0:00

You're listening to an airwave

0:02

media podcast. Then Franklin's World

0:04

is a production of Colonial

0:06

Williamsburg Innovation Studios. Adams had

0:09

been quite meticulous in putting out

0:11

his feelers. He had this incredible

0:13

web of informants across the European

0:15

continent and what they were reporting

0:18

back to him is that France had

0:20

expected that it could really bully the

0:23

United States, that it was much more

0:25

divided internally and would be a pushover

0:27

for anything that France had asked for.

0:29

And when instead,

0:31

the United States

0:34

responded with strength,

0:37

with outrage, with

0:39

these defensive measures,

0:42

France had really

0:44

done a 180, they

0:46

actually didn't want war,

0:49

and Adams was very

0:51

much right about that assumption. The

0:53

podcast dedicated to helping you learn

0:55

more about how the people and

0:57

events of our early American past

0:59

have shaped the present-day world we

1:01

live in. And I'm your host,

1:04

Liz Kovart. Did you know that John

1:06

Adams, not George Washington, solidified the

1:08

precedence of the executive branch

1:10

and the presidency of the

1:12

United States? Lindsay Travinsky, an award-winning

1:14

presidential historian and the executive

1:17

director of the George Washington

1:19

Presidential Library, has just written

1:21

a book about this very topic. It's called

1:23

Making the Presidency. John Adams and

1:26

the precedence that forged the Republic.

1:28

Lindsay joins us today so that

1:30

we can investigate the presidency of the

1:32

United States' second president, John Adams.

1:34

Now during our investigation, Lindsay

1:36

reveals, precedence that George Washington set

1:39

for the presidency, that John Adams

1:41

helped solidify for the future, the

1:43

political and international crises that John

1:45

Adams inherited, including tensions with Great

1:48

Britain and France, and a very

1:50

vicious discord between the Federalist

1:52

and Democratic Republican parties. And...

1:54

How John Adams navigated these crises

1:57

to secure peace with France and

1:59

the peaceful trans- of power between

2:01

political parties in the United States.

2:04

But first, if you haven't already,

2:06

please come join us in the

2:08

Ben Franklin's World Listener community on

2:10

Facebook. The community is a fun

2:13

place to check in about history-related

2:15

news, and it's also a place

2:17

where other listeners share questions about

2:19

history, details about the books that

2:22

they're reading or the historic sites

2:24

that they're visiting, and they're often

2:26

pictures of those historic sites. And

2:29

we even have people researching their

2:31

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2:33

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2:35

they lived in. So if you

2:38

enjoy talking about history, doing some

2:40

research, please come join us. The

2:42

community is free to join, visit

2:45

Ben Franklin's world.com/Facebook. That's Ben Franklin's

2:47

world.com/Facebook. Okay, are you ready to

2:49

investigate the presidency of John Adams?

2:51

Let's go meet our guest historian.

3:04

Joining us is a presidential historian and

3:07

the executive director of the George Washington

3:09

Presidential Library. She's an award-winning historian who

3:11

regularly writes for publications like the Wall

3:14

Street Journal, Ms. Magazine, The Daily

3:16

Beast, Time, and The Washington Post. You

3:18

may remember our guest from episode 279.

3:20

When we discussed her first book, The

3:23

Cabinet, George Washington, and the creation of

3:25

an American institution. Today she joins

3:27

us to discuss a sequel to that

3:29

book, Making the Presidency. John Adams and

3:32

the Presidents that forged the Republic. Welcome

3:34

back to Ben Franklin's world, Lindsay

3:36

Travinsky. Thank you so much for having

3:38

me back. So Lindsay, when we left

3:41

our last conversation in episode 279, George

3:43

Washington has successfully created the cabinet

3:45

and he set a lot of precedence

3:48

for executive power and how the cabinet

3:50

and the executive department as a whole

3:52

should work together. And in your new

3:55

book, Making the Presidency, you discuss

3:57

how it was really up to John...

3:59

Adams, not George

4:01

Washington, to solidify Washington's

4:03

precedents in the executive branch. So

4:06

would you tell us about the work that

4:08

lay ahead of John Adams as he

4:10

became the second president of the United States

4:12

in March 1797? What

4:14

precedents did John Adams have to set for

4:16

the presidency in the executive branch so

4:18

that it could actually work together? Absolutely.

