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| Joined: | Sun Sep 23rd, 2007 |
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Unfortunately I have only been able to see the first 3 Adams series and hope to buy the set. With that said, however, I have been a fan of Adams for years, since reading Esther Forbes old bio years ago. I've read his and Abigail's letters and some of his diary. So let me give a couple of personal opinions:
1) I don't think the guy was as vain as people make out. First the Puritans were the only ones who self-reflected to see if they were doing God's will and thought all were sinners, so in his letters and diaries, Adams is perhaps the only pres whose mental state we have on paper. He basically wrote that Jefferson and Washington had star quality and he didn't and therefore feared he would not be remembered. Vain? Not so much as just a realistic assessment. He was also the only FF who was not wealthy--poor Abigail was home selling cideer and cloth he sent from France. He once wrote he felt as if he had dug his life out with a teaspoon.
2) The monarchy bit. In the 18th cent. in Europe Britain was seen as the protector of speech and liberties. Moreover, the consensus was that a large republic had a small chance of success. MA experienced Shay's Rebellion that was violent and large. So to propose a Constitutional monarchy in the 18th cent. was not a particularly right wing idea, especially if your goal was success not anarchy. We must look at events in the way people of the time did, not with our own sense of democratic confidence which we really only apply to ourselves these days, not to the rest of the world.
For all the great ones, you have to see them as men or women of their times. Sure there were people who were more liberal. But usually the ones on the left or right ends of spectrums do not have "the vision thing" that is, their eyes on the real prize: success and survival for our republic. It's really been the conservatives like Adams and Lincoln who recognized trade offs that gave them the ability to achieve their goals.
CKL