system and they had sixteen courts positions to fill including the Chief Justice and Adams did that so when the Republicans came into power they eliminated all of those new judges which of course should have been unconstitutional nobody could have his office taken away from but that was just ignored but they couldn't admit they couldn't eliminate the Chief Justice and so marshal survived at the purge of of Jefferson's radicals thank you for sharing with us today the position that George Washington took on party factions I know the two men highly respected him did they see him as just naive or did they deliberately see that this was a necessary thing to do to establish these that was one question and then also your perspective on do you think that John Adams was really defined in in his career in his life by his defense of the British during the Boston Massacre is that the kind of thing that made in public well the first I think Jefferson of course thought they washing Tain's stood so high in their estimation and in the estimation of the public they dared little to christen Adams did criticize him especially his notion that Washington served as commander in chief without pay that was a tradition of went back to Roman times classical times and he wanted to serve as president without pay and Adams hated that Adams really forced saw professional politicians from the middling sort who would not be able to serve without pay and Franklin as you perhaps know made one of his major proposals that he made in the Constitutional Convention was to suggest that all members of the executive branch from the president went down should serve without salary there was a long pause as Madison writes in the convention and and it was tabled more out of deference to the old man as Madison says then as to the practicality of the of the of the motion Washington was was respected by Adams but Gela he was jealous of it Jefferson thought that he respected Washington he said at one point in 1784 this revolution avoided the bloodshed of all others simply by the by this man but he thought in the 90s that that Washington had become was slowly suffering from dementia that was his the only thing he could explain how he happened to be supporting this crazy man Alexander Hamilton so much otherwise it was just impossible for Jefferson to to explain that how could he how could he favor that Treasury program which was a British program okay he was a monarchist and Hamilton was a monarchist and in Washington was just simply being led along that was their view of Washington the second question I think you had to do with the Boston Massacre now I think that's been misunderstood and certainly was misunderstood by many people at the time and certainly by historians I think McCullough takes Adam says his word because he later says this is one of the most courageous things I ever did it wasn't quite as courageous as that we not we know that not because of Adams he never tells you the inside story but Josiah Quincy was his cold attorney those those two young guys and they're fairly young them were the best attorneys in Massachusetts at the time and they take on the defense of the soldiers this kind of a curious situation Quincy's father who's not in he's not clued as to what's happening writes a letter and this we have evidence for he writes a letter to do his son what happens more or less said what have you done what are you doing chief these are murderers you're defending them he said this is crazy you're gonna hurt yourself it's gonna hurt your career and the son writes back kulit dad I've gotten approval and we've been asked to do this by Sam Adams and the rest of the radical leaders of Boston in other words this was a setup they wanted the best attorneys the radicals including Adams one of the best attorneys they wanted to save the reputation of Boston which they feared this is 1770 its reputation in the Empire sort of like Dallas after the Kennedy assassination you've got a really fosston look like a hotbed of crazy people and they needed some some top attorneys to come in and do exactly what they did got those soldiers off and Adams know about this but he never admitted this he does have the sense two years later they had started a massacre oration immediately seventeen seventy one seventy two seventy three one right up and was replaced only by the fourth of July later on in in Boston and I think it's in seventy four or something they they asked John John Adams to be the the orator and he might status all of this that would be too much if I defended the soldiers and then I give this massacre oration it's just going to be too much and he says no and he and Samuel Adams whoever correspond who asked him to do it said well don't tell anyone we asked you because then that would look bad any rate so that's the story it's not I mean it was courageous because there were people like Quincy's father who took this at face value and we're upset so Adams was taking some risk but neither Quincy's nor Adams his legal practice suffered one bit and they for the next three or four years until he became involved in the revolution Adams was still making lots of money from his legal practice and so was in Quincy so they weren't hurt at all yes sir they didn't get involved they they they were home in Quincy and in Monticello now Adams is not a good politician he's not paying attention to things whereas Jefferson is corresponding and keeping taps I mean he's pitch knows what every state's gonna do he is a he's managing his own campaign but he never campaigns I mean he doesn't go out and never say anything it