John Adams / David Mcullough 791 p. Big Book

Reading those few lines about a signer of the Declaration of Independence in a history book hardly tells anything of the debt Americans owe John Adams for what he did for the United States.  It was John Adams more that any one else who shaped the philosophical basis for the American Revolution.  His letters to his wife Abigail along with his diary provide the most complete account of the happenings at the Continental Congress.  History becomes real under David McCullough's telling of John Adam's life.  He gets into Adam's years at Harvard, his early public life, and his role in the Continental Congress.  McCullough makes it vivid when Adams proposed George Washington to be head of the army.  He gives full measure of the man, a man who served as a commissioner to France and envoy to the Court of St. James, Vice-president to Washington, and the second President of the United States.  McCullough carefully deconstructs the complex relationship between Adams and Jefferson.  Benjamin Rush orchestrated their reconnection after a 11 year silence.  That the entire country was of prime interest of Adams is of no doubt.  It was rivaled by his love of Abigail and his family.  This is also a love story; that between Abigail and John.  Abigail was his muse.  She wrote to him constantly during their long separations. Both Adams were great writers.  Here is what Abigail wrote to John,

“When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, 'My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.' ”

“She was particularly curious about the Virginians, wondering if, as slaveholders, they had the necessary commitment to the cause of freedom. "I have," she wrote, "sometimes been ready to think that the passions for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creature of theirs." What she felt about those in Massachusetts who owned slaves, including her own father, she did not say, but she need not have--John knew her mind on the subject. Writing to him during the First Congress, she had been unmistakably clear: "I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always seemed a most iniquitous scheme to me--[to] fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”  

And some of John's quotes,

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

“The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.”  

“Every line from you exhilarates my spirits and gives me a glow of pleasure, but your kind congratulations are solid comfort to my heart. The little strength of mind and the considerable strenght of body that I once possessed appear to be all gone, but while I breathe I shall be your friend.”  

He was a great reader and had a library second only to Jefferson.  (Adams library was donated to the Boston Public library.  Jefferson's collection was sold to be a replacement for what became the Library of Congress.)

He served his state by writing the oldest functioning written constitution in the world...that for the state of Massachusetts.

His life was filled with purpose.

His final words illustrated the depth of his love for his country:

“Adams lay peacefully, his mind clear, by all signs. Then late in the afternoon, according to several who were present in the room, he stirred and whispered clearly enough to be understood, 'Thomas Jefferson survives.' "

It is memorial to note that both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day:  July 4, 1826.

With this work, Adams now takes his place as one of the great founding fathers.