Joseph J. Ellis

When it comes to John Adams, second President of the United States and first to be voted out after one term, I’ve noticed a consistent quirk. In books where he’s a supporting character, he comes off as a bit buffoonish, almost a Dickensian caricature of a politician. Only if you read books devoted to him personally might you come away with a favorable, even admiring, opinion.

This is fair, since he could be buffoonish and was ridiculed in his own lifetime. His quixotic campaign as Vice show more President to overload the presidency with the title “His Highness, the President of the United States of America, and Protector of the Rights of the Same” earned him the mocking nickname “His Rotundity” from his Senate colleagues. There’s a hint of truth in Benjamin Franklin’s judgment that Adams was “always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes absolutely mad.”

The singular psychology of John Adams left an indelible mark on the American Republic; and through written correspondence between him and his wife Abigail, historian Joseph J. Ellis sheds much light on what made him tick.

For instance, though I understood John was unsuited for partisan politics, I never fully appreciated why this was so. He was often the smartest man in the room and he knew it, so he was not averse to battering down opposing views with sheer pedantry and stubbornness. You can get away with this when everyone is more or less on the same side, but it leaves you badly exposed to counterstrike when your every misstep is blown up into sinister proportions by a partisan opposition.

But this is not just a book about John Adams, and I would say it’s not even primarily about him. This is reflected in Ellis’s decision to give John’s wife, Abigail, first billing in the title. This is not a clumsy attempt to appease the feminists, but a mark of how much Ellis esteems Abigail as the anchor that kept John from disappearing into the hurricane of his own tempestuous emotions.

Indeed, as you read the flow of letters between this remarkable couple and consider Ellis’s interpretations of them, Abigail comes off as the more grounded and sympathetic of the two. It’s hard not to feel badly for her since she sacrificed enormously as a young wife and mother, suffering through years of John’s absence in Congress and Europe during the Revolution.

She was John’s match in intellect, and usually his overmatch in judgment. What is even more remarkable is that he never resented this, and in fact overtly depended on her to keep his ship righted and to sort through myriads of problems in the young republic. As Ellis points out, the greatest blunder of John’s political career, the signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, happened during a rare season when Abigail’s own sensibility had fallen prey to the partisan war for the Republic’s soul.

The Adams marriage was a true love affair, a meeting of heart and mind on an equal plane, as rare a match as you’ll find in American history. In more enlightened times, Abigail no doubt would have been one of the most consequential First Ladies ever with a portfolio all her own. Even so, she left her imprint on the nation through her rock-solid support of the man she loved to address as her friend, who in his own turn never failed to appreciate that he had hit the jackpot of love. show less

Ellis expounds on four fundamental and vitally significant dimensions of American political structure and ethos -- race, equality, law and abroad, i.e. foreign policy. He discourses on the philosophical thinking and pragmatic actions of the founders in these areas. He pairs his insightful (and accessible) historical analysis with how these elements of our polity can be assessed in our time.

Race was a tinderbox issue at the beginning of and throughout the history of the republic. Ellis tells show more us of Jefferson's deeply ambivalent, even contradictory, positions on race. Jefferson understood that slavery would present the potential for schism within the new nation. He early put forth the notion that slavery would and should gradually disappear from the country. He supported the ban on slavery in the Northwest territory. At the same time, Jefferson believed that even after emancipation blacks and whites could not co-exist. The solution, he held, was to send blacks to Africa or Central America or to the lands of the west where they would live separated from white society, a solution Jefferson knew to be economically and practically infeasible. Jefferson could not resolve the discrepancy between the eloquent words of equality he penned in the Declaration of Independence with the presence of a slave population. If "all men are created equal" how could many be patently unequal and denied the "unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Furthermore, despite his racism he had a long intimate relationship with his slave mistress and, even though he had deep misgivings about slavery as an institution, he relied on slaves for his livelihood and did not upon his death manumit his slaves rather had them sold to satisfy his debts.