was a different world you weren't supposed to do that that would have been outrageous but he's well aware what's going on and he's in correspondence with all his managers so to speak he knows what states are going to come through he's worried about New York and New York is the crucial thing of course and burr that's that's he throws the LA he gets the election for Jefferson but they end up because people some of the electors forget that you've got to throw one away and under the old Constitution and they end up tied in the electoral votes and therefore it's gets thrown into the house but they don't ever say anything publicly about either themselves or their or their opponent but their followers particularly the Republicans are really vicious and the Federalists too they're calling Jefferson and atheist and of course the the Sally Hemings business know that that came in 1802 so it's after the election but they they know this they're accusing Jefferson of everything they can and pulling up remarks he made particularly about religion he made some unfortunate statement at least unfortunately for him in in terms of his relationship to a generally religious country you know religion well if a man what does a man have one god of 20 gods it doesn't bother me doesn't break my arm those kinds of statements that he made in the notes in Virginia came back to haunt him and then in the is bill for religious freedom which was passed in 1786 in in Virginia it opens about religious opinions have no more importance to our civic life than our opinions of geometry and chemistry well that's just not true for most Americans back then and probably not today either which is one of our problems but that's how he felt he says they have no input opinions and usually he doesn't even think of religion as a faith it's just opinion you have so those things came back to haunt him and so he made a practice from then on never saying anything publicly about Christianity but privately he called it a hocus-pocus the trinity was a joke and then he does this you know the final thing is to cut up the New Testament to create his own Bible to show that Jesus was a that he was a real Christian because Jesus believed in Jesus tomorrow list so he cuts up every emphasized in every effort son love thy neighbor and this is part of Jefferson's notion of sociability and so it fit perfectly and so he tells his friends I'm a real Christian because I believe in the golden rule but that's that's longwood any answer to your question thank you for your remarks my question is when Jefferson and Adams are reconciled what did Abigail think of that and did she ever have her own reconciliation with Jefferson no that's a good question she in 1804 Jefferson's daughter whom she had brought over or she'd not brought over who she met in London when she came over had died and so he writes a letter of condolence and and expresses her feelings because she had just lost her son of drunkenness the Adams kids did not turn out too well and and Jefferson replies thanking her for her letter and and recalling how how friendly they had been in the 1780s but then he made a terrible mistake he goes on and says look your husband I have never really disagreed about anything except for one thing and one thing bothers me and one thing irritated me it's it's his midnight appointments of those judges [Music] Abigail comes back with a blistering letter defending her husband and attacking Jefferson's and then he tries to answer that and then she comes back with even more anger and she's angry about something else because he had dismissed her son John Quincy from a position actually he didn't even know about it but the position had been wiped out by the Republican Congress and he hadn't know where well you know at this point Jefferson must have wondered what have I gotten myself into and Abigail writes and finally Jefferson just stops and doesn't write it and then when the reconciliation comes in 1812 he says to rush look I'm willing to get back with with with John a mr. Adams they never referred to each other by their first names I mean it's just a different world from our own where we we don't have any last names anymore and and he says look I think I can get back with mr. Adams but it's an impossible to get back with mrs. an absentia and they at one point in the correspondence she writes kind of a PS I just want to extend my you know friendship to you some little sense like that and he writes back and acknowledges that she said this but not to her but to John so it's a frosty he really doubts that this is going to happen because that the reconciliation will happen because of mrs. Adams he feels that she's so testy and so irascible that Rush's is running a fool's errand it'll never happen but it does because Adams himself is wants it terribly he really wants to to be back and he makes the first effort it's interesting because he says I'm sending you some manufactured from our from our state some artifacts my manufactured items from our state well literal-minded jefferson takes you know thinks that there's something he goes on in a long description of manufacturing in virginia and so on and what he's referred what i was referring to is the two volumes of his sons lectures that he had given at Harvard and and Jefferson is very embarrassed when they show up they didn't accompany the letter they showed up a week later and he writes off a quick letter oh I'm so embarrassed that I went on in this long tirade about manufacturing when it was two books you were talking about that Adams love that I mean just he loves the exchanging he you