For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 13

1801 - 1826

“The worthy President always appeared as the friend, who had lived himself into one with the wife of his bosom.”

--An obituary for John Adams

            Following his defeat for the Presidency, John retired from politics to spend time with his family.  He and Abigail stayed in their home, where they frequently hosted their family and friends.  They kept up with politics and current events, especially because their son, John Quincy, was a diplomat.  John also picked up his pen and resumed his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson in 1812.  They wrote about their present lives and the past service they had both performed for their country.  They had not written to each other in nearly a decade, but with both men out of politics, the friendship resumed and continued to their deaths. 

In October 1818, Abigail fell ill once more.  John wrote to Jefferson, on October 20^th, “The dear Partner of my Life for fifty Years as a Wife and for many Years more as a Lover, now lyes in extremis, forbidden to speak or be spoken to” (Cappon, II. 529).  On Monday, October 26, Abigail spoke for the first time in nearly a month.  She told John that if it was the will of Heaven she was ready to die.  She was only living for John.  After John came down the stairs from the room where Abigail had died, he said, “I wish I could lie down beside her and die too” (qtd. in McCullough 623).  After her death, John was truly heart-broken.  In November he wrote to his son, John Quincy, “The separation cannot be so long as twenty separations heretofore.  The pangs and anguish have not been so great as when you and I embarked for France in 1778” (qtd. in McCullough 624).  John never missed Abigail more than he did after her death.  While she was alive, he always had the correspondence with her, even if he could not be with her, and he always could go back home to Abigail.  John lost his closest companion and the person who supported him through everything.

In another letter, this one to his granddaughter Caroline, John wrote, “She never by word or look discouraged me from running all hazards for the salvation of my country’s liberties; she was willing to share with me, and that her children should share with us both, in all the dangerous consequences we had to hazard” (qtd. in Gelles 172).  John knew that Abigail could have protested at any time about John being away, but she always accepted it, and shared with John in all of his failures and successes.

            After Abigail’s death, John continued to spend time with family and friends, and he continued to write to Thomas Jefferson, with Adams’ letters outnumbering Jefferson’s about four to one.  In 1825, John was able to congratulate his son John Quincy on his election as the sixth President of the United States.  On July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson lay in his bed at his home in Monticello.  He died around one o’clock in the afternoon.  On the same day, around six o’clock in the afternoon, John Adams awakened from his sleep on his deathbed.  Told that it was the Fourth of July, Adams responded, “It is a great day.  It is a good day.”  In his final breath around six-twenty, Adams spoke, unaware that his friend had died hours earlier: “Thomas Jefferson lives” (McCullough 647).  An obituary for the late second President read, “The worthy President always appeared as the friend, who had lived himself into one with the wife of his bosom” (Withey 315).  At the time of his death, people realized Adams’ commitment to both his wife and his country.  Although recent biographies have reminded the current generations about Adams’ service to his country, his love for his wife has often been overlooked.  It is important for people today to understand the complete portrait of this exceptional man.

For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 2

Contemporaries

“Your Country is not yet, quite Secure enough, to excuse your Retreat to the Delights of domestic Life.  Yet, for the Soul of me, when I attend to my own Feelings, I cannot blame you.”

--John Adams to Thomas Jefferson,  May 26, 1777 (Cappon, I. 6)

To better understand the Adamses and their deep commitment to each other and their country, a contrast can be drawn between them and their contemporaries.  Men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, served their country in a political sense during and immediately following the Revolutionary War. *  Though they shared a sense of patriotism equal to John and Abigail Adams, it is impossible to find the same patriotic commitment that the Adamses shared among their contemporaries.  Many of their contemporaries married to consolidate their positions in society, to acquire property or to advance themselves socially (Wood 28).  John and Abigail married out of the love and respect they had for each other.

If any Revolutionary War era couple comes close to John and Abigail Adams, it is the Washingtons.  George Washington married Martha Custis, who was a rich widow.  Martha Washington often followed George Washington during the Revolutionary War, putting herself in danger while doing what she could to help the soldiers (Smith, Presidents 10).  She, however, did not have to spend years at a time away from George as Abigail did from John.  Another difference is that John Adams saw his wife as an equal (as much as a woman could be a man’s equal in that time), speaking and writing to her about politics and other intellectual ideas, among other items.  Martha, on the other hand, did not participate in political or intellectual conversations with George Washington (Smith, Presidents 10).



Another contemporary, Thomas Jefferson, was married to Martha Wayles Skelton, a rich widow in 1772.  When Martha was weak (especially after child birth), Jefferson would leave or decline political duties assigned to him in order to be with his wife.  John Adams never left his posts, even when Abigail or another family member was sick.  John wrote, in 1775, “If I should hear more disagreable Advices from you I shall certainly come home, for I cannot leave you, in such Affliction[. . .]unless there was an absolute Necessity of my staying here, to do a Duty to the Public” (Butterfield, I. 291).  Abigail, their children and Abigail’s mother were all sick, as were many others in town around her.  Abigail’s mother would die; still John would not come home, despite what he wrote.   Jefferson was extremely distraught at his wife’s passing in 1782.  He spent her final months at her bedside, and after she died he spent three weeks in his room and five months further without communicating with anyone (Padover 111).  He, unlike Adams, was willing to forgo public duty for private matters.