Race cast its dark shadow on the nation in all the years following Jefferson. The rift grew as slavery's continuance and vitrolic disagreements over its expansion led to the Civil War. After the war and the emancipation of slaves, the subjugation of blacks continued for a hundred years until the civil rights movement began to bring about a measure of legal and social justice to African-Americans. The successes of the movement, Ellis reminds us, are far from complete today as witnessed by the disparities in economic opportunity and the overt racial inequities of the criminal justice system. Even in 2018, the coded messages of "law and order" and "voter fraud" point to a lingering racism that controverts the principles posited at the founding.

John Adams was convinced of the inevitability of the emergence of economic and class inequality in the nation. The founders had a deep aversion to the aristocratic class structure of the Old World and much of the ideals embedded in the Declaration, and many of the political constructs contained in the Constitution, were impelled by this aversion. Adams understood that the emergence of a wealthy class and its concomitant inequality was certain to happen, not via bloodlines and heredity of the European experience, but rather through the acquisition of wealth, a "natural" versus an "artificial" inequality. Adams had no robust solutions for this, but he did suggest the human compulsion for fame and gratification might be satisfied by political elitism such as the use of lofty titles of eminance for public officials or a legislative body reserved for the elite.

Adams was prescient about the emergence of wealth inequality. In the 21st century's so-called second Gilded Age there is a vast and growing chasm between the ultra rich and everyone else. While uneven distribution of wealth perhaps was bound to happen in America, and is not prima facie unegalitarian, Ellis suggests that the super wealthy have captured and manipulated the political processes in ways that betray the principles of our republic. The notion seen at some periods in history that redistribution of wealth to enable greater social good (e.g. progressive tax systems, social programs that might enhance economic opportunity, etc.) seems to have been made anathema in the political discourse accepted by many Americans -- even, amazingly, by large numbers of people who are hurt by this. The Founding Fathers -- an elite themselves -- undoubtedly believed (in reaction to what they observed of the Old World's polities) that the commonweal required a basic fairness that reached to all levels of society. That idea seems to have waned in today's America.

James Madison is idolized as the father of the Constitution. Ellis reminds us that, Madison's intellecualism aside, he was a pragmitist whose ability to accommodate conflicting political interests resulted in the patchwork quilt of our constitution; full of compromises but nonetheless eminently functional for the maintenance of a republican government with its national and local authorities. (Madison's initial views on popular representation in the legislature were quite different from what finally emerged.)

What Madison's (and others') creation did not do, however, was to answer all questions about the allocation of power among the governing entities and about the rights of the people; the compact raises questions that, it seems, could and should be resolved in the context of time and emerging circumstances. A plain example of this, certainly, is what are the relative powers of the national government and the states? Or, perhaps, what meanings of personal privacy might lie within the words of the fourth amendment? Moreover, Madison, among the elite who brought the Word from the Mountain, changed his views on the implications of the Constitution significantly in the course of his life, not because he contradicted the document but as adaptations as the circumstances dictated.

Ellis suggests we consider Madison's flexibility in light of the so-called "originalist" school of constitutional interpretation. It is beyond question that the Supreme Court has taken radically different decisions on how the Constitution's provisions are to be applied to exigent matters. Contrast the contemporary assessment of the Dred Scott decision or Plessy v Ferguson with the rationale behind these infamous holdings. The majority in those cases certainly believed they were harkening back to the imperatives of the Constitution, but we know that the political milieu of the times heavily influenced their judgements. There is clearly a danger in contextually derived decisions like these egregious examples. But, is "originalism" - seeking to determine the "intentions" of the fouders -- the proper means to controvene politically contextual application of the Constitution (e.g. by liberal courts) to specific cases? Ellis argues compellingly that it is not. Rather, originalism is a guise to cloak conservative viewpoints as somehow ineluctably linked to what the founders really intended. In this regard, originalism is worse than dishonest because it seeks to cast the false aura of intellectual immutability and propriety on what patently are politically undergirded decisions. An obvious example of the failing here is the court's decisions on the second amendment. To hold that the founders -- who expressly connected the right to bear arms with a well-regulated militia -- really intended that possession of firearms be unrestricted is a blatant effort to make the desired shoe fit on the wrong foot. And, how are we to know with concreteness the intentions of the founders? There are so many divergent views posited at its origination by so many who assessed the Constitution (or who, as Madison, had changing views) that isn't it a bit dishonestly selective to proclaim we have discerned the true "intention" that determines the case? Is it possible there is one "meaning", among all possible other meanings, that rigorously follows the incontrovertible intent of the founders? If, instead, decisions on contemporaneous cases are soundly and rationally linked to the words of the Constitution, is this not true fidelity to the Constitution? Efforts of the originalists are worse than bad history in that they are overtly biased in an attempted portrayal of righteousness.

