THE CHAMPION OF INDEPENDENCE

A review of David McCullough’s John Adams (2001)

(Rating: 5 of 5)

It has been a few years since I first read John Adams.  I decided to re-read the book for the purpose of reviewing it.  McCullough’s work as an author is a testament that history does not have to be boring.  When one thinks of all the titans of this era, in some ways Mr. Adams comes up a little short.  Regulated to history as ‘number 2’ the one-term president who follows George Washington and who precedes Thomas Jefferson, John Adams is not typically thought of as the most interesting of the founders.  That was until 2001, when McCullough wrote this stunning book about a man whom without there may not have been a United States of America.

Young Abigail and John Adams

            McCullough traces John Adams time as a young lawyer who is a loyal subject of the British Empire.  After the abuses to what Adams believes are the rightful liberties of British subjects that the colonists are entitled, he would go to Congress and take up the cause of independence.  His performance at the Congress was second to none.  It was John Adams that nominated George Washington to command the continental army.  It was Adams, who with Jefferson and Franklin, would bring the Congress around to declaring the nation’s independence from the British crown.  McCullough also shows how it was not as neat in tidy as in the classic paintings.  In fact, the Founding Fathers themselves contributed to that misconception.
                

“In later years, Jefferson would entertain guests at Monticello with descriptions of black flies that so tormented the delegates, biting through their silk hose that they had hurried the signing along as swiftly as possible.  But at the time Jefferson wrote nothing of the occasion, not did John Adams.  In old age, trying to reconstruct events of that crowed summer, both men would stubbornly and incorrectly insist that the signing took place of July 4.” (p.138)

Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson

            After securing the nation’s independence Adams spends a great deal of time abroad in foreign courts trying to win over allies to the American cause.  In this he often becomes loggerheads with Ben Franklin.  Adams was one of the diplomats who help negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1783) where American independence was recognized by the British Empire.  He would be the first American to represent his country in the Court of St. James.  Adams found he rather liked King George III, all things considered, and McCullough points out the two men had a great deal in common.
 

“His Majesty the King of England and the new American minister to the Court of St. James’s were not without common interests and notable similarities.  Like John Adams, King George III was devoted to farming.  Seldom was His Majesty happier than when inspecting his farms, or talking crops and Merino sheep with his farm workers at Windsor.  Like Adams, the King had a passion for books.  The difference, as with the farming, was mainly a matter of scale.  His private library was one of the treasures of Britain.  During Adams’s earlier stay in London, the American painter Benjamin West had arranged a tour of the royal quarters at Buckingham House, and for Adams the high point had been seeing the King’s library.  He wished he could stay a week, Adams had said.” (p.333)

Mr. Adams meets the King

            A good deal of the book is dedicated to Adams relationship with his children, his daughter ‘Nabby’ (Young Abigail), his future president son John Quincy, and his other two useless sons, Charles and Thomas.  Most important however is the relationship with his life partner, Abigail.  America clearly has many Founding Fathers, if it were to have any Founding Mothers Abigail Adams would certainly be a strong candidate for the title.  In many ways she was her husband’s superior especially where money was concerned.  Jefferson pointed out the reason Adams was better off than he was financially, is because of Mrs. Adams running of their family finances.
  

“As she predicted, the bill for the Bank of the United States passed by a sizable majority, despite opposition from Madison and Jefferson, who urged the President to exercise a veto on constitutional grounds.  But Hamilton’s views carried greater weight with Washington, who signed the bill on February 25.

            Better versed on financial matters than her husband, Abigail wanted to invest immediately in government securities, but as she told Cotton Tufts, ‘Mr. Adams held to his faith in land as true wealth.’” (p.428)

            When Adams returned from Europe he was elected Vice President of the United States.  The first to hold this office, the record that Adams would set tie breaking votes he would cast as President of the Senate is a record that still stands to this day.  In 1796, he would go on to win the first contested presidential election in U.S. history.  As the first president ever to succeed a president he had no history to turn to.  He kept Washington’s entire cabinet that was loyal to Hamilton, instead of him, in office.  Adams would still manage to keep this country away from war with France and do so with America’s honor intact.  Yet he would lose the election of 1800.

“What was surprising—and would largely be forgotten as time went on—was how well Adams had done.  Despite the malicious attacks on him, the furor over the Alien and Sedition Acts, unpopular taxes, betrayals by his own cabinet, the disarray of the Federalists, and the final treachery of Hamilton, he had, in fact, come very close to winning in the electoral count.  With a difference of only 250 votes in New York City, Adams would have won with an electoral count of 71 to 61.  So another of the ironies of 1800 was that Jefferson, the apostle of agrarian America who loathed cities, owed his ultimate political triumph to New York.” (p.556)

            In his final public act he would choose John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States.  As the famous scene played out Adams asked Marshall who he should appoint.  Marshall in response says he does not know.  Adams responds with ‘I think I will appoint you'.

