First Family (44 page)

1.
JQA to AA, 14 April 1801,
UFC
.

2.
JA to William Tudor, 20 January 1801,
AP
, reel 123; JA to William Dexter, 23 March 1801,
Works
10:580–81.

3.
AA to TBA, 23 April 1801,
UFC
; AA to WSS, 3 May 1801,
UFC
.

4.
JA to TBA, 12 July and 15 September 1801,
UFC
.

5.
See Nagel,
Descent from Glory
, 56–135, for the complicated domestic situation at Quincy. In my judgment, Nagel’s work on the Quincy years is simultaneously invaluable and unreliable, in the latter case because he seems to have a vendetta against Abigail, and because he provides no documentation for his judgments.

6.
AA to TBA, 26 April and 8 May 1803,
UFC
; a splendid summary of the legal transactions is in McCullough,
Adams
, 576.

7.
AA to TBA, 12 July 1801,
UFC
.

8.
AA to TBA, 12 June 1801,
UFC
.

9.
AA to TBA, 12 June and 5 July 1801,
UFC
; JA to Thomas McKean, 21 June 1812,
Works
10:16.

10.
AA to JQA, 22 March 1816,
AP
, reel 430.

11.
AA to TBA, 27 December 1801,
UFC
.

12.
LCA,
The Adventures of a Nobody, AP
, reel 269.

13.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 17 August 1813, in Alexander Biddle, ed.,
Old Family Letters
(Philadelphia, 1892), 420.

14.
JQA to JA, 19 November 1804,
UFC
; JA to JQA, 6 December 1804,
UFC
.

15.
DA
2:253.

16.
DA
i:xliv-xlvi.

17.
DA
3:435–36.

18.
AA to Mercy Otis Warren, 16 January 1803,
UFC
.

19.
Mercy Otis Warren,
History of the American Revolution
, 3 vols. (Boston, 1805), 3:394–95.

20.
JA to Mercy Otis Warren, 11 July, 27 July, and 3 August 1807, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., “Correspondence Between John Adams and Mercy Otis Warren,” reprinted in
Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society
4 (1878), 354, 358, 411; Mercy Otis Warren to JA, 15 August 1807, ibid., 422–23, 449.

21.
JA to Mercy Otis Warren, 27 July 1807, ibid., 354.

22.
JA to William Cunningham, 27 February 1809, [Anonymous], in
Correspondence Between the Hon. John Adams … and the Late William Cunningham, Esq
. (Boston, 1823), 93;
Works
10:310; JA to Nicholas Boylston, 3 November 1819,
AP
, reel 124.

23.
The standard biography of Rush is David F. Hawke,
Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly
(New York, 1971). The Adams-Rush correspondence is available in John A. Schutz and Douglas Adair, eds.,
The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush
(San Marino, Calif., 1966).

24.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 29 November 1812, in Schutz and Adair,
Spur of Fame
, 254–55.

25.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1806, ibid., 72–73.

26.
Benjamin Rush to JA, 4 June 1812, ibid., 233; JA to Benjamin Rush, 13 October 1810, ibid., 170; JA to Benjamin Rush, 26 March 1806, ibid., 52.

27.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 14 May 1812, 8 January 1812, ibid., 216–17, 204.

28.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1807, 31 August 1809, ibid., 97–99, 152.

29.
JA to Richard Rush, 2 May 1814,
AP
, reel 95.

30.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 23 July 1806, in Schutz and Adair,
Spur of Fame
, 61.

31.
AA to TJ, 20 May 1804,
AJ
1:268–69.

32.
TJ to AA, 14 June 1804,
AJ
1:270–71.

33.
AA to TJ, 1 July 1804,
AJ
1:271–74.

34.
TJ to AA, 22 July 1804,
AJ
1:274
^_
76, 279–80.

35.
AA to TJ, 25 October 1804,
AJ
1:280–82. The marginal note by John is printed at the end of this letter.

36.
AA to LCA, 8 December 1804,
UFC
.

37.
LCA to AA, 11 May 1806,
UFC
.

38.
AA to JQA and LCA, 29 November 1805,
UFC
.

39.
JA to JQA, 27 August 1815,
AP
, reel 122.

40.
AA to AA(2), 23 May 1809,
UFC
.

41.
AA to Caroline Amelia Smith, 2 February 1809,
UFC
; Benjamin Rush to JA, 20 September 1811,
AP
, reel 412.

42.
AA to JQA, 17 November 1811,
AP
, reel 412.

43.
AA to JQA, 17 November 1811,
AP
, reel 116.

44.
AA to JQA, 13 September, 24 September, and 22 October 1813,
AP
, reel 116.

45.
JA to Shelton Jones, 11 March 1809,
AP
, reel 118; JA to Francis Vanderkemp, 5 July 1814,
AP
, reel 116; JA to Benjamin Rush, 15 January 1813,
AP
, reel 116.

46.
JA to John Adams Smith, 15 October 1811,
UFC
.

47.
JA to Benjamin Waterhouse, 16 August 1812, in Worthington C. Ford, ed.,
Statesman and Friend: Correspondence of John Adams and Benjamin Waterhouse, 1784–1822
(Boston, 1927), 81; JA to Josiah Quincy, 9 February 1811,
Works
9:630.

48.
JA to Francis Vanderkemp, 27 December 1816,
Works
10:235.

49.
JA to Benjamin Rush, 25 December 1811, in Schutz and Adair,
Spur of Fame
, 200–202; Benjamin Rush to JA, 17 February 1812, ibid., 211; Benjamin Rush to JA, 16 October 1809, ibid., 156–57.

