History with David Rubenstein

(theme music playing) RUBENSTEIN: Hello, I'm David Rubenstein.

I'm gonna be joined in conversation today with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky who is a presidential historian and also a senior fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.

Uh, she is the author most recently of "Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic."

We're coming to you from the New York Historical Society and the Robert H. Smith Auditorium.

Okay, so, um, what do you think that most people should know about John Adams if you were talking to a, uh, 10th grader or somebody in college and you were to say, "I just want you to know A, B, or C about John Adams?"

What's the most important thing that people should know about John Adams?

CHERVINSKY: Well, I think reason A or thing A is that he was, um, incredibly accessible for 21st-century audiences.

He was funny.

He was self-deprecating.

He was incredibly aware of his own flaws, and he made fun of them.

Thing B, he cared deeply about establishing the precedence that would continue the presidency for those that followed him.

And he was very intentional about trying to create the norms and customs that would uphold that institution after he was gone.

And thing C was he was far more politically savvy than we typically give him credit for.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, John Adams had a incredibly close relationship with his wife, Abigail Adams and there are over 1,100 letters extant between them.

So I assume you've read most of them or a lot of them.

What did you take away from that, and tell us about the most famous letter in which she writes to him, "Make sure you take care of the ladies during the time of the Second Continental Congress."

And he kind of, uh, ignored it more or less.

That's what he did.

(audience laughing).

CHERVINSKY: He did.

And then the next line is, I think, perhaps even more interesting because she says, "Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could."

(audience laughing).

CHERVINSKY: I think that, um, what I...

The first thing that I took away from reading the letters is that, that is an extraordinary letter, but actually is quite ordinary in their correspondence because she was such an incredible political thinker.

She was so savvy, and she could cut through all the BS that sometimes comes up in politics, and so many people respected her input and respected her knowledge and would go to her for advice not least of which was her husband.

She was his most important adviser, the first person he went to for everything.

And she, more often than not, was right.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, your book deals with his presidency, we're gonna get to that in a moment.

But, just to set the stage, um, he was the leader of the Second Continental Congress who was pushing, uh, for a resolution that would say we, we need to break away from England.

And it was he who thought, we should have a document that might describe why we're breaking away.

And he, uh, asked a young man, 33 years old at the time, Thomas Jefferson, to write this, uh, document.

Why did he pick Jefferson?

And why...

Were they close friends at one point?

And why did they become bitter enemies for much of their lives later?

CHERVINSKY: Well, he picked Jefferson for a couple of reasons.

First, as you said, he had really been a leader in Congress.

But his style of leadership didn't necessarily endear people to him all of the time.

Uh, he tended to bully them.

He tended to nag them.

He knew that he wasn't necessarily the most popular person.

He also knew that it would be really helpful if the document was written by a Virginian because it needed to be a national movement for independence.

It couldn't just be a Massachusetts movement.

And so that was really, I think, his main motivation.

Plus, Jefferson was a brilliant writer, and he knew it.

RUBENSTEIN: But Adams is upset that he thinks the document isn't as important as the resolution to pull away from England.

So was that a part of their, their feuding later on that Jefferson, uh, was getting all the credit for the Declaration, and Adams thought he deserved more credit for the real action to break away from England?

Is that the nub of the, the, the dispute they had?

CHERVINSKY: Well, I don't know if it was necessarily the reason that they started to not get along.

I think the real break in their friendship occurred when they both came back from England.

And they both felt that the other had taken the wrong messages from their time abroad.

Adams felt that Jefferson was too pro-French, had turned a blind eye to the dangers of the French Revolution and violence.

And Jefferson felt that Adams had become a little bit too fond of monarchies.

And so when they came back, they really diverged in their domestic politics.

And in the 1796 and 1800 elections, they were competitors.

And while they didn't necessarily say bad things about one another, their supporters did.

And these elections were vicious.

And that was really, I think, what broke the relationship.

And then later, when they did actually come back together and became friends in retirement, they did argue about these things.

They argued about who deserved credit and who was right and wrong.

And, uh, I'm not sure either ever really admitted that the other one won.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

So let's go to the time when the hero of the war is somebody that Adams selected to be the, the general, uh, for the war.

That's George Washington.

Adams deserves the credit for selecting or recommending Washington, is that fair?

CHERVINSKY: Yeah.

He, he really does.

This was another moment where he understood that it was really important, of course, to have an American be the head of the American Army.

But it would be really helpful to have a Virginian.