4:21

Thank you so much again for having

4:23

me. I'm really excited to talk

4:26

about John Adams. I think that he

4:28

is a very much an underappreciated

4:30

figure in maybe not in the revolutionary

4:32

period, but certainly in the early

4:34

republic period. And that's largely because when

4:36

we talk about precedents, when we

4:38

talk about the norms and customs that

4:40

continue to really shape the presidency

4:43

today, they require repetition in order to

4:45

actually become a thing. So Washington

4:47

established, I think, a quite

4:49

productive and effective model for what

4:51

the presidency could be, but those

4:53

models only take on power if

4:55

someone decides to repeat them and

4:57

start to teach the people both

5:00

around him and also American citizens

5:02

to respect them and to expect

5:04

that they will be upheld. And

5:06

that is something in a republic

5:08

where most of our systems and

5:10

our customs are not enforced by

5:12

military might, takes a long time

5:15

to start to establish that sort

5:17

of foundational piece of what it

5:19

means to be a republic. So

5:22

so much of the presidency is

5:24

really based on this. And so, for

5:26

example, John Adams, some of the

5:28

big questions that were facing him when

5:30

he came into office were, would

5:32

the presidency actually work for someone else?

5:34

Because it had enormous discretion, enormous

5:36

authority, and people weren't sure they could

5:39

trust somebody else with it. They

5:41

weren't sure that other institutions or

5:43

the other branches of government would

5:45

work with the presidency if someone

5:47

else was in that office, or

5:49

even how foreign nations might respond

5:51

to the United States with someone

5:53

else at the helm. Yeah,

5:55

it did seem like one of the big things that

5:57

John Adams had to figure out was How

6:00

does he run the executive branch

6:02

without Washington's oversized personality? A

6:04

personality that people both respected

6:06

and were afraid of? That's exactly

6:08

right. So much of Washington's power and

6:11

so many of the decisions he made

6:13

were unchecked or unquestioned because he was

6:15

the one making them. Now, often I

6:17

think they were actually the right decision.

6:20

He was quite deliberative and careful about

6:22

his decision-making process and included a lot

6:24

of people in the advisory piece of

6:26

that. But he very rarely received pushback

6:28

because of who he was. That was

6:31

not going to be the case with

6:33

John Adams, both because the political culture

6:35

and the system had shifted

6:37

significantly. The first early political parties

6:39

were really coming into their

6:41

own, but also just because he didn't

6:44

enjoy that unparalleled stature among the

6:46

American people or even in his

6:48

own party. Now when we read

6:50

your book Making the Presidency, it

6:52

seems like George Washington was rather

6:54

excited. to retire and to hand everything off

6:56

to the next guy. But it meant that

6:58

John Adams came to be second president during

7:01

a time that not only had domestic

7:03

turmoil, but a lot of international

7:05

turmoil, which was part of the reason

7:07

why George Washington was so excited to

7:09

retire. So would you tell us what

7:11

was going on within the United States

7:13

in terms of its politics and what

7:15

was happening in the Atlantic world that

7:18

John Adams has to navigate during his

7:20

presidency? That's exactly right. Washington was

7:22

actually quite excited to leave the presidency.

7:24

He had been in public service for

7:26

a very long time. He hadn't even

7:29

wanted to run for the second term.

7:31

He'd kind of gotten bullied into it

7:33

by a lot of people around him. And

7:35

he left at a time that he had

7:38

sort of established enough of the foundation for

7:40

the presidency that he could hand it to

7:42

someone else, but also the nation had

7:44

existed for long enough that some of

7:46

the early problems were beginning to emerge.

7:48

This is fairly similar to if you build

7:50

a house and its new construction. After about

7:52

15 to 20 years, your appliances start to

7:55

fail. Maybe you need to have your roof

7:57

checked. This is true with the nation, and

7:59

that was true. both domestically and internationally.

8:01

In particular, the relationship with France

8:03

and Great Britain was quite fraught

8:05

because the United States had signed

8:07

a new treaty with Great Britain

8:09

called the J Treaty towards the

8:11

end of Washington's presidency. It helped

8:13

resolve some of the lingering tensions

8:15

from the Revolutionary War, though not

8:17

all, but it made. France really

8:19

angry because it felt like it

8:22

undermined their quote most favorite nation's

8:24

status in terms of the alliance

8:26

between France and the United States.