“But it is probable that Adams knew exactly whom he would choose before Marshall even entered the room.  In many ways the nomination was inevitable.  Few men had so impressed Adams as Marshall, with his good sense and ability.  Nor had anyone shown greater loyalty.  He was Adams’s kind of Federalist and one who at forty-five—‘in the full vigor of middle age,’ as Adams said—could be expected to serve on the Court for years to come.  On January 31, 1801, at the President’s House, Adams signed Marshall’s commission as Chief Justice, which the Senate confirmed without delay.  In its far-reaching importance to the country, Adams appointment of Marshall was second only to his nomination of George Washington to command the Continental Army twenty-five years before.  Possibly the greatest Chief Justice in history, Marshall would serve on the Court for another thirty-four years.” (p.560)

John Adams is an incredible book about an incredible man.  McCullough writes in a manner that it is both readable and enjoyable.  The best part is you do not even have to study history on a regular basis to enjoy it.

{Scenes are taking from the HBO John Adams mini-series based on the book}

YEAR ONE, REDUX

A review of David McCullough’s 1776: The Illustrated Edition (2007)

 (Rating 5 of 5)

Seeing that I have already reviewed 1776 as a book, I will just make a few passing comments on some of the illustration that graces this edition. This book is full of primary source material. Inside are paintings, copies of letters and publications, and even a photograph.

The paintings are truly remarkable. There was prime talent in the late eighteenth century. Some of the paintings are from the British master Alan Ramsay; including a few of his most famous works such as The Coronation of George III. A great deal of the work of the famous revolutionary painter, John Trumbull, is in here including The Signing of the Declaration,The Crossing of the Delaware, and The Surrender of the Hessians. I, personally, like Trumbull’s work the best.

       (John Trumbull)

        (Alan Ramsay)

 In the book are copies of originals letters, Washington’s commission, maps, and copies of the original publication of George III's pronouncement of rebellion and the Declaration of Independence. People in the eighteenth century spelled differently than we do today with letters ‘s’ and ‘f’ being interchangeable. The different spelling makes the material very difficult to read.

On another note, every year on July 4 our local paper (the Portland Press Herald) decides to publish the Declaration and writes ‘united States of America’ not capitalizing the 'u' because that is what Jefferson had in his original draft. However official published version that was issued by the Continental Congress had an all capitalized ‘UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’ in the document. Jefferson, it should be pointed out, did not capitalize the first letter in his sentences. So we should not overly look into what Jefferson did and did not capitalize.

My favorite thing in this book is a photograph from 1858 of a 102-year-old veteran of the Revolutionary War. Ralph Farnham enlisted at 18 in 1775 and was still around to take a picture in 1858.

(Ralph Farnham, one of the last Revolutionary War veterans alive in 1858.)

I would recommend any U.S. history teacher to get this book for his or her class.

ONE AVERAGE FARMER MADE ONE HELL OF A PRESIDENT

A review of David McCullough’s Truman (1992)

(Rating 5 of 5)

David McCullough in the Pulitzer Prize winning work recreates the fiery Harry S. Truman for his readers. Once dismissed as just an accidental president, Harry Truman was considered to be just a seat warmer for the next commander-in-chief. Truman would prove to be one of the nation’s best, leading the United States out of World War II and into the early days of the Cold War. McCullough’s writes with the same brilliant narrative in this work that I had found in when I read his 1776.

I have to admit, I read this book the same summer that I read Jean Edward Smith’s FDR. In short, I found myself comparing Truman’s career to Roosevelt’s. In some ways this was unfair considering Roosevelt was about eight years older. However, I could not help but think, ‘Hey the same time Truman’s rolling around on his father’s farm, Roosevelt’s in the State Senate.’ Another example is that when Truman was a company officer, Roosevelt was assistant secretary of the navy.

McCullough begins by explaining the origins of Truman’s home state, Missouri, and his family history. Citizens of the ‘show me’ state generally have a very down to earth feeling about themselves and the world in which they lived. Truman is a man who comes out of this world.

Truman grew up trying to avoid being labeled a ‘sissy’ for having to wear glasses, he was ‘bookish’ in some ways a stereotypical nerd who read a lot of history and was widely considered by his classmates to the smartest kid in class. When grew up World War I started up and he went to battle, as a captain he had success on the battlefield leading his company. He would ultimately rise to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. When he got home from war, he married the love of his life, Bess Wallace, and they would have one child in Mary Margaret.


(Truman as a boy)


(Truman as a solider)


(Truman married to Bess Wallace)


(Mary Margaret Truman)

However, despite success in school and the battlefield he was always a little behind in life, he failed at business and feel into debt. For a good deal of time, he would work on his father’s farm. His father had a great deal of political ambition but little time and resources and John Truman would die feeling that he was a failure in life, something that would haunt his son until his days as the President of the United States.