It was the biggest state.

It was the wealthiest state.

And you wanted to have a unified effort.

And, of course, the war had started in Massachusetts.

And so if you could bring someone from the south, then you would tie the nation together.

RUBENSTEIN: At that time, Adams is very famous because he's leading the effort.

Washington is much less famous.

Um, but then later, Washington becomes a God, more or less, when the war is won.

And then Washington is elected president unanimously twice.

How did it happen that Adams became his vice president?

Why was he the second most popular person in the United States, or why did he become vice president?

CHERVINSKY: So he certainly was very well known.

Um, experience and national stature was really important at the time because the electors had to know who you were, had to know the name.

And we didn't...

There wasn't television to promote people.

But the other important factor, which is still in our constitution today, is that you cannot have a president and a vice president from the same state.

So you cannot have two Virginians or two Floridians or two Massachusetts, whatever, Massachusettsites.

(audience laughing).. CHERVINSKY: Uh, you cannot have two of them.

Um, and so it was really important if you were gonna have a Virginian for the president to have some sort of geographic balance.

And so a northerner was sol... was sort of their, their rightful and natural choice.

And John Adams was probably the most famous of the northerners.

RUBENSTEIN: All right.

So, can you explain how, the way people voted then?

You had to vote for two people.

And whoever got the most votes they became president, the second most vice president?

CHERVINSKY: That's right.

So at the time, this, this has since been amended, uh, the, the Constitution has been amended to sort of separate the ballots for the vice president and the president.

But at the time, each elector casts two votes.

So again, one had to be from out of your state.

And so whoever had the second most votes came, came in second and became the vice president.

And in 1788, when Washington was first elected and in 1792 when he was elected again, that wasn't too complicated because no one was really running against him.

There were just a bunch of other names that were thrown in.

And John Adams did have a pretty good margin of victory, but it was nowhere near as unanimous as George Washington.

But that became much more complicated when you had two different factions and then two different parties running against each other because they were putting up two candidates.

But all were getting votes in the same pool.

RUBENSTEIN: At the beginning of Washington's presidency, one of the issues was what do you call him.

CHERVINSKY: Mm-hmm.

RUBENSTEIN: And, uh, there were different suggestions.

But Adams had one that in the view of Washington made Adams look silly.

What was the suggestion?

CHERVINSKY: I think it is, uh, His Highness and Elected Protector of Our Liberties. (audience laughing).

RUBENSTEIN: And, and Washington decided Mr.

President was better?

CHERVINSKY: Well, Washington again played no overt role.

So he wanted something a little bit more discreet, a little bit more simple, and he had a private conversation with James Madison who was in the House of Representatives at the time, kind of acting as his prime minister, and Madison was really pushing for the Mr. President title.

Now, in fairness to John Adams, he had just spent the last almost decade in places like Versailles and the Court of St James's.

And he was worried that when diplomats came to visit the United States, they would think, "What is this Podunk Backwater nothing?"

And so he thought a fancier title might instill a little bit of respect and dignity in this new office.

RUBENSTEIN: All right.

So Washington, uh, can serve as long as he wants.

He, actually after a year or two, he was ready to leave.

But he serves through the first term does a second term.

And then he finally says, "I'm done."

And then, does Adams say, "Well, I'm qualified.

I served eight years as vice president.

I guess I'm the most qualified person, and being qualified for president is the most important thing to be President of United States?"

(audience laughing).

CHERVINSKY: Well, he certainly thought that.

Um, so 18th-century election norms required that the candidates appear disinterested in serving.

It required that they not participate in any overt way, and so their supporters would campaign on their behalf, and then if they were called to the office by the American people, then they were required to give their service.

But Adams certainly did believe that he was the most qualified person for the office.

RUBENSTEIN: And Adams came in first, and the person who came in with the second most votes was Thomas Jefferson.

CHERVINSKY: Yes.

RUBENSTEIN: But the problem was that they were, at that point, different political parties.

One is, uh, the Federalist Party... Adams, and one is the Republican Party, um, Jefferson.

So this is the only time in history where you had a president and a vice president two different political parties.

CHERVINSKY: Yes.

RUBENSTEIN: Did that... How'd that work out?

CHERVINSKY: Not very well.

RUBENSTEIN: Oh.

(audience laughing).

CHERVINSKY: Um, so initially, John Adams actually had really high hopes that he and Jefferson were gonna be able to work together.

They had been friends.

They both had a lot of respect for one another.

