Posted on 07/02/2011 6:59:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
When President Obama ponders tough decisions at the White House, he may join the cadre of presidents who have sought inspiration in the Truman Balcony’s stunning vista, gazing at the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial, which commemorate our first and third commanders in chief. But there’s a man missing from this presidential panorama.
Where is John Adams, our feisty second president and lifelong American patriot? If George Washington was the sword of the revolution and Thomas Jefferson the pen, why have we neglected the voice of our nation’s independence?
Adams himself predicted this omission. “Monuments will never be erected to me . Romances will never be written, nor flattering orations spoken, to transmit me to posterity in brilliant colors,” he wrote in 1819, nearly two decades after his single term in office. At his farm in Quincy, Mass., Adams worried that he would be forgotten by history, and for good reason: The temperamental Yankee could never outshine Washington and Jefferson, Virginia’s two-term presidential all-stars — one a brilliant general unanimously chosen to lead the nation, the other the eloquent author of the Declaration of Independence.
SNIP
What’s the case for Adams? Before the revolution, he was the nation’s first attendant to the American legal tradition of due process, defending British soldiers who fired on colonists during the Boston Massacre. One of Massachusetts’s representatives to the First and Second Continental Congresses, Adams was a champion of separation from England and the fiercest advocate of Jefferson’s declaration. Without his persuasive speeches in the Philadelphia chamber, the document wouldn’t have been signed. While Jefferson was silent during what he considered the convention’s editorial debasement of his work, Adams defended every clause, including an excised call for the abolition of slavery. Jefferson called Adams “a colossus on the floor” of the Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Teddy was put on Mt Rushmore to remind people of who was president when the statues were put there—Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
And Teddy was a Progressive, back before people realized that that pernicious doctrine used lies to justify theft, and then trends toward torture and murder.
the mini-series was awful. I could have done without seeing john and abigail go at it.
I suppose you mean he has several million descendants.
Woody Allan said “90% of life is showing up.” I suppose his descendants have shown up.
His progeny have been incredibly prolific. It's interesting that Bill Clinton knows his descent from Adams, but few genealogists have found out much about the "other lines", particularly the Church of the First Born part ~ but we know them well. Someday I suppose we'll pass some of that stuff around.
But I'll tell you, if you only have one famous ancestor, John Adams is someone to be proud of.
When people criticize Adams for the Alien & Sedition Acts, they do not realize what the country was up against. There was a world war going on between Britain and revolutionary fascist France. There were fools in America who were willing to be tools of the French.
Adams was a patriot and one of the greatest of the Founders. Although Jefferson had allowed his supporters to slander Adams, in their old age, the two great men became friends.
Honestly, I would consider the HBO miniseries one hell of a memorial, not only of Adams, but of all the Founding Fathers.
Film may not be marble, but it can last just as long and have a far greater impact on future generations.
Everything was Washington.....Every state, every town has a Washington Street or a monument or a school....I read anh article circa 1850...IMOW....”Enough with Washinton”
the mini-series was awful. I could have done without seeing john and abigail go at it.
the miniseries was crap. it was intended for idiots that didn't already know the history of his administration. it was on a par as "the tudors", without the softcore porn.
He tried, which led to the Marbury v. Madison case that led to an all powerful Supreme Court.
We’ve had two centuries to fix the problem.
These words are enough of a memorial:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
My question; why do we need any memorials? Rather than people staring at a stone slab, it’d better if more people would read a book and actually learn something.
He hasn’t been forgiven for the Alien and Sedition Acts yet.
Of course they would all be horrified, even Adams who, of course, couldn’t imagine the destructive force of limiting individual freedom. The French Revolution wasn’t horrible at that point. It followed the same path that our Revolution did. We were very lucky to have the right people, culture and fortune to succeed. The French weren’t as fortunate...ditto the Russian Revolution a century later. Jefferson and Madison of course erred, but at least they worked to retain the original vision of individual freedom.
In the end most of his relatives emigrated to the same place in New York, but his surviving Old Guard moved to Gallipolis and environs in what is now Southern Ohio.
I place the failure of the French Revolution in the laps of the Revolutionaries themselves, not Napoleon. He was just the first of a series of erstwhile American allies who ruled unruly and very dangerous nations through dictatorship.
Although we usually think of the USA having bought Louisiana from Napoleon, the deal was carefully monitored by Spanish investors who had quite a bit tied up in coastal Louisiana and facilities along the Mississippi River.
They weren't simply betrayed by Napoleon and in the end did well by the deal except that they didn't like the way the lines were drawn.
...and have failed miserably.
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