HAMILTON AND JOHN ADAMS

After seeing the great musical Hamilton when it premiered on Disney+ earlier this month I found myself enjoying it immensely.  I thought it would be fun to do a short compare and contrast with another great work that I have enjoyed: John Adams.  This was a miniseries that HBO produced and aired in 2008, which like Hamilton was met with rave reviews from critics and was given numerous awards.   

The differences are immediate and visually obvious Hamilton is a stage play while John Adams is mini-series for television.  John Adams has seven episodes each slightly over an hour making the entire project over eight hours long, where Hamilton total run time is two and half hours.  It is true that Hamilton only lived about half as long as John Adams but that the play has less than a third of the time to tell his story.   The star of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, also wrote the play, while John Adams starred Paul Giamatti and was written by Kirk Ellis.

David Morse as George Washington in John Adams. 

Then there are the aesthetics.  Hamilton is a musical and it bills itself as “the story of America then told by America of today.” The genre of music is a diverse selection of R &B, soul, hip-hop, and traditional-style show tunes.  The casting of Hamilton is revolutionary diverse with roles of white historical figures going to actors who are people of color.  This is done following the “America then told by America today” standard.  The nation is a much more diverse place then it was in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  Not only has the diversity increased, but as a measure of the country’s progress, the positions people of color now have the opportunity to fill has changed as well.  The play was written and premiered during the presidency of Barrack Obama.   It was a powerful message of inclusion in a narrative where people of color were traditional excluded.   

Christopher Jackson as George Washington in Hamilton. 

John Adams on the other hand is a period piece which does its best to retain an authentic look from the period.  This can be seen from the wardrobe trying to replicate the type of fabrics of the period; to the props trying to insure authentic appearance to the carriages, fire arms, etc; finally to the make-up trying to make the actors look more like the historical figures they are trying to represent.  In short, their set tries to re-create the world as it existed in the late 18^th century.

Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton. 

Now we come to the similarities.  Both works are based on a life of an American Founding Father.  Both works are closely based on popularly written biographies about those founders.  John Adams was based on David McCullough’s 2001 biography of the same name, while Hamilton was based on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography titled Alexander Hamilton. 

Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson in John Adams. 

The most important similarity between the two works (and if you take anything away from this review let be this) is while the settings of these works are the American Revolution and the establishment of the U.S. Constitution these events are not what either is about.   Both are about its principal subject be it Alexander Hamilton or John Adams.  Every event we witness and every other historical figure we meet is based on what the subject perceived.  However when one glances back with that in mind it again brings us to important distinctions in each work. 

In John Adams the American Revolution is a gruesome and undesirable necessity carried out in order to defend the rights of the colonists as citizens, because that is what the Revolution was to Mr. Adams.  In Hamilton, the American Revolution is exciting and wonderful opportunity for talented people born without high privilege to “rise up” and above their station.  This is because that is what Revolution meant to Alexander Hamilton.   Hamilton presents George Washington as this courageous general who doubles as a father figure, because that is who he was to fatherless Alexander Hamilton.  While the John Adams George Washington is a noble, stoic, and often distant figure because that is how he appeared to Adams.     

Then there is Thomas Jefferson.  The Thomas Jefferson of Hamilton comes off as the villain of the piece.  Easily one of the most enjoyable characters of the play Jefferson is exciting to watch and he is foil to poor Mr. Hamilton in every instance of the play’s second act. Again, this is who Jefferson was to Alexander Hamilton, so they play presents him as such.  In John Adams, Jefferson is often quiet and self-conscious, Adams is one of those who help him find his voice.  He recruits him to write the Declaration of Independence.  Once Jefferson has his voice and once America becomes a nation complete with a new Constitution the two friends become rivals.  The relationship of Adams and Jefferson as one-time friends who turn on each other mirrors the relationship between Hamilton and Burr in the play, except for that disastrous ending. 