8:28

And so they started to seize

8:30

American ships, imprison American sailors, and

8:32

sell off the goods and keep

8:34

the profit for themselves, which obviously

8:36

was quite unpopular with Americans. They

8:38

wanted their ships and their family

8:40

members and their stuff back. So

8:42

both of these nations were really

8:44

sort of pressing on the United

8:47

States and were challenging it as

8:49

an independent nation. Domestically, there were

8:51

a lot of tensions that I

8:53

think will sound similar today. There

8:55

were a series of rolling pandemics,

8:57

increased immigration, questions about citizenship and

8:59

who belonged, questions about free speech,

9:01

and the potential for sedition, political

9:03

violence. There were contested elections for

9:05

an interference in elections. These were

9:07

just some of the things that

9:09

Adams was facing. We are going

9:11

to tackle those international and domestic

9:14

quagmires, those problems that Adams has

9:16

to deal with throughout his presidency.

9:18

But before we dive into those

9:20

topics, let's talk about the cabinet.

9:22

Lindsay, in your first book, the

9:24

cabinet, you talk about how important

9:26

the cabinet was as both an

9:28

advisory body to the president and

9:30

as the workhorse of the executive

9:32

branch. He also discussed how it

9:34

was the work of the cabinet

9:36

secretaries to keep the departments of

9:38

government functioning, which is why George

9:41

Washington took great care in constructing

9:43

his cabinet, finding the right people,

9:45

and putting them into these jobs

9:47

so that they could build a

9:49

new nation together. Would you remind

9:51

us about the work that the

9:53

cabinet does, the precedence that Washington

9:55

set for the cabinet, and then

9:57

how John Adams went about establishing

9:59

his... own cabinet because it seems

10:01

like Adams' decision about how he

10:03

went about establishing this cabinet is

10:05

something that he's going to have to

10:08

contend with for the rest of his

10:10

presidency. So the Constitution mentions department secretaries,

10:12

but it doesn't say anything else.

10:14

And it left it up to

10:16

Congress to figure out how many

10:18

there would be, what types of

10:20

departments and any other particular regulations

10:23

or rules. And the first federal

10:25

Congress in the summer of 1789...

10:27

created three departments, state war and

10:29

treasury, and a position of attorney general,

10:31

which really served as a constitutional

10:33

advisor. So there was an expectation from

10:36

the very beginning that these individuals

10:38

would manage those departments, and most

10:40

of the responsibilities of the federal

10:42

government fell under those departments. So

10:44

things like the consoles that were

10:47

stationed around the globe that would

10:49

help Americans if they got into

10:51

trouble, those reported back to the

10:53

state department. the tax officials that

10:55

were stationed at different ports, especially

10:58

on the Atlantic seaboard, those all

11:00

reported back to the Treasury Department.

11:02

So they had very important managerial

11:05

responsibilities. They also, in the Constitution, it

11:07

said that they can provide written advice

11:09

to the president. And so there was

11:12

an understanding that these individuals would also

11:14

play some sort of advisory body when

11:16

big questions came up that the president

11:18

needed support on. And Washington's

11:20

innovation was recognizing that written

11:23

advice. It's inefficient today, but imagine

11:25

how inefficient it is when you're

11:27

talking about parchment and quill. So he

11:29

realized that that was really not going to

11:31

work, but also that a lot of the

11:34

really tricky problems that he was facing and

11:36

his successors were facing required the input of

11:38

multiple people because they didn't have easy

11:40

answers. And so you needed a lot

11:43

of different perspectives, and they often touched

11:45

on the work of a lot of

11:47

different departments. And so... Two and a

11:49

half years into his administration on November

11:52

26th, 1791, he convened his first cabinet

11:54

meeting where he brought all of the

11:56

secretaries together and he did so roughly

11:58

91 times over the course of

12:00

the rest of his presidency. Usually

12:02

it was either when there was a

12:04

precedent setting issue, a question about

12:06

the Constitution or an international crisis or

12:08

a domestic crisis. And

12:10

he established a couple of really

12:13

important precedents for his successors. First,

12:16

the cabinet is designed to work

12:18

as the president wants it. So

12:20

there are no external regulations that

12:22

determine how regularly the cabinet has

12:24

to meet or whether or not

12:26

the president even needs to take

12:28

their advice. So sometimes Washington met

12:30

with the cabinet all the time. Sometimes

12:32

he met with them once every six

12:34

months, just dependent on what he wanted.

