sold John Adams Comments on the Legacy of George Washington

To coordinate American military efforts in the new war, Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. Massachusetts delegate John Adams nominated George Washington of Virginia to be commander-in-chief, believing that appointing a southerner to lead what was, at this stage, primarily an army of northerners would help unite the colonies. Washington reluctantly accepted, declaring "with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the Command I [am] honored with.”

Thus began the relationship between Adams, the originator and engine behind the movement for American independence, and Washington, the leader who would make that concept a reality. It continued when Adams, en route from his farm in Braintree, Massachusetts to take his seat in Congress in early 1776, detoured to consult with Washington, then commander of American forces resisting the British in Boston. In Philadelphia, Adams emerged as a leader, pushing delegates to declare a permanent split from Britain. "I am as fond of reconciliation as any man," he told Congress. "But the cancer is too far spread to be cured by anything short of cutting it out." He served on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence and also as president of the Board of War. In that capacity, he considered a wide range of military matters and frequently dealt with correspondence received from the commander in chief. Adams supported Washington in the conduct of the war in all its aspects, noting with satisfaction in his journal that the Board had found “General Washington, in refusing to receive a Letter, said to be sent from Lord Howe, addressed to George Washington Esqr., acted with a Dignity becoming his Station; and therefore the Congress do highly approve the same…” At the end of 1777, Adams was ordered to Europe by Congress, first serving in France to promote a hoped-for alliance and then in the Netherlands to secure much-needed loans. After the war ended, he became the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Adams remained overseas until June 1788, and there observed for the first time how much credit Washington was receiving for the victory.

Less than a year after returning to America, Adams was elected Vice President and began his term in April 1789. He would serve for eight years in that office, all of them under President Washington, to whom he generally deferred as a matter of course. In part this was because of his view of the limited constitutional role of his office, but it was also, as historian Page Smith explained, that Adams feared that otherwise he would become a "scapegoat for all of Washington’s unpopular decisions." Although he relied primarily on his cabinet for advice, Washington did consult with Adams on occasion. One issue for which the President sought his advice was American neutrality at the start of the Napoleonic Wars in 1793. On a personal level, Adams enjoyed a cordial if somewhat restrained relationship with Washington. The two men, according to Adams biographer John Ferling, "jointly executed many more of the executive branch’s ceremonial undertakings than would be likely for a contemporary president and vice-president." Washington extended an invitation to the Vice President to accompany him on his fall 1789 tour of New England, an invitation Adams declined. The Washingtons routinely extended their hospitality to John, and to Abigail when she was in the capital, and Adams frequently accompanied the President to the theater. During Washington’s lifetime, Adams appeared to hold the President in high personal esteem.

By the time of his death, Washington had taken on the popular image of a symbol, and afterwards he altogether ceased being a flesh and blood man with faults in addition to his good qualities and became an American icon. People, businesses and causes sought to associate themselves with him: Parson Weems wrote a fantasy-filled, worshipful biography that became a best seller; paintings, prints, sculptures and artworks of all kinds depicting Washington were everywhere; store and inn signs advertised his name and picture; and stoves, china and even buttons bore his face to help them catch public attention. In fact, shortly after Adams died, the Whig Party, composed mainly of anti-slavery, pro-industrialization northerners began using the image of the southern slave-holding agriculturialist Washington as its symbol. So he was virtually deified, while Adams, who had conceived of independence and helped place Washington in a position of command, watched all of this unfold.

Adams had long felt his role and that of other prime actors of the Revolution was underappreciated and that undue praise was tendered to George Washington, and even less justifiably, to Benjamin Franklin, at the expense of all the others. When Adams served the American cause in Europe along with Franklin, he observed the older man and developed a distaste for him that was compounded by the jealousy the less flamboyant Adams felt for the worldly Philadelphian who was so fawned-on in Paris. Adams found it difficult to hide his true feelings about a person or subject and seldom hesitated to make known his views, and in a famous letter to Benjamin Rush critical of Franklin (and containing an allusion to Washington), Adams confided "The history of our revolution will be one continued lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin’s electrical rod smote the earth and out sprang General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod – and henceforward these two conducted all the policy, negotiations, legislatures, and war."

But what did Adams specifically think about Washington and his legacy? He was much more circumspect, even

hesitant, about characterizing this man than he was about others, and we have turned up just a few inconclusive if suggestive statements. Seeking some credit himself, Adams wrote, “Instead of adoring a Washington, mankind should applaud the nation which educated him.” Another time, offering faint praise, he said, "If he [Washington] was not the greatest president, he was the greatest actor of the presidency that we have ever had." He also somewhat jealously observed that, lacking the requisite education, Washington was too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station. Vivid characterizations are, however, quite uncommon.

Letter Signed, Quincy, Mass., March 8, 1823, to Philadelphia artist James Perpignan, who had sent Adams a miniature painting of Washington. This small gift served to pull back the veil and cause Adams to reveal his fascinating mixture of positive and negative emotions about the Washington legacy. “I have received your letter of the 26th of last month and I thank you for your infinitesimal miniature of President Washington. I cannot see it even with the help of a Solar microscope and should not be able to distinguish the features on the figure clearly enough to know whether it is a fair representation of the hero, but the young eyes of my family and friends say that it is as good a likeness of him as they have seen from any pencil or chisel. I am always pleased to see correct representations of that great man. The more they are multiplied and the wider they are scattered and diffused the better, but I totally despise the miserable catchpenny tricks by which he is represented in situations whence he never stood and as the author of measures in which he had nothing to do, and which he did not even approve. This is a kind of rapine of fame confounding all distinctions between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice, subversive in short of all political morality.”

Adams thus starts by complimenting Washington as a hero and great man, acknowledging the importance of his memory and his value as an inspirational figure. He further says that the more “correct representations” of him are disseminated the better (we read “correct representations” to refer broadly to all kinds of characterizations of Washington). However, he takes strong exception to the adulation Washington receives, calling it miserable, cheap (catchpenny) and deceitful for him to be “…represented in situations when he never stood and as the author of measures in which he had nothing to do, and which he did not even approve…” This constitutes his answer and his condemnation of the use and misuse of Washington by the myriad of men like Parson Weems and the Whig Party leaders, who would destroy the actual man Washington to make him a symbol, a god.

Adams refers to what Washington’s reputation had become as “a kind of rapine of fame confounding all distinctions between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice, subversive in short of all political morality.” The term “rapine” means “the act of despoiling a country in warfare,” thus a devastation of the terrain that leaves nothing for others (as Sherman did in Georgia). So Adams is saying that the hero-worship of Washington has not only left a false appreciation of the first president, but has obliterated responsible discourse and deprived others (such as himself) of the credit they deserved. These are pretty strong words, and in their vehemence we can see plainly the anger, jealousy and even torment of Adams that the whole effort of the Revolution seemed to have been reduced to excessive reverence for one man. The body of the letter is in the hand of Adams’ granddaughter, Susanna Boylston Adams. Auction records fail to disclose any other letter of Adams on the subject of Washington’s legacy having been offered in at least 30 years.