Speaking of Burr, he had no role in the HBO miniseries.  Not only was Aaron Burr absent but James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, is mentioned only in passing.  This has little to do with the historic importance rather their impact on the life of John Adams in comparison with other figures.  Likewise the play Hamilton does not include the John Hancock, Samuel Adams (mentioned only as the name of a drink) and most importantly does not have a character of Benjamin Franklin.  This is not an over-site of Lin-Manuel Miranda just a reflection of those historical figures impact on Alexander Hamilton.

What is most interesting is how Adams and Hamilton are presented in each other’s drama.  In Hamilton Adams never makes an appearance, but he comes up in discussion and song a number of times.  He first mentioned by Eliza as she tries to get her husband to come out to the country pointing out that Adams does this for his wife.  To which Hamilton responds that, as Vice President, Adams does not have a real job.  Later after Adams becomes President, Jefferson and Madison are discussing how he and Hamilton had a fall out leading to Adams dismissing Hamilton and Hamilton coming out and publicly attacking the leader of his own party.  This damages the Federalists so badly that it practically hands the election to the Democratic-Republicans.  After Jefferson and Madison are done talking it over the audience sees Hamilton from the raised flat of the stage and dropping a book down to the floor shouting John Adams name.

Rufus Sewell as Alexander Hamilton in John Adams

In John Adams, Hamilton as a character appears in two episodes.  His first appearance is in the fifth episode “Unite or Die.” In this episode Hamilton appears at an early meeting of George Washington’s cabinet.  During the meeting he basically schools Thomas Jefferson on economics and lays out plans to set up a National Bank and assume the states’ debts.  This of course laid the ground work for stability of the United States Government.  A success from the Washington Administration that when Jefferson became President in 1801 he found that messing with it would be detrimental to the Union.  Hamilton’s second appearance is in the sixth episode “Unnecessary War” in which shows the clash between Adams/Hamilton more sympathetically to Adams.  Their fallout shows a Hamilton who has bitten off more than he can chew and needs Adams to bring him back to reality.

In closing I highly enjoyed both works and would encourage anyone to watch them.  Just remember when doing so with each presentation you are learning about a great historical figure who existed in an extraordinary setting of the American Revolution.  The setting and the characters in it are seen only from the view of the main character.  This is not to say you might not learn a thing or two about these periods but just keep in mind how it is slanted.                  

RIGHT OF REVOLUTION

A review of Winston Churchill’s The Age of Revolution (1956)

Part of the A History of the English-Speaking Peoples series

          (Rating 4 of 5)
               

            Churchill’s first volume in this series covered thousands of years (pre-history to 1485), his second covered only two hundred four (1485-1489), and this volume only covers one hundred twenty-six (1689-1815).  Yet in this limited space of only three hundred pages Churchill covers the War of Spanish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War, American Revolution and War of Independence, and the French Revolution and Wars of Napoleon.  Those are some pretty large topics.  As I mentioned in the two previous reviews the most fascinating part about reading Winston Churchill’s history is he is such an important historical figure himself that it leaves everything with an added weight.     

            He begins where he left off in the last volume; King William III is establishing his new government in England.  Churchill shows the King as being frustrated with England’s lack of enthusiasm for international adventures.  England is also becoming less enthusiastic about their new Dutch monarch.  Politicians in the Kingdom would go back in forth from supporting the monarch on the throne to the pretender over sea based on their own circumstances. Churchill explained that William tolerated this out of necessity, he had no heir and the people would naturally want to protect themselves if his government fell.  His successor, Queen Anne, was even more tolerant of what could be viewed as treason.  Of course Churchill shows her as even more conflicted about her own place on the throne to judge harshly others.       

William III the Dutch King of England

“Queen Anne felt herself in her inmost conscience a usurper, and she was also gnawed by the feeling that she had treated her dead father ill.  Her one justification against that self-questionings was her absolute faith in the Church of England.  It was her duty to guard and cherish at all costs the sacred institution, the maintenance of which was bound up with her own title and the peace of the realm.  To abdicate in favor of her Papist brother would be not only to betray her religion, but to let loose the horrors of civil war upon the land she ruled, loved, and in many ways truly represented.” (pg. 38)

          

Queen Anne, conflicted on the throne

            Churchill clearly enjoys writing about his famous ancestor John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough.  He actually wrote a whole biography on him. Churchill writes about his ancestors, the Duke and Duchess, and their contemporaries as if he personally knew them.  I assume he had to have access to some of his ancestor’s documents and must also know of personal family stories.  