12:37

Second, that the cabinet

12:39

secretaries didn't have an institutional right

12:41

to be a part of the

12:43

decision -making process. So they could give

12:45

their advice. They could ask to

12:47

be in the room, but they

12:49

couldn't demand it. That precedent

12:51

in particular actually turned out

12:53

to be much more flexible or

12:55

perhaps needed additional backing up

12:57

put by the people that followed

12:59

because Washington's assertion of his

13:01

decision -making was unchecked by his

13:03

cabinet secretaries. And that was not

13:06

necessarily true for those that followed. So

13:08

John Adams, when he came into office,

13:10

he had every expectation that he would

13:12

have a cabinet because Washington had created

13:14

it. But there was no

13:17

model of the secretaries giving their resignation,

13:19

sort of a pro -former resignation

13:21

at the end of the administration.

13:23

There was no other type of

13:25

cabinet that he could look to

13:27

as an example. And so he

13:29

decided to keep Washington secretaries thinking

13:31

that if there had been a problem, Washington would have gotten

13:33

rid of them. He had no reason

13:35

not to trust them. And he knew how

13:37

hard it had been for Washington to

13:39

find replacements when people left office. And he

13:41

figured, well, if Washington had trouble, then

13:43

he would as well. You also noted

13:45

in making the presidency that part

13:48

of the trouble Washington had filling his

13:50

second cabinet was that cabinet positions

13:52

were not well -paid positions. Plus,

13:55

secretaries had to live in Philadelphia or

13:57

their nation's capital, and people

13:59

just didn't want to... leave their families for months on

14:01

it. That's right. They really didn't have

14:03

the prestige that we associate with cabinet

14:05

positions today and they were very onerous.

14:08

It's very hard work. And as you

14:10

said, the travel was really hard. And

14:12

so it was difficult to go back

14:14

and forth and often uncomfortable and sometimes

14:16

even unsafe. People typically accepted the position

14:18

either if they were very close to

14:20

the president and had a personal loyalty,

14:22

if they already lived in Philadelphia, or

14:24

if they desperately needed the money. Otherwise,

14:26

they typically said no. Another thing I

14:29

found very curious when I read your

14:31

book, Making the Presidency, is that George

14:33

Washington spent a lot of time and

14:35

was thoughtful about the precedence he set,

14:37

but he didn't take any time to

14:39

clue John Adams into what these precedents

14:41

were, how they worked, and he never

14:43

invited John Adams to a cabinet meeting,

14:45

even as he was the vice president.

14:48

So John Adams never saw the cabinet

14:50

at work, and he never saw George

14:52

Washington and his cabinet secretaries and his

14:54

cabinet secretaries. interact and assist each other.

14:56

So he didn't have any frame of

14:58

mind for how the cabinet was supposed

15:00

to work. And I found this really

15:02

curious because George Washington knew that John

15:04

Adams was going to be his successor.

15:06

He spent a lot of time thinking

15:09

about his legacy and yet Washington still

15:11

didn't invite John Adams for a chat

15:13

about how everything worked and about the

15:15

position he'd be inheriting. That's right. This

15:17

is an area where I think Washington

15:19

could have done better. Sometimes he made

15:21

really exquisite leadership decisions and other times

15:23

I think he fell a little short

15:25

just like everyone does and this is

15:27

one of those spots. It's hard to

15:30

know exactly why because he didn't tell

15:32

us his thinking but I think it's

15:34

some combination of three factors. One, as

15:36

we talked about he was tired and

15:38

he wanted to go home. So sort

15:40

of anything that delayed that process he

15:42

was not going to be pleased about.

15:44

The second factor was that he perhaps

15:46

felt that he needed to be a

15:49

little bit more reserved in a loop

15:51

because it would be inappropriate for him

15:53

to interfere or to tell Adams how

15:55

to do his job. Sort of what

15:57

we might think of as like a

15:59

small... our Republican reserve.