And they initially did sort of talk about ways that they might be able to collaborate.

That quickly sort of turned sour partly because of the threat of war with France which Jefferson was really fond of France and didn't really take seriously, but also because Jefferson was very quick to sort of turn on Adams and, and think the worst of him, and then really tiptoed up to the line of treason while he was vice president.

He was meeting with the French ministers and telling them, "It's fine.

Just wait four more years.

I'll be in office.

You can ignore Adams.

You can ignore his foreign policy," um, so really not great vice-presidential behavior.

RUBENSTEIN: For most of the presidency of John Adams, it seems as if he was worried about invasion from France.

Why were they so obsessed with a French invasion?

And why did he call upon Washington to help protect the country against the French invasion?

CHERVINSKY: So the conflict with France had begun at the very end of Washington's administration.

Uh, the United States had signed a treaty with Great Britain called the Jay Treaty.

And France was really annoyed by this treaty and started sending its privateers, which were sort of like official pirates to go attack American ships.

And this was very insulting because merchants were losing all of their goods.

They were losing their ships.

They were losing their, their crew to, to, basically this impressment.

And so Adams sent a series of diplomats to try and come up with a peaceful resolution to this conflict.

And in 1798, three diplomats were in Paris.

And they were treated abysmally.

They were really insulted.

They were, um, basically asked to give bribes in order to have any form of communication.

They were asked to apologize for presidential behavior.

And then they were eventually kicked out of the country.

And it was under the international law of nations at the time, one tiny step short of war.

And so at that point, they really thought that France was going to declare war on them at any moment and had no military to speak of, and so really were obsessed with trying to prepare for that.

They didn't wanna be caught off guard.

And Adams had the good sense to know that any project in which Washington was involved in tended to go better because his name had so much symbolic value.

And Adams also had no military experience himself.

And so he wanted Washington to be the head of this new army that they were building, so that it would be successful.

RUBENSTEIN: So Washington agrees to do this.

He's gonna head up an army to defend the United States if France invades.

But it turns out to be much to do about nothing because the French didn't invade.

CHERVINSKY: Well, initially, it was much ado about a lot of things because there was a lot of battles over executive power and does the president have control over the military or does the military have control over the military.

But you're right, that in the long run, it ended up not being as big of a deal because they were able to come up with a diplomatic solution.

And the army was eventually disbanded at Adams's urging.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, Adams had an obsession with the Navy.

Why was he so obsessed with the Navy?

CHERVINSKY: Well, there were two reasons.

So the first, Americans were doing a very robust trade across the globe.

They were everywhere that ships could get to.

So they were really, um, helpless in the face of piracy or in the face of attacks from foreign nations and, instead, had to rely on the goodwill of the British Navy to sometimes protect them.

And that's not really a good choice for an independent sovereign nation to be so dependent on another.

The second reason was if there was going to be an invasion, they were going to probably have to cross the ocean first.

And so it would be really helpful to have a first line of defense in the ocean to protect the shores, um, and to protect the American people.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Adams, um, at the beginning of his administration keeps the entire cabinet that Washington had.

CHERVINSKY: Mm-hmm.

RUBENSTEIN: Why did he keep the Washington cabinet, not just pick his own people?

CHERVINSKY: So there were a couple reasons.

The first is there was no precedent for this.

He had no... Um, he had no people to follow.

He had no sense of what he should be doing.

And so there was no previous president that said, "You know, you really wanna get rid of these people and get your own."

The second was this was a very tumultuous time for the American people.

They had never been through a transition before.

And even though Washington and Adams were from the same party, it was still very scary because it had never been done, and most people weren't sure if the presidency or if the nation would even work without Washington at the helm.

RUBENSTEIN: So George Washington dies during the presidency of, uh, John Adams.

And how did they, uh, commemorate that?

CHERVINSKY: Well, the entire country spent about a year mourning Washington.

They had a number of services.

They had...

There were over 300 mock funerals up and down the coast of the country where they would have whole funeral.

They had an empty casket.

They had a portrait.

The horse would pull the casket.

They would bury it.

It was a process for people to be able to mourn publicly.

Congress had a number of, uh, services and commemorations.

They voted to start the Washington Monument.

Um, they instructed people to wear the official armband of mourning.

So it was really a very lengthy process by design.

And initially, Adams was, you know, very involved in all of the mourning.

He said all the right things.

He sent messages to the Army and to Congress mourning with them.