can see that he's enjoying it and there's a kind of reserve always with Jefferson he's he's going along with it but and he puts up with the the razzing and the digs and the jokes but he he doesn't seem to be having so much fun as Adams was so thank you for the wonderful presentation but with the notion that Adams and Jefferson were both these radical Patriots what are your thoughts on Adams passage of the alien Sedition Acts during his presidency well the alien Sedition Acts we're from you know the Federalist it's it's really tainted the Federalist position ever since Abigail is really keen on them Adams later says well I was never too much but that's not true he really accepted it look it was a moment a scary moment in our history I think the scariest moment in our history the only comparable period they were frightened of a French invasion with a fifth column of Republicans who are going to come to the aid of this French invasion Napoleon after all was invading countries all over European and going and setting up puppet republics in Holland Bavarian Republican northern Italy in Germany so why couldn't come why couldn't he come to the United States he's got this fifth column of Republicans Jeffersonian Republicans to support the invasion this is the atmosphere the only comparable period in our history I think is night early 1942 and that's when we rounded up a hundred thousand or more Japanese people of Japanese descent many of whom majority of whom were citizens we rounded up and put them in concentration camps this was signed off by Earl Warren and he was Attorney General I think of California governor of California and by FDR now we later of course in retrospect there was no we feared of Japanese invasion we feared Japanese terror at the time people were scared and so this seemed quite plausible later of course after the war with Henry and we'd give and in under Ronald Reagan's administration we paid paid the survivors off I mean and we're apologetic and we're sorry but that that was the same kind of atmosphere in 1798 it seemed as if the country might have a civil war we came as close to a civil war in 9899 as we ever have except for the actual civil war and so you have to understand the atmosphere to explain the alien Sedition Acts now from the point of view of the feminists they were liberalizing the other area of sedition acts the common law of seditious libel take back up a little because this an important issue in American history and we we've come a long way with Sullivan New York Times versus Sullivan 1964 okay so it's some of you know about which has really flipped everything over in the common law of seditious libel but the English were great faith greatly favored freedom of the press and Americans did too well what did the English mean by freedom of the press we do not like those bad Frenchmen we do not have prior censorship so you can publish anything you want but if you bring a political leader in to disrespect you can be sued for seditious libel and the truth of what you say aggravates the offence there's no defense doesn't excuse you that's the problem what the what the the act did was a liberalisation we said the accusation has to be false so we actually admitted truth in the statute the Federalists admitted truth Jefferson opposed it not on the grounds of opposition to seditious libel but on Federalist grounds he said the Congress had no right to pass such an act when he became president he writes to Attorneys General in several states including Thomas McKean I think in Pennsylvania 1802 or so get after these Federalists newspapers under the common law of seditious libel because it still ran in the state courts I mean this this is not a man who is a true libertarian he was willing to punish Federalist editors under the seditious libel what he opposed now there were other Jeffersonians who really began arguing in modern terms for what we call real freedom of the press you could say anything at all as long as it's true no one went so far as to say it's false that's the the judgment of the New York Times versus Sullivan you can now say false things about a public official and not be sued as long as no malice was intended think about that well that led the court into a new problem how are we going to show malice well now we have to see the the reporters notes you can see the problems the the court made for itself and that's where we had all these questions where we're going to get that we got to get the reporters notes and of course that I'm not giving my notes up and so they go to jail because they've contempt of court well so we've really reversed it completely we're way ahead of England on this now you can say anything you want about public officials even if it's false as long not malicious and intent so you have to prove intent it's a extraordinary said the other issue is who's a public official well it turned out that the Georgia football coach is a public official no you and I are not going to get in problem because we're not public officials but it reaches down to people like the Georgia football coach it's a it's very difficult for anybody in the news to defend themselves against libel in America as much easier in London in England okay thank you [Applause]

Channel: University of Richmond

Views: 1,299

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: jepson, jepsonschool, jepsonschoolofleadershipstudies, marshallcenterlectureseries, gordonwood, gordonswood, johnadams, thomasjefferson, richmond, universityofrichmond

Id: vjb-CigLR7I

Length: 63min 34sec (3814 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2017