 

Churchill's favorite ancestor

“Marlborough’s reign was ended.  Henceforward he had to serve.  His paramount position in Europe and with the armies made him indispensable to either party as long as the war continued.  First he served the Whigs and afterwards the Tories.  He served the Whigs as plenipotentiary and General, later he served the Tories as General only.  His great period from 1702 to 1708, was over.  There still remained three difficult campaigns, upon a scale larger than any yet seen; but he no longer had control of the policy which alone could render fruitful the sombre struggles of the Army.” (pg. 64)

            

             With the end of Queen Anne arrives Great Britain’s modern royal family, the Hanoverians—though nowadays they call themselves the Windsors.  The German speaking King George I was not interested in the day-to-day workings of government, he was only concerned with the final actions.  Robert Walpole would, in the reigns of Kings George I and II, single-handily create the office that Churchill himself would one day serve.  Although he made the office, Walpole did not invent the title.      

“By his enemies Walpole was now mockingly called the ‘Prime Minister’—for this honourable title originated as a term of abuse.  The chances of a successful Opposition seemed to be gone forever.  ” (pg. 98)

Robert Walpole, called "prime minister" as an insult and the name stuck

            Walpole might have been the first prime minister, but it was William Pitt the Elder, who would be the first person called to that office by a popular mandate and getting power through the support of the House of Commons.  Churchill clearly admires Mr. Pitt, and I would guess he would feel some sort of bond for Churchill calls the Seven Years’ War that Pitt waged to be the true first world war.  Considering the role Churchill would play in those twentieth conflicts he would naturally feel a connection between himself and the early prime minister.  He might also see a connection with Pitt’s son William Pitt the Younger for the role he would play in the Napoleonic Wars.  

“Whether Pitt possessed the strategic eye, whether the expeditions he launched were part of a considered combination, may be questioned.  Now, as at all times, his policy was a projection on to a vast screen of his own aggressive, dominating personality.  In the teeth of disfavor and obstruction he had made his way to the foremost place in Parliament, and now at last fortune, courage, and the confidence of his countrymen had given him a stage on which his gifts could be displayed and his foibles indulged.” (pg. 124)

William Pitt

            When discussing the American Revolution Churchill gets quite interesting with his writing.  His father was British but his mother was American, he once joked before Congress that if it had been the other way around, he would have probably have stood at that podium on his own merit.  When discussing the Revolution he takes a bit of a pro-American side, but he is quick to remind his readers of the conflict that took place of both sides of the Atlantic.  There were of course loyalists in America, but there were also those in Britain and in the British Parliament who strongly supported the cause of the Revolutionaries and felt that “no taxation without representation” was a good excuse to take a look at Parliamentary reform at home. 

When the Revolution was over and the former colonies, now the United States of America, put together a constitution.  Churchill would find that the U.S. Constitution was one of the great accomplishments of the English-Speaking Peoples.

“Of course, a written constitution carries with it the danger of a cramping rigidity.  What body of men, however farsighted, can lay down precepts in advance for settling the problems of future generations?  The delegates at Philadelphia were well aware of this.  They made provision for amendment, and the document drawn up by them was adaptable enough in practice to permit changes in the Constitution.  But it had to be proved in argument and debate and generally accepted throughout the land that any changes proposed would follow the guiding ideas of the Founding Fathers.  A prime object of the Constitution was to be conservative; it was to guard the principles and machinery of State from capricious and ill-considered alteration.  In its fundamental doctrine the American people acquired an institution which was to command the same respect and loyalty as in England are given to Parliament and Crown.” (pg. 210)

            As I noted throughout this review the best part of reading Churchill’s history is get to get his take on other historical figures.  His writing on George Washington is basic but nevertheless really interesting.  After all it can be argued that Washington dealt the biggest blow to the British Empire in history, the Empire that Churchill himself held dear. 