16:02

And I think that is fitting with

16:04

his personality. He often didn't tell other

16:06

people how to be leaders. So

16:08

that makes sense to me. I think

16:10

the third factor is he didn't

16:12

really trust John Adams political judgment

16:14

and they weren't very close. So

16:17

instead, he asked his current cabinet

16:19

secretaries to stay on as a

16:21

way to ensure that his policies

16:23

were preserved and continued without really

16:25

having to talk to Adams, which

16:28

is a shame because I think if

16:30

they had had more conversations, they would

16:32

have realized actually how aligned they were

16:34

on most issues. And it would have

16:37

been extraordinarily helpful for Adams to have

16:39

a better understanding about how this office

16:41

work. So John Adams made

16:43

the decision to keep George Washington's second cabinet

16:45

because it would have been hard for him

16:47

to fill the positions. George Washington had a hard

16:49

time filling these positions. Plus, George

16:51

Washington picked these men. So the logic

16:53

must carry that they were qualified

16:56

men. What kind of

16:58

relationship was John Adams able to establish

17:00

with these men? These were

17:02

George Washington's men. Were they going to be

17:04

loyal to Adams? Was Adams going to be

17:06

able to ask for the advice that George

17:08

Washington had asked them for? What

17:10

were the dynamics that Adams was

17:13

walking into by keeping George

17:15

Washington's cabinet in place? Well,

17:18

initially, I think he thought that the

17:20

relationship was fine. He believed that they

17:22

were men of honor and that they

17:24

would be loyal to the office of

17:26

the presidency. I think that is

17:28

also our expectation generally today, and

17:30

I think that expectation holds more true

17:32

in the 21st century when we've

17:34

had centuries of building up the prestige

17:36

of the office of the presidency. At

17:39

the time, it didn't exist in

17:41

the same way. And so most of

17:43

the secretaries were actually loyal

17:45

to Alexander Hamilton first, George Washington

17:47

second, and then John Adams

17:49

far down on the list. Initially,

17:52

that relationship was perfectly cordial, and

17:54

Adams did get advice from them. Oftentimes,

17:58

he was getting advice

18:00

from them that they had gotten

18:02

from Alexander Hamilton, and sometimes that worked when

18:04

Hamilton and Adams were actually on the same

18:06

page without knowing it. But that relationship

18:09

quickly began to sour when they had

18:11

differing opinions, and the secretaries believed that

18:13

they were smarter and they knew better

18:15

and tried to assert their will over

18:17

the president. So there is this

18:20

intermedler unknown to Adams and his cabinet.

18:22

Let's see how this dynamic played out

18:24

during Adams' presidency. John Adams

18:26

entered office believing that the best

18:29

course of action for the United States

18:31

was to follow George Washington's

18:33

policy of neutrality towards both

18:35

Great Britain and France in

18:37

1797. Lindsay, could we talk about why

18:39

John Adams felt that this was an

18:42

important priority issue? Why was the threat

18:44

of war with France such a big issue

18:46

for the United States? Why was war

18:48

something to be avoided? It's really important

18:50

that we don't confuse our position

18:52

as the United States now with

18:55

our position of the United States

18:57

in the 18th century because we

18:59

were just a tiny little baby

19:01

nation at that point. We didn't

19:03

create a naval department until 1798

19:05

and the army when Adams came

19:07

into office was about 2,500 men.

19:09

So our ability to fight a war against

19:11

France, even if France was very distracted

19:13

and had a lot of other things

19:16

going on, was always going to be

19:18

in question. And at this point, this

19:20

is the age of Napoleon. So you just

19:22

don't know how war is going to

19:24

go when Napoleon is involved. So Adams,

19:26

from the very beginning, recognized that

19:29

war is always unpredictable and always

19:31

fatal to someone or to something.

19:34

But it also wasn't in America's

19:36

best economic interest because the

19:38

United States did a very

19:40

brisk trade, especially between New

19:42

England and the Caribbean. selling

19:45

food, selling other sorts of supplies

19:47

that the French colonies needed in

19:49

order to survive. So it was

19:51

much better for that relationship to

19:53

be a peaceful one. And he

19:55

was eager to preserve U.S. trade,

19:58

eager to preserve America's ability. to

20:00

participate in the global community, this

20:02

should not be confused with an

20:04

isolationist perspective, because that was not

20:06

what he was saying at all.