50.
Donald Stewart and George Clark, “Misanthrope or Humanitarian: John Adams in Retirement,”
NEQ
28 (1955), 232.

51.
Josiah Quincy,
Figures of the Past
(Boston, 1883), 79–80. It should be noted that this discussion of the Adams-Jefferson correspondence makes no pretense of being a comprehensive account. If this were a biography of John and not a book about the partnership between Abigail and John, the treatment of the Adams-Jefferson letters would be considerably expanded. See, for example, my
Founding Brothers
, 206–48;
American Sphinx
, 235–51; and
Passionate Sage
, 113–42, for fuller treatments.

52.
JA to TJ, 15 July 1813,
AJ
2:358, where the quote is from Abigail’s appended note.

53.
TJ to JA, 21 January 1812, and JA to TJ, 3 February 1812,
AJ
2:291, 298.

54.
JA to TJ, 15 July 1813,
AJ
2:358.

55.
TJ to JA, 5 July 1814, and JA to TJ, 16 July 1814,
AJ
2:430, 435.

56.
JA to TJ, 1 May 1812, and TJ to JA, 27 May 1813,
AJ
2:301, 324.

57.
TJ to JA, 11 January 1816,
AJ
2:458–61.

58.
JA to TJ, 3 February 1816,
AJ
2:458–61.

59.
The key letters are: TJ to JA, 27 June 1813; JA to TJ, 15 July 1813; and JA to TJ, 14 August 1813,
AJ
2:335–36, 358, 365.

60.
TJ to JA, 28 October 1813, and JA to TJ, 16 July 1814,
AJ
2:387–92, 437–38. The subject ignited all of John’s long-suppressed convictions about human inequality and the intractable power of elites in all societies. Virtually all his letters during the summer and fall of 1813, twenty in total, deal with this fundamental disagreement between the two patriarchs.

61.
AA to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 10 February 1814, 29 December 1811,
UFC
.

62.
While these glimpses into the day-to-day interactions of Abigail and John are partly conjecture on my part, they are based on the few shreds of testimony from visitors and offhand observations in the couple’s correspondence with each other.

63.
AA to Elizabeth Smith Shaw Peabody, 18 July 1809,
UFC
.

64.
The best biography of John Quincy is Lynn Hudson Parsons,
John Quincy Adams
(Lanham, Md., 1998). The quotation is the title for
chapter 4
, which covers his diplomatic career in St. Petersburg.

65.
JA to JQA, 13 November 1816, and 26 November 1816,
AP
, reel 123.

66.
JA to JQA, 10 August 1817,
UFC
; AA to Harriet Welsh, 18 August 1817,
AP
, reel 438;
McCullough., John Adams
, 620–21.

67.
Will of Abigail Adams, 18 January 1816,
AP
, reel 429. You could develop an interpretation of Abigail’s independence on the basis of this final statement, and Woody Holton has done so in his recent biography,
Abigail Adams
(New York, 2009), which strikes me as superb.

68.
JA to JQA, 6 July 1816,
UFC
.

69.
JA to TJ, 20 October 1818,
AJ
2:529; John’s remark is reported in Harriet Welsh to Louisa C. A. de Windt, November 1818,
AP
, reel 445.

70.
See Nagel,
Descent from Glory
, 130–33, for an excellent account of the death scene and the quotation from Louisa Catherine; JA to Francis Vanderkemp, 25 September 1819,
AP
, reel 124; JA to JQA, 10 November 1818,
UFC
.

1.
JA to Caroline de Windt, 15 March 1820,
AP
, reel 124.

2.
JA to LCA, 8 May 1820,
AP
, reel 124; JA to LCA, 29 January 1820,
AP
, reel 124.

3.
LCA to JA, 16 April 1819,
AP
, reel 124.

4.
LCA,
The Adventures of a Nobody, AP
, reel 269.

5.
JA to Peter de Windt, 15 March 1820,
AP
, reel 124; JA to Elihu Marshall, 7 March 1820,
Works
10:388–89.

6.
JA to LCA, 21 October 1820,
AP
, reel 450.

7.
JA to TJ,
AJ
2:571–72.

8.
TJ to JA,
AJ
2:600–601.

9.
JA to TJ,
AJ
2:601–2.

10.
TJ to JA,
AJ
2:613–14.

11.
JA to CFA, 3 December 1825,
AP
, reel 473.

12.
Josiah Quincy,
Figures of the Past
(Boston, 1883), 61; Richard McLanathan,
Gilbert Stuart
(New York, 1986), 187; JA to Charles Carroll, 12 July 1820,
AP
, reel 123.

13.
Quincy,
Figures of the Past
, 64–65.

14.
Ibid., 80–82.

15.
JA to LCA, 22 December 1818,
AP
, reel 123.

16.
JA to JQA, 24 December 1818,
AP
, reel 123; JA to Benjamin Rush, 27 December 1812, in Alexander Biddle, ed.,
Old Family Letters
(Philadelphia, 1892) 432.

17.
JA to JQA, 24 December 1818,
AP
, reel 123.

18.
JA to Alexander Johnson, 4 January 1823,
AP
, reel 124.

19.
JA to JQA, 24 May 1815,
AP
, reel 122.

20.
JA to TJ, 17 April 1826,
AJ
2:614.

21.
JA to TJ, 25 February 1825,
AJ
2:610.

22.
“The Diary of George Whitney,”
AP
, reel 475.

23.
John Marston to JQA, 8 July 1826,
AP
, reel 476.

24.
There has been some suspicion that the reference to Jefferson was fabricated long after the fact, because it seems so melodramatic. But the written account of two witnesses soon after John’s death confirms the remark. See Susan Boylston Adams Clark to Abigail Louise Smith Adams Johnson, 9 July 1826, A. B. Johnson Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.