His friendship with the Pendergast family gave him a connection to Boss Tom Pendergast, and that would lead to his election in 1922 as Jackson County Court Judge, although this was not a judicial court it was more like a county commission. Truman became the presiding judge in 1926 and he held that position right until the Roosevelt Administration. Therefore, when Roosevelt took office as President of the United States his eventually successor was nothing more then a chief county commissioner.

In 1934, Harry Truman would earn the Democratic Party’s senate nomination and go on to defeat the incumbent Roscoe Patterson by a full twenty points in the election. As a senator, Harry Truman would earn fame on the ‘Truman Committee’ that would deal with corruption of military contractors fleecing the Armed Forces during a time of war.

“Truman understood the potential peril in what he was proposing. From his reading of Civil War history he knew what damage could be done to a President by congressional harassment in a time of emergency, and the lives it could cost by prolonging the war. Abraham Lincoln had been subjected to unrelenting scrutiny by the powerful Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which caused continuing trouble and delays. Its Radical Republican leadership had insisted even on a say in the choice of field commanders and battle strategy, and as often on a say in the choice of field commanders and battle strategy, and as often as not it was the Confederates who benefited. Robert E. Lee once remarked that the committee was worth two divisions to him, an observation Truman would often cite. He had gone to the Library of Congress for the Civil War records to verify for himself what mistakes the committee had made.” p.258

Truman’s record made the Democratic Party nominate him for Vice President in 1944, dumping Vice President Henry Wallace who many thought was closet communist. The Roosevelt/Truman ticket would go on to win and Truman would do on to be the Vice President of the United States. He would hold that office for less than three months, for in that time Roosevelt was dead.


(President Truman)

Truman came to office in the middle of the incredible events of World War II and had to make the most famous or infamous decision of his career: the decision to drop the atomic bomb. In August 1945, Japan was sent the Postman Declaration demanding their surrender or the bomb would drop. Japan refused, the bombs were dropped, and the war ended.



As president, Truman would later become admired for making tough decisions that had to be made. Moreover, a lot decisions would have to be made, in his first term he had to deal with strikes, propose and fight for the Marshall Plan, help form the United Nations, create the Truman Doctrine of containment, initiate the Berlin Airlift, and recognize the state of Israel. A great deal of these things would not popular, at first, and would cost Truman politically and most considered him dead in 1948, but as McCullough explains, Truman would shock them again.

“The Marshall Plan was voted on by Congress in April 1948, almost a year after Marshall’s speech at Harvard, and passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses. It was a singular triumph for the administration, the ventral gem in the cluster of great and fruitful decisions made by President Truman,’ as Arthur Krock would write. Indeed, it was to be one of the great American achievements of the century, as nearly everyone eventually saw.” p.583

With Thomas Dewey once again the nominee of the Republican* Party running as an if he were an incumbent, Truman ran as if were the challenger, he ran a more vigorous and ultimately successful campaign for president, popularized for ‘Given ‘em Hell.’

“His opponent, Truman said, acted like a doctor whose magic cure for everything was a soothing syrup called unity. And here were the American people going for the usual once every four years check-up.
‘Say you don’t look so good!’ Truman said, acting the part of the doctor.
‘Well, that seems strange to me too, Doc,’ he answered, as the voice of the people. ‘I never felt stronger, never had more money, and never had a brighter future. What is wrong with me?’
‘I never discuss issues with a patient. But what you need is a major operation.’
‘Will it be serious, Doc?’
‘Not so very serious. It will just mean taking out the complete works and putting in a Republican administration.’
The audience roared with laughter. He had made the cool, letter-perfect Dewey a joke at last.” p.700

(Wrong Headline)

Truman continued being Truman though out his second and elected term as president. During this term, the Chinese Communists won their civil war with the Nationalists and this helped feed the fire of a man named Eugene McCarthy, a drunken fool and senator, who would sensationalize national fear, and ruin the lives of many innocent people and get very few communists. N.A.T.O. would go on to be successfully established and due to the invasion of South Korea by the Communist North, Truman would get the U.N. to organize a ‘police action’ against the aggressor. The events of the Korean War would get save the South from the North but it would also led to another famous Truman event the firing of General MacArthur.

“In New York two thousand longshoremen walked off their jobs in protest over the firing of MacArthur. A Baltimore women’s group announced plans fro a march on Washington in support of the general. Elsewhere enraged patriots flew flags at half-staff, or upside down. People signed petitions, fired off furious letters and telegrams to Washington. In Worcester, Massachusetts, and San Gabriel, California, Truman was burned in effigy. In Houston, a Protestant minister became so angry dictating a telegram to the White House that he died of a heart attack.” p.844-5

Despite being from a family with Confederate heritage Truman moved more on Civil Rights then any president before or until Lyndon Johnson. Truman would form the President’s Committee on Civil Rights and he would desegregate the military.