After about six months, I think he started to get a little tired of the mourning.

(audience laughing).

Um, and, and he and Abigail both commented that, "Is this really how we should treat citizens in a Republic," because Washington was just that.

He was a citizen.

He was no longer president.

And even kings don't have yearlong mourning ceremonies.

And maybe it's not quite fitting.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so, John Adams, um, he's gonna run again just like Washington had two terms.

There was no unofficial or official limit to it.

But, um, who is he competing with, against in 1800?

CHERVINSKY: So once again, he is running against Thomas Jefferson.

Once again, the parties select their candidates.

They don't really declare a candidacy or an intent.

Now, Jefferson was a little bit more involved in his campaigning this time although discreetly.

Adams was too.

He had been president.

So on his way to and from Washington DC, he would stop and give talks to the local communities, not technically campaign talks, more of just greeting them.

But there was definitely an element of trying to build some support.

And this campaign was absolutely vicious.

You know, we think we have bad politics today, and, and we do.

But in 1800, they, the Federalists said that Jefferson was gonna come and steal everyone's Bibles.

So you had to bury your Bibles in the backyard.

(audience laughing).

Uh, the Republicans accused Adams of sending Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, his sort of unofficial running mate, to England to bring back two mistresses for them each, uh, to which John Adams said, "Where are my two?

I didn't get anybody."

(audience laughing).

Um, so it was, it was a really vicious campaign.

RUBENSTEIN: Well, the election is held.

And then, uh, a surprising result, the President of the United States does not get the most number of the... highest number of votes.

CHERVINSKY: That's correct.

RUBENSTEIN: The highest number of votes goes to Jefferson?

CHERVINSKY: So it's a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

So again, you know, I said there were... that each elector cast two votes.

So all of the Republican electors cast the same number of votes for Jefferson and for Aaron Burr.

And so there was a tie.

And it was thrown to the House of Representatives just like it would be today if we had a tie.

And under the con...

The terms of the Constitution, what that means is each state delegation in the house gets one vote, so not each member, each state.

And you have to have a certain number of states in order to win.

And neither candidate hadn't had enough states in order to cross that threshold.

So then that started a period of balloting, of trying to figure out who was going to get over the line in order to become the next president.

RUBENSTEIN: How many ballots did they ultimately do?

CHERVINSKY: 36.

RUBENSTEIN: On the 36th ballot, uh, Jefferson wins narrowly over Burr.

CHERVINSKY: Yes.

RUBENSTEIN: So what does...

Does Adams have a view on whether he wants Burr or Jefferson, or he doesn't get in the middle of it?

CHERVINSKY: So Adams very intentionally stays out of it.

He does invite Jefferson to the White House twice for dinner.

They meet privately with Abigail, which must have been a very uncomfortable dinner because their supporters had been spewing horrible things against one another, um, for the last several months.

But they did...

They had him to dinner.

They said that they believed that he was the rightful winner.

He was the choice of the will of the people.

And they expressed faith that the House would eventually get to that outcome.

But Adams looked carefully at the Constitution.

And he felt that he didn't really have a role.

He certainly didn't have a vote in the House.

He couldn't call up the Army because he frankly didn't trust the Federalists in the Army to handle it well.

There was a lot of rumors about political violence and scheming behind the scenes.

And so he decided the most important thing to do was to hold firm and to show restraint, and, um, he did his best to line up a peaceful transfer once a decision was made.

RUBENSTEIN: So ultimately, Jefferson is elected president, and the decision is accepted.

There's no violence in the streets or anything.

Is there... No?

CHERVINSKY: No, no.

Although it is, it is a close call.

So this, part of the story often gets lost.

But as Congress was coming together to officially open the votes and see that there was a tie, there was a mob outside of Congress that was threatening to kill anyone who tried to seize the presidency or voted for someone who was not Jefferson, and Albert Gallatin who was in the House at the time later said that some of his Republican colleagues snuck out the side door to join the mob.

And then because Federalists were threatening some sort of illegal cahoots behind the scenes, the Virginia and the Pennsylvania governors had their militias waiting on the state borders just in case they needed to interfere.

So there was not violence, but it was very, very close.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay.

What did Adams do after he lost the election until he left office in March?

CHERVINSKY: Well, the votes weren't certified until February 11th.

And then, it took them 36 ballots over several days.

So Jefferson actually ended up only having a transition of about two weeks to write his inaugural address, pick his cabinet and figure out how he was going to staff the White House.

