With his presidency squeezed between those of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, John Adams often does not receive his due as a contributor to the birth of American freedom.
It was Adams who, in 1765, published a condemnation of the Stamp Act, giving meaning to the then-strange notion of colonial rights. It was Adams who successfully defended the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial, showing that American justice could be fair. It was Adams who institutionalized the concept of an independent judiciary when he included it in the Massachusetts constitution that he drafted in 1779. And it was Adams who had the good sense and good fortune to marry Abigail Smith.
Historian David McCullough won a Pulitzer while reinvigorating Adams' image in his 2001 biography, later turned into a successful HBO miniseries. Understanding Adams is impossible, however, without understanding his marriage. Joseph J. Ellis, another Pulitzer winner who has written about Adams in other books, dips into the rich pool of the couple's letters to each other - about 1,200 of them - to show how inextricably linked the Adams presidency and the Adams marriage were.
As the American republic was taking shape, Ellis observes, John and Abigail "left a written record of all the twitches, traumas, throbbing, and tribulations along the way." These letters, Ellis writes, were often "self-conscious performances," and their writers seemed conscious that they were writing for history, not just for themselves, and that others would sooner or later read their work.
From these letters it is clear, Ellis notes, that Abigail "was simultaneously a dutiful wife and an intellectual equal," that she was "the center who would always hold." She understood the importance of their letters: "My pen is always freer than my tongue, for I have written many things to you that I suppose I never would have talked."
John, brilliant and irascible, needed Abigail's steadying influence. When he advocated a strong executive, Abigail urged him to moderate his position, warning him that he would be thought a monarchist. Sometimes, however, Abigail's own anger came to the fore, and she embraced John's bad decision. Such was the case with John's approval of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which remain a blot on the Adams presidency.
Emerging from Ellis' account is recognition that a politician is a human being, and that his or her family is important. Politics, however, is not always conducive to pleasant family life. The Adamses' daughter Nabby once wrote, "The happiness of our family seems ever to have been so interwoven with the politics of our country as to be in a great degree dependent upon them."
Ellis convincingly makes the case that Adams, always in George Washington's shadow, has been underrated as a president. He determinedly fought off the threat posed by Alexander Hamilton's imperial dreams and skillfully avoided a war with France that almost certainly would have been disastrous for the United States. By highlighting how Adams thought about and dealt with these matters - with Abigail always a player - Ellis enables his readers to make fresh judgments about the second president's tenure.
After one term in office, Adams lost the presidency to Jefferson and returned with genuine happiness to Massachusetts. There he and Abigail found far more to enjoy in each other's company than they had found in public life.
Philip Seib is a professor and director of the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.
Abigail & John Adams
Joseph J. Ellis