“On racial maters, Truman had not entirely outgrown his background. Old biases, old habits of speech continued, surfacing occasionally offstage, as some of his aides and Secret Service agents would later attest. Privately, he could still speak of ‘niggers,’ as if that were the way one naturally referred to blacks. His own sister told Jonathan Daniels that Harry was no different then ever on the subject. Daniels, who had gone to Missouri to gather material for a biography of the President, recorded in his notes that as Mary Jane drove him south from Independence to Grandview one morning, she turned and said, ‘Harry is no more for nigger equality than any of us’—a statement Daniels, as a southerner, found reassuring.

But Mary Jane, like others, failed to understand that Truman knew now, if they did not, that as President he could no longer sit idly by and do nothing in the face of glaring injustice. The findings of his Civil Rights Commission, in a landmark report entitled To Secure These Rights, had been a shocking revelation.

The murder of four blacks by mob gunfire referred to in the letter had occurred in Monroe, Georgia, in July 1946. Two men and their wives were dragged from a car and gunned down so savagely their bodies were scarcely identifiable. One of the victims, Truman knew from a report of his Commission, had been a newly returned war veteran, and this, like the account of the men dumped from the truck in Mississippi, and of the young black sergeant, Issac Woodward, who had been pulled from a bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, and brutally beaten and blinded by police, made an everlasting impression on Truman, moving him in a way no statistics ever would have.” p.588-9

Despite all his success, Truman would leave office unpopular and would remain so until the late sixties-early seventies, when a popular resurgence for the thirty-third president would begin. This Pulitzer Prize winning work McCullough does justice to the great President Harry S. Truman.

*He ran against Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.

{Video is from the Discovery Channel}

YEAR ONE

A Review of David McCullough’s 1776 (2005)

(Rating:5 of 5)

The year 1776 was like no other. At the start of that year, the thirteen colonies that would become the first thirteen states of the United States of America were engaged in a rebellion against the ‘ministerial’ government. A government that the colonists felt was unlawfully usurping power at the expense of the colonies with their rightful sovereign, the King of Great Britain, being kept in a state of unawares. Halfway though the year, that view changed to one of the American people fighting as a nation for freedom against the Tyrant King who was oppressing them from 10,000 miles away. At the end of the year, when almost all hope seemed lost, General George Washington would cross the Delaware River and engage in the most unlikely of victories but a victory none the same.

The book however begins not in 1776 nor America at all, but it begins in the year 1775 in the city of London. There King George III, the most unsympathetic man to the cause of the colonials, delivers a historic address before the Parliament of Great Britain. He declares that the rebellion in the colonies is a conspiracy to break British power in North America and to create an empire that is under the control of their leadership, as opposed to the King-in-Parliament. This speech helps usher in the events of next year that will unfold not to the liking of the third British monarch of the House of Hanover.

“In sum, he, George III, Sovereign of the Empire, had declared America in Rebellion. He had confirmed that he was committing land and sea forces---as well as unnamed foreign mercenaries---sufficient to put an end to that rebellion, and he had denounced the leaders of the uprising as for having American independence as their true objective, something those leaders themselves had not openly declared.” p. 12

As the seasons change, so does the nature of the American Revolution, discovering the King has declared them out of his protection the American Congress votes for independence on July 2 and produce the document on the date we all remember, July 4, 1776. This changes the entire destiny of a people.

“At the stroke the Continental Congress had made the Glorious Cause of America more glorious still, for all the world to know, and also to give every citizen solider at this critical juncture something still larger and more compelling for which to fight. Washington saw it as a ‘fresh incentive,’ and to his mind it had come not a moment too soon.” p. 137

On Christmas Eve, George Washington crosses the Delaware in wins one of the most unlikely of victories. He catches Colonel Rall off guard and his band of farmer boys whips some the greatest professional soldiers that the world knew.

“They all felt something of the kind. They knew they had done something big at last. ‘The troops behaved like men contending for everything that was dear and valuable,’ Knox wrote to Lucy. Nathaniel Greene told his wife, ‘This is an important period in America, big with great events.’” p. 282

Reading McCullough’s work is like reading an exciting novel. However, unlike a novel, it is not a work of fiction, it is in fact real and that only adds to the book’s excitement. Anyone who reads this book will get exactly what he or she wants: an exhilarating journey though the year 1776, from King George III to Private John Adlum a seventeen-year-old American solider from York, Pennsylvania. 1776 is daring adventure into the country’s past.

{Video taken from the classic 1776 musical from 1972. I have always thought musicals, although enjoyable, to be rather silly. The idea of all sorts of people randomly breaking into song in perfect harmony always looks odd, and one wonders what the Founders would think of it.}