And Adams was instrumental in helping him.

He instructed his cabinet secretaries to provide assistance to make sure that any foreign policy decisions that were made Jefferson was okay with.

He sent his chief steward who was sort of like the chief usher today to, to Jefferson to meet with him, to let him know what was in the White House, what would be available to him.

And, um, Jefferson came and met with Abigail to learn about various staff that he might be able to hire.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so, um, John Adams, um, you know, has helped Jefferson get ready.

Does he go to the inauguration?

CHERVINSKY: He does not.

So... RUBENSTEIN: President didn't go to his successor's inauguration?

CHERVINSKY: He did not.

But it's very important to explain why.

So, so first of all, so the first time that a president who lost went to his successor's inauguration was, I believe, in 1845.

So we tend to think that this was a tradition we always had.

And it was actually a relatively late development.

Now, there is no doubt that John Adams was bitter about losing.

He was annoyed.

He felt that he wasn't appreciated.

He felt that he had done all these extraordinary things, which I think he had, um, and the American people hadn't appreciated them.

His son had also just died.

Uh, he had really suffered from alcoholism, and John Adams said it was the, um, most heartbreaking thing that had ever occurred to him.

So he was in a very dark place.

Second thought, he also had just experienced this transition that was almost violent.

The country had never gone through a transfer from one party to the other.

He didn't know how it was going to go.

He hadn't been invited.

Jefferson didn't say he wanted him there.

And I believe that he was genuinely worried that his presence might be a distraction, might make it a little bit of a circus.

And he didn't want anything to take away from the new president coming into power.

RUBENSTEIN: What does he do for the remaining, uh, years of his life?

Does he write his memoirs?

Does he do speaking circuit, um, TV shows?

What, what does he do?

(audience laughing).

CHERVINSKY: Uh, he...

So he does a lot of things.

So first, he was a devoted farmer.

He loved his land.

And, in fact, most of his diary entries for most of his life have his farming activities during the day, and then whatever, like, Greek he was reading at night.

So he would be... You know, he has this whole entry about the worms he's battling in his cornfield.

And then he's reading Cicero that night.

He wrote a series of what was... were called the Boston Patriot letters which were mostly in defense of him and attacking Alexander Hamilton, if I'm being honest.

Um, and then he spent a lot of time with his family, and he read a lot.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, he is not in relationship anymore with Thomas Jefferson, the President of the United States.

But Jefferson after eight years goes back to Monticello.

And then these friends of many, many years, they have no contact with each other.

How did they actually get back in contact?

And, and how many letters did they write to each other when they got back into contact?

CHERVINSKY: So the way that they got back into contact was the efforts of Benjamin Rush who was, uh, beloved friend of both of them.

And he worked on them for years trying to bring them back together, reminding them what they liked about the other person, reminding them what they valued about the other person, and how close they had been.

And finally, Rush was able to get through to John, and John sent a letter to Jefferson.

And that started the correspondence.

RUBENSTEIN: So, ultimately, um, at the end of their lives, uh, are they reasonable friends or reasonable acquaintances, or they've forgiven each other for their, their past, uh, attacks at each other, or, or what?

CHERVINSKY: Yeah.

I think so.

I mean, um, the way that we know that they were pretty good friends is Adams actually, at one point, brought up slavery to Thomas Jefferson and, and mentioned it and talked about it.

And almost no one was willing to bring up slavery to Jefferson because he didn't allow that conversation.

But they talked about deep things.

They talked about grief.

They talked about love.

They talked about family.

And when Abigail died because she died before John did, um, Jefferson wrote the most exquisite letter to, to Adams expressing his sorrow and understanding of what that type of grief felt like.

RUBENSTEIN: To conclude, um, why should Americans, uh, thank John Adams for what he did?

What, what did he do that I should be so happy about and thank him?

CHERVINSKY: George Washington created the presidency.

But he was such a unique figure that the institution was not going to survive without someone coming after him, who was very thoughtful and intentional about making sure that the institution was supported by the norms and customs and pre-precedents that are so important to democratic institutions, most importantly, being the peaceful transfer of power.

And I think as Americans, we sometimes take those things for granted because the nation has survived, and we've been relatively lucky.

But John Adams did not take it for granted.

And for that, I think we owe him thanks.

RUBENSTEIN: I wanna thank you for a very interesting conversation about John Adams.

CHERVINSKY: Thank you.

RUBENSTEIN: Thank you.

(audience applause) (music plays through credits)