Ellis's final chapter is on foreign policy. He points to an underappreciated aspect of Washington's famous edict in his farewell address warning of the danger of foreign entanglements -- and that is that Washington was looking westward to America's newly-acquired territory across the Alleghenies, the settlement of which would likely draw the disparate states toward national unity. On the flanks of this territory were European powers and, significantly, Native Americans who had de facto control over this land. This, indeed, was the priority for foreign policy in Washington's first term. Washington sought various treaty solutions to the Indian occupation of the land, including compensation, but none could withstand the waves of land hungry settlers who poured into the territory. In his second term, conflicts on the continent impelled Washington to seek the path to neutrality. Strong sentiments toward support of France, some promoted by the Francophile Jefferson, added to enmity toward England lingering from the Revolution, made public acceptance of the Jay Treaty with England highly contentious. Two elements in the nation's early years bore on Washington's thinking. A new nation on paper, the fledging country was by no means a truly united nation. Foreign adventures would not serve to unify but might result in schism. Moreover, there were pragmatic reasons for staying aloof. The physical separation of North America from Europe was the strongest possible defense from European aggression, and, most of all, the country needed a policy that offered the greatest potential for commerce to flourish. Taking sides in European wars could only be detrimental to this aim. The trail of Washington's isolationist strategy on foreign policy adhered in the country for over 100 years, notwithstanding imperialistic ventures in the Pacific in the early 20th century.

The country's intervention in World War I saw the re-emergence of isolationism in the following decades. World War II and the subsequent rise of the Soviet Union turned American foreign policy in the opposite direction; our aim was to protect and advance the liberal democratic elements of our traditions. Containing the spread of communism brought our engagements throughout the world to a high peak. Whether over wrought andineptly pursued or not, this strategic imperative was utterly sharp in definition. The fall of Soviet communism in the 1990's created perplexity in fashioning a new foreign policy. If we were to continue to secure the "global order" what did this mean? What should undergird our relations with allies? Should we nurture the growth of liberal democracies in places that have no tradition of such principles? The rise of Islamic extremism gave us an "out" to avoid developing a coherent foreign policy, but our actions here do not seem much more than reactive, often arrogant and naive, leading us into military conflicts that cannot seem to end. The arrival of Donald Trump on the scene has, it seems, pushed back toward an isolationist position, with his principal emphasis on the monetary transactions that color our relations with allies and foes alike.

Viewing the current political, legal and economic environment in light of Ellis's insightful historical analysis of the views of the founding father is thoughtful and satisfying. show less

An excellent one volume history on the founding fathers, with an emphasis on the years 1789-1800. I came to the book looking for an easy read, which it definitely is not (in the sense that it's relatively scholarly, and portrays a very nuanced view).

The form of the book is interesting, at first I assumed it to be a series of anecdotes about the Founding Fathers, but it actually is a deep analysis of certain events that epitomize certain themes that Ellis wants to get across. Chief of those show more themes is how fragile and uncertain the American project seemed to the founders, the complexities of the Founding men, and the unprecedented improvisations the Founders had to made do with. Ellis tries to put us at the time, without the benefit of hindsight. For example, when analyzing the famous Burr-Hamilton Duel, Ellis looks at why that duel occurred, past simple moralistic condemnations of the barbaric practice and simple pettiness. For Ellis, the duel occurred because Hamilton was afraid that a man such as Burr, an opportunist at heart, could wreck the Union with his self seeking nature (in particular by encouraging the New England/New York secessionists). The Founding Fathers had to deal with the opposing ideologies between the spirit of '76 (that the revolution was a radical break with tradition and would herald in global egalitarianism) and the pragmatic needs of nation building (such as a centralized government and Anglophile treaties). At the same time, the American project was unprecedented. Respected theorists of the day thought that large polities such as the colonies could never become republics, let alone 13 colonies that did not have a history of cooperation. A lot of the interest and friction comes from the fact that the founders were trying something that had never been tried before. Of particular interest to me is the formation of party culture in the US. Political parties were essentially new ideas. The idea of a loyal opposition did not exist. Retrospectively, we talk about the Federalist, Republican divide but at the time they wouldn't have seen themselves as political parties. The Federalists would have seen themselves as the government, and the Republicans as a subversive threat, while the Republicans saw themselves as a temporarily faction formed to oppose the Federalists who hijacked the government at the expense of the spirit of '76. Such a telling of history explains the apparent absurdity of the first three presidents not campaigning openly for election, and the fact that the runner up became vice president. Such a world is so foreign to modern day lfie, but the friendships, rivalries and jealousies are not.