“George Washington holds one of the proudest titles that history can bestow.  He was the Father of his Nation.  Almost alone his staunchness in the War of Independence held the American colonies to their united purpose.  His services after victory had been won were no less great.  His firmness and example while first President restrained the violence of faction and postponed a national schism for sixty years.  His character and influence steadied the dangerous leanings of Americans to take sides against Britain or France.  He filled his office with dignity and inspired his administration with much of his own wisdom.  To his terms as President are due the smooth organization of the Federal Government, the establishment of national credit, and the foundation of a foreign policy.  By refusing to stand for a third term he set a tradition in American politics which has been departed from by President Franklin Roosevelt in the Second World War.” (pg. 283-284) 

President Washington

When discussing the Napoleonic Wars I did not find anything particularly unique on his views.  Since it was reality recent—historically speaking—I was hoping for more of a contrast between these wars and the wars the Churchill had to deal with in his own time.  I suppose I might see more of that in his next volume.

             In closing I must say that this was a great follow up to the other two volumes.  He tries to cover a great deal of ground in very few pages but he does it rather well. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON’S INVISIBLE FAMILY

A review of Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008)

(Rating 5 of 5)

Despite that the rumors of the relationship between he and Sally Hemings plagued President Jefferson throughout his presidency, as people faded into history Thomas Jefferson’s secret family became more invisible to historians.  Some of this is understandable; after all, if James Callender reported a sunny day, you would logically assume that it had been hailing.  Also, Jefferson’s legal white family did a good a job of covering it up, making sure that there would be no letters surviving in which Sally was acknowledged. 

            In 1998, with DNA test results it was confirmed that it was most probable that Thomas Jefferson was father of Sally Hemings’s children.  When the DNA results came out denial was replaced with a different reaction.  Jefferson suddenly became a sex-crazed man who fornicated with every female slave he saw.  (Remember the Jefferson DNA results came out when President Clinton was being investigated.) Every story about him was now believed.  By the year I graduated High School a TV movie was made called An American Scandal: The Sally Hemings’s Story starring Sam Neill (from Jurassic Park) as Thomas Jefferson.[1] The movie seemed to involve everything that was said about Jefferson from Callender himself. 

Early attack ad against Jefferson

 

            Dr. Gordon-Reed wrote her first book on the Jefferson-Hemings story in 1997.   That book titled Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, which I have not yet read, was proven right within a year.  This book continues on some of the themes of first one with a larger scope.  The Hemingses of Monticello focuses on the entire Hemings family that resided at what is now a historic landmark.  Gordon-Reed recreates events for her readers as best possible with the remaining evidence to uncover what really went on at Monticello.

            The author tends to write from a left-wing academic perspective.  That is not a criticism just an observation.  What is interesting however was reading some of the reviews of goodreads, many accused the professor of being ‘angry’ something I find absurd.  Yes, she calls American slavery out for the evil oppressiveness that it was.  Yet, if anything she almost strikes me as a Jefferson apologist; when discussing Jefferson she often brings up the culture he was raised in, political, economic, and social pressures that he was facing.  One can argue that she makes a ‘judge by his own time period not ours' defense except, unlike some of her critics, she actually does it very well.  

 

As a teenager I thought was movie was bad, after reading this book I downgraded it to awful.

            

          The most famous member of the Hemings family is Sally, seeing that she is the one who was involved intimately with President Jefferson.  This makes sense, as Dr. Gordan-Reed points out, when one considers the only reason we know about any of these people is because of the legal status of ownership that Jefferson had over them.  Since Thomas Jefferson was so important to the history of the county and the world, anyone who played a role in his life by default becomes important.  

           Anyone who had spent any time at Monticello in Jefferson's time would know who the Hemings were.  In slave hierarchy of Monticello the Hemings family was one of the two at the top.  (The other was the Grangers.) Nevertheless while explaining this Dr. Gordon-Reed reminds the reader that they are still slaves, and cautions us against thinking of them as privileged.  Most of Jefferson’s personnel body servants were Hemings.  Members of the Hemings family did not wait on guests as maids or waiters; they were carpenters, chefs, and other artisans.  Most of the men had free reign to come and go as they pleased, the reason why is most of the story.  

