Preface to the Second Edition
W HEN I FIRST BEGAN TO WORK in earnest on John Adams over a decade ago, I recall feeling the kind of deep satisfaction one usually associates with a skin diver discovering gold coins in a remote lagoon. The Adams correspondence is a true treasure chest, and though I was hardly the first historian to discover its rich contents, very few ordinary American citizens knew much about Adams. And so when the first edition of Passionate Sage appeared in 1993, I felt the irresistible urge to spread the word hither and yon that Adams was perhaps the most misunderstood and unappreciated great man in American history.
As I tried to explain in the last chapter, Adams was already making a comeback within the scholarly world, primarily because the ongoing publication of the modern edition of his papers had won him the respect and admiration of several scholarly specialists in the field. But I wanted to carry the Adams message beyond the specialist and toward a larger audience of readers. While in some quarters of the historical profession it might be considered unbecoming and even slightly embarrassing, I wanted to introduce Adams to the public at large. In my most exuberant moments, I actually envisioned a groundswell of popular support for the construction of an Adams Memorial on the Mall or Tidal Basin in the nationâs capital.
Well, that has yet to happen. Adamsâs latter-day lamentationâthat he did not expect mausoleums or monuments erected in his honorâremains an accurate prophecy. Nevertheless, the Adams comeback continues. And thanks in some small way to the critical and commercial success of Passionate Sage , the gap between the scholarly and public appreciation of Adams and his legacy has been bridged, if not completely closed. Even as I write, David McCullough is composing the final chapters of a major new book on Adams that is surely destined to bring the Sage of Quincy to life for a huge readership, further closing the gap.
This new edition of Passionate Sage affords me the opportunity to suggest, from this more retrospective perch, three reasons why Adamsâs reputation is enjoying a modern-day revival. First, in an era of apparently never-ending political scandals and ever-spreading cynicism toward elected officials at the national level, Adams stands out as a statesman of unquestioned character who truly did prefer being right to being president. Second, at a time when the proper role of government in managing our domestic policy has become the salient issue in American politics, Adamsâs insistence that government does have an essential role to play, that government is âusâ rather than âthem,â permits modern-day liberals to recognize a kindred spirit in the founding era. To put it more sharply, the Adams version of Americaâs original intentions translates more sensibly and smoothly into our contemporary political debates than does the antigovernment ethos of Thomas Jefferson. Third, and finally, unlike all the other vanguard members of the revolutionary generation, Adams left a record of his most intimate thoughts and feelings. He was incapable of posing for posterity, or like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or George Washington, constructing a mythical, statuelike image designed to suggest sacred or divine inspiration. He was the most self-revealed, instinctively candid, gloriously fallible, wholly honest member of that remarkable âband of brothersâ whom we are otherwise disposed to capitalize as Founding Fathers. In that sense, he is the clearest and fullest window through which to view the ambitions that drove them all. In effect, though he belongs on Mount Rushmore, we would need to devise a way to replace the granite with flesh and blood.
Amherst, Massachusetts
August 2000
Illustrations
John Adams in 1801 frontispiece
Abigail Adams (1801), at the time of John Adamsâs retirement 35
Peacefield, or Montezillo, the
W HEN I FIRST BEGAN TO WORK in earnest on John Adams over a decade ago, I recall feeling the kind of deep satisfaction one usually associates with a skin diver discovering gold coins in a remote lagoon. The Adams correspondence is a true treasure chest, and though I was hardly the first historian to discover its rich contents, very few ordinary American citizens knew much about Adams. And so when the first edition of Passionate Sage appeared in 1993, I felt the irresistible urge to spread the word hither and yon that Adams was perhaps the most misunderstood and unappreciated great man in American history.
As I tried to explain in the last chapter, Adams was already making a comeback within the scholarly world, primarily because the ongoing publication of the modern edition of his papers had won him the respect and admiration of several scholarly specialists in the field. But I wanted to carry the Adams message beyond the specialist and toward a larger audience of readers. While in some quarters of the historical profession it might be considered unbecoming and even slightly embarrassing, I wanted to introduce Adams to the public at large. In my most exuberant moments, I actually envisioned a groundswell of popular support for the construction of an Adams Memorial on the Mall or Tidal Basin in the nationâs capital.
Well, that has yet to happen. Adamsâs latter-day lamentationâthat he did not expect mausoleums or monuments erected in his honorâremains an accurate prophecy. Nevertheless, the Adams comeback continues. And thanks in some small way to the critical and commercial success of Passionate Sage , the gap between the scholarly and public appreciation of Adams and his legacy has been bridged, if not completely closed. Even as I write, David McCullough is composing the final chapters of a major new book on Adams that is surely destined to bring the Sage of Quincy to life for a huge readership, further closing the gap.
This new edition of Passionate Sage affords me the opportunity to suggest, from this more retrospective perch, three reasons why Adamsâs reputation is enjoying a modern-day revival. First, in an era of apparently never-ending political scandals and ever-spreading cynicism toward elected officials at the national level, Adams stands out as a statesman of unquestioned character who truly did prefer being right to being president. Second, at a time when the proper role of government in managing our domestic policy has become the salient issue in American politics, Adamsâs insistence that government does have an essential role to play, that government is âusâ rather than âthem,â permits modern-day liberals to recognize a kindred spirit in the founding era. To put it more sharply, the Adams version of Americaâs original intentions translates more sensibly and smoothly into our contemporary political debates than does the antigovernment ethos of Thomas Jefferson. Third, and finally, unlike all the other vanguard members of the revolutionary generation, Adams left a record of his most intimate thoughts and feelings. He was incapable of posing for posterity, or like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or George Washington, constructing a mythical, statuelike image designed to suggest sacred or divine inspiration. He was the most self-revealed, instinctively candid, gloriously fallible, wholly honest member of that remarkable âband of brothersâ whom we are otherwise disposed to capitalize as Founding Fathers. In that sense, he is the clearest and fullest window through which to view the ambitions that drove them all. In effect, though he belongs on Mount Rushmore, we would need to devise a way to replace the granite with flesh and blood.
Amherst, Massachusetts
August 2000
Illustrations
John Adams in 1801 frontispiece
Abigail Adams (1801), at the time of John Adamsâs retirement 35
Peacefield, or Montezillo, the
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