I applaud Ellis's attempts to deeply analyze and discuss the contradictions and difficulties of the founding era. Chief of the issues is slavery, Ellis is no apologist but delves into the difficulty of feasible solutions, i.e. how to compensate owners and what to do with the freed population and the potential for the issue to wreck the entire constitutional project by inflaming sectional conflict. Ultimately, Ellis concludes that it would have been difficult to resolve the issue, but that the founders had solved other difficult issues before (I agree with Ellis here that the Founders more or less dropped the ball). It was interesting that after 1776 many prominent observers thought that slavery would be on a natural path to extinction, and how post revolutionary war how stupid this prediction seemed. It's become a cliche but ultimately, it took a civil war to resolve the can that the Founders kicked down the road.

Finally, I appreciated the complexities that Ellis brings to light. Ellis discusses the difference between Jefferson and Adams. Jefferson tended to see history, in a simple narrative way between neat factions and categories while Adams thought that history tended to be written by people after the fact, and chooses simple icons and stories to fit a neat fiction. Adams thought historians ignored the edges and nuances of events that did not fit their story, and obscure the truth by presenting a simple story. Of course, this was a related to the fact that Adams thought himself often neglected by historians since he did not neatly fall into any particular pose. I believe that Ellis had Adam's conception of history in mind when he wrote this book. It makes for a more complex story, but likely one more reflective of the truth. show less

I expected more from this book, and from its author. After thoroughly enjoying Ellis's biography of George Washington, I expected to at least respect the highly rated Jefferson biography. Instead I found it to be neither honest nor unbiased, while holding itself out as both. The particularly damning passage, in my estimation, was when Ellis related that Abigail Adams sent Thomas Jefferson a "blunt" letter chiding him for his lack of parenting skills (he hadn't come to England from France to show more pick up his daughter upon her arrival - Ellis explains that Jefferson was busy). He quoted a few lines from the AA letter and moved on. What he left out - alarmingly important for context in this story - is that Abigail Adams was upset because Jefferson's young daughter, having no memory of her father, was literally tricked onto the boat crossing the Atlantic on his orders, accompanied only by a slave too young to be a suitable nursemaid in Abigail's opinion (plot twist: it was the young Sally Hemmings, probably fourteen or fifteen, who would sail back across the Atlantic in a few years' time in a delicate condition), and Jefferson not only couldn't be bothered to be in London to greet her as he had promised, he didn't bother coming to England at all, instead sending another "servant" to fetch her. The child, understandably, didn't want to get on another boat, or leave Abigail. Abigail thought it was a nasty business through and through and wrote Jefferson a frank letter, but it could have been much worse.

My point in all this is that Ellis skates over inconvenient facts in order to pretend to present an unbiased sketch of Jefferson's character. He barely addresses Sally Hemmings except in the prologue and an appendix entry. He makes no mention of Jefferson's work spreading rumors that Washington was doddering and senile while in office (ironic, as he mentions it in his Washington biography). It is my own fault for selecting a biography about the "character" of Jefferson; I would have much preferred to learn about his governing and decisions, but commentary of that kind lacked depth and was poorly organized (real timeline problems in this book, which one wouldn't think would be possible).

I read this as part of my "Presidents and First Ladies" reading program. After two chapters I ordered a different biographical set on Amazon. This book is too deceptively written to provide any real illumination on the life of a complicated man and his complicated times. show less