The story of the Hemings family begins with the birth of Elizabeth Hemings.  Her mother was an African who had been brought to Virginia as a slave by the international slave trade; her name is lost to history but the name of the man she was with is not.  He was Captain John Hemings, and he was not her owner.  As Dr. Gordon-Reed explained, slave status was inherited from your mother. (Mom was free, you were free; Mom was a slave, you were a slave.)  Captain Hemings would try to buy his lover and their daughter but was denied.  Instead, they would be sold to the Wayles family. Gordon-Reed also explained what the term concubine meant in an early eighteenth-century context, far from the more foreign exotic definition the word would later take on, in this time period it meant ‘unofficial’ wife.  She explains that it was rather common for Southern slave owners who were widowed, to take a concubine.  This would be the fate of Elizabeth Hemings as she became the concubine for John Wayles, whose daughter Martha would go on to marry Thomas Jefferson.  Elizabeth Hemings was already a mother before she became involved with Wayles, they would several children together mostly famously Sally Hemings.  When Wayles died the Hemings matriarch and her children would have their world transferred to Monticello.  

This story however is not only about one person or a couple but about a family.  Robert and James Hemings, who were the famous Sally’s full-blooded brothers, were a major part of both her life and Jefferson’s.  Their lives were interesting and atypical for slaves, the brothers had freedom of movement, could earn money by hiring out their services during times that Jefferson had no need of them.  Robert would go on to marry outside of Jefferson’s slave system and James who would go on to be become a fully trained chef in France. 

             It is very rare that a book can completely change your view of something.  This book however made me change my view on a very important historical topic.  That is oral history and tradition.  I have been one of those who compared oral history to playing the game of telephone throughout the generations.  I think my overall hostility to it is driven from some of the way some of its advocates will often present it: as if these are almost sacred words that can not be challenged.  To me, evidence should always be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism, one of the things that studying written sources show us is there can be contractions in various accounts, trying to get at the truth can rather tricky and I tend to distrust people who claim ‘my relative’ was there and get really weary when someone tries to add it to the historical record.  How Dr. Gordon-Reed won me over was showing how oral tradition can be balanced against written and archeological sources and used as evidence. 

First, not every person who had a family history that claimed linage to Jefferson was right.  Gordon-Reed actually debunks a couple of them, while showing the strong case for Jefferson and Hemings.  She also shows how actions of family and descendants can be used to determine what the relationship between a mother and a father who were slave and owner actually was.  Gordon-Reed explains that sexual encounters were often between slave women and free white men were done in one of three ways.  Rape was a primary method through violence or threat.  The second was a causal consensual sexual encounter, and third was in an actual secret relationship.  How the family of the woman acted and later spoke of the man is a good indicator on what happened.  When investigating the question of whether or not Hemings and Jefferson actually loved on another the author concludes in the affirmative, and she bases this not only on Jefferson’s actions but the actions of those around him.                               

“On the other hand, if they saw him acting in as decent a fashion as possible, that he was now bound to them by blood might have made at least some of them more inclined to see him in a positive light, thus shoring up the affective role that they certainly played in his life.  As will be shown in the chapter to come, members of the Hemings’s family, free and enslaved, sometimes responded to Jefferson in ways that suggest they thought of him as more a version of an in-law than the rapist of their family member.” (p.363)

            In a bizarre and twisted way in that relatives owned members of their own kin, the Jeffersons and the Hemingses were family.  Thomas Jefferson was united to them by both blood and marriage, his lover was his late wife’s half-sister and her children were his.  When each of them became adults they were freed and left Monticello with pockets full of money and, for the boys, a completed training in carpentry.  By leaving they would never see either parent again, for they would go into society with their true identities hidden.  This book is full of eye-opening information.  I highly recommend it.

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[1] I think since the movie’s release the name has changed a couple of times. 

{Video is and interview Dr. Gordon-Reed did for the Big Think. Video is located on their page.}