Benjamin Franklin married Deborah Read, but it was more of a pragmatic arrangement.  In fact, historian Gordon Wood suggests that the real reason Franklin married Deborah may have been because Franklin had a son from another woman and Deborah would raise him (40).  Franklin spent much of his marriage (fifteen of the last seventeen years) in Europe and was especially fond of the women of Paris, and they of him.  Franklin’s friend in England, William Strahan, even wrote to Deborah to try to persuade her to join Ben in Europe, even going so far as to allude to him possibly being unfaithful (Isaacson 178-179).  Deborah still would not leave America.  Franklin’s letters to Deborah have little intellectual or emotional content, being mostly concerned with business matters at home, while his letters to women friends show much more playfulness, emotion and intellect (Isaacson 180). 

The other leading couples of the time may have been patriotic and committed to each other, but no couple of the time displayed the level of commitment to both family and country as did the Adamses.

---

* Other leading couples of the period, such as James and Dolley Madison and James and Elizabeth Monroe, took part in Revolutionary events, but were not married until after the Revolution had ended.  During the Revolutionary War, James Madison served in the legislature of the state of Virginia (1776-1779).  He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1780 to 1783, as the war was coming to a close.  At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Madison drafted the basis of what was to become the Constitution that the United States has today.  It was not until 1794 that he married Dolley Payne Todd.  James Monroe joined the military as a sixteen year old and saw action as a soldier during the Revolutionary War.  He fought in numerous battles and was seriously wounded at the Battle of Trenton.  In 1780, he studied law under Thomas Jefferson, and from 1782 onward, he served in government positions.  In 1786, three years after the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Revolution, he married Elizabeth Kortright.

For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 1

The following posts are taken from research done for my graduate thesis in 2007.  In this thirteen-part series I used primarily the letters written between John and Abigail to demonstrate how the Adamses reconciled their intense love for each other with the love they had for their country.

“Letter-Writing is, to me, the most agreable Amusement I can find: and Writing  to you the most entertaining and Agreable of all Letter-Writing.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams,  April 12, 1764 (Butterfield, I. 24)

The love that John and Abigail Adams shared was boundless and has since become celebrated, but that love for each other was intricately woven with the love each spouse had for his or her country.  The letters they exchanged with each other in the time that John was away, riding the court circuit in New England, attending meetings of Congress in Philadelphia, on diplomatic missions in Europe, and while he was Vice President and President, provide an insight into the two intense loves that they both maintained throughout their lives. It was never thought that John was abandoning his marriage or family.  Rather, his time away in the service of his country was viewed as a sacrifice that the family had to make.  Their letters reveal the deep and passionate love between John and Abigail as well as the love they had for their country. 

Many writers have depicted John as a man searching for fame and power, but there is more to him than that.  That is John Adams on the surface and in his public life.  Beneath this, however, is someone entirely different.  He was a caring man who deeply loved his wife, his family and his country.  In his day, John was recognized for the love he shared with his wife as well as his love for his country.  Recent scholarship, however, has emphasized only one aspect of John.  This representation does a disservice to John Adams, as the entire individual is not revealed.

Although love is a difficult thing to define, most people know love when they see it.  In reading the letters that John and Abigail wrote to each other as well as ones they wrote to their friends and contemporaries, the intense love they had for each other and for the country come out in unmistakable fashion.  Since love is difficult to measure, a better word to use may be commitment.  In this text, the words will be used interchangeably.  Love does not need to be quantified though in order to see that these two different loves are of equal importance to both John and Abigail.  Their letters bear this out. 

A comparison with some of their contemporaries will help to better understand the unique love shared between John and Abigail and the commitment they had to their country.  No other leading couple of the Revolutionary period carries such a claim.  The Adamses had an acquaintance and courtship of five years before marrying, but the following year the America Colonies would begin their break from Great Britain, and John would be a major player in the action.  Over the next ten years, John would take an ever-growing role in Colonial attempts to reconcile with Great Britain.  His role would take him ever further from his home and from Abigail.  The war began while John was in Philadelphia to debate actions the Colonies could take.  Soon, John was helping to draft a document that would declare the Colonies free of British rule.

The new freedom would take John even further from home than before.  Before 1777, the farthest John had been from his home in Massachusetts was Philadelphia, a few days coach ride from home.  In 1777, John made a voyage to Europe to serve his country there as a representative of the government, and was to see home only once in the next 10 years.  He and Abigail would see each other for only about three months over the seven years between 1777 and 1784, before Abigail would spend four years with John in Europe.  They arrived home in 1788, but less than a year later, John was elected the first Vice President of the United States under the newly approved Constitution.  After serving eight years in that capacity, John was elected second President of the United States.  Abigail spent some of those years traveling with John, but other years she would simply stay home to conserve money or because she was ill.  In 1801, John found out he had been defeated by his old friend Thomas Jefferson* for the Presidency of the United States.  He traveled home to Abigail, where they enjoyed the next 17 years together and with family until Abigail’s death in 1818.  John lived until 1826, never forgetting the one he loved or all he had done for his country.

---

* John Adams and Thomas Jefferson met at the Continental Congress and were good friends through the war, with the Adamses even watching Jefferson’s daughter for some time in Europe.  When John became Vice President, his view of the Constitution was different Jefferson’s view.  It is from this time that the Adams-Jefferson rivalry begins.  It continued as Adams defeated Jefferson by a margin of three electoral votes to become the second President of the United States.  Four years later, Jefferson defeated Adams.  Jefferson was upset at some last minute judiciary appointments that John Adams (legally) made before leaving office, further fanning the flames.   John left the city of Washington in the early morning hours on Jefferson’s inauguration day.  After Jefferson served two terms as President, he retired to Monticello.  A mutual friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, attempted to mend the friendship sometime around 1809.  With both men out of public life, their correspondence renewed and their friendship grew again.