20:08

But it was really important for

20:10

him to try and find that

20:12

middle ground. And a lot of

20:15

people supported that position, including a

20:17

lot of Democratic Republicans, but a

20:19

lot of archfederal disagreed with it

20:21

because war footing had been very

20:23

good for their party politically. And

20:25

the new expanded US Army Congress

20:27

had expanded that to about 50,000

20:30

people. was basically a spoil system

20:32

for the Federalist Party. And so

20:34

they were loath to give up

20:36

those types of opportunities. And we

20:38

should remind ourselves that John Adams

20:40

is actually a very skilled diplomat,

20:42

that he wasn't just making these

20:45

decisions of neutrality to follow in

20:47

Washington's footsteps, but that he actually

20:49

had a lot of experience in

20:51

foreign policy by 1797. He was

20:53

probably the most experienced diplomat that

20:55

the United States had at the

20:57

time that he came into the

20:59

office of the presidency. he had

21:02

served in France twice, he had

21:04

served in London, and he had

21:06

served at the Hague. And in

21:08

doing so, he had had a

21:10

lot of different types of experiences

21:12

signing trade negotiations, getting loans from

21:14

the Dutch for our Revolutionary War

21:17

effort, signing post-war agreements with places

21:19

like the United Kingdom, and that

21:21

experience gave him a very good

21:23

understanding of how European nations worked

21:25

and what their motivations were. And

21:27

this was something that a lot

21:29

of other Americans missed, which was

21:31

that European nations did not give

21:34

a fig about what happened to

21:36

the United States, unless it affected

21:38

their bottom dollar. All they cared

21:40

about were their interests and their

21:42

own national concerns, as frankly, probably

21:44

rightly so, all nations do that.

21:46

But a lot of Americans thought

21:49

that Europeans cared a lot more

21:51

about the United States than they

21:53

did. And so that very rational,

21:55

very realistic perspective. was hard earned

21:57

by John Adams and was very

21:59

for his time in office. Once

22:01

John Adams chose diplomacy with

22:04

France as the path for the

22:06

United States, he dispatched a peace

22:08

delegation. Would you tell us about this

22:10

delegation and why Adams sent

22:12

a delegation and not just

22:14

the single ambassador and how their

22:16

peace negotiation went with France?

22:19

So Adams sent a three-person commission

22:21

fairly early on in his presidency

22:23

to France to try and negotiate

22:26

a new arrangement to resolve a

22:28

lot of these tensions. and he

22:31

had selected the commission quite carefully

22:33

to ensure that there were members

22:35

from multiple different states and multiple

22:38

different perspectives. The problem was

22:40

twofold. One, those delegates arrived

22:42

in France and they were

22:44

met with a series of

22:46

unofficial representatives, which John Marshall

22:48

in his descriptions of these

22:50

conversations called Agent X, Agent

22:52

Y, and Agency. And the Americans

22:54

made the mistake of starting

22:56

conversations with these unofficial representatives

22:58

before they were ever recognized

23:01

as American ministers in France.

23:03

So even if they had

23:05

gotten concessions, it wouldn't have

23:07

been an official agreement because

23:09

these people didn't actually have

23:11

an official position with the French

23:13

government. The second was the reality

23:16

of what it meant to do

23:18

diplomacy in the 18th century. At best,

23:20

it took about four weeks to get

23:22

from Philadelphia. to the coast of France.

23:25

So at best, it's going to take

23:27

two months for a letter to go

23:29

from Philadelphia, arrive in France, have them

23:31

respond, and then have it come back.

23:34

In reality, if the weather

23:36

was poor, if one of the

23:38

ships miscarried, it could take up

23:40

to six months to hear from

23:42

someone across the globe. And so

23:44

if something came up, if new

23:46

conditions emerged in France, if they

23:48

had follow-up questions, they couldn't act

23:50

quickly because They couldn't get information

23:52

quickly. So Adams had to really

23:55

trust that when he sent people

23:57

across the globe, they would follow

23:59

his instructions. but he couldn't be sure

24:01

of it and it caused I think

24:03

a great deal of anxiety waiting and

24:05

waiting and waiting and waiting trying to

24:08

find out what had happened. Plus, the

24:10

unofficial delegates also requested bribes from Adams'

24:12

delegation, which also seemed to throw a

24:14

big monkey wrench into his plans for

24:16

diplomacy. Yes, so these unofficial representatives actually

24:19

asked for a couple of things. They

24:21

wanted bribes for themselves first. They wanted

24:23

the loans from the United States that

24:25

they could use in their war against

24:27

Great Britain. And they wanted a series

24:30

of embarrassing apologies about speeches that the

24:32

president had made, which for the purpose

24:34

of sort of national honor was not

24:36

going to happen. So the American ministers,

24:38

who were John Marshall, Charles Coatesworth, Pinckney,

24:40

and Elbridge Gary, kind of disagreed over

24:43

how to interpret these requests, but they

24:45

all agreed that bribes could not happen

24:47

and they were not going to make

24:49

the apologies. Eventually, they were there for

24:51

over six months and they met with

24:54

the French representatives regularly. and eventually they

24:56

were forced from the country because they

24:58

would not concede to these conditions. And

25:00

then when reports of that treatment came

25:02

back to the United States, it became

25:05

known as the XYZ affair for those

25:07

three agents. And Americans were outraged because

25:09

they felt like the treatment was very

25:11

much an insult to national honor and

25:13

to their national sovereignty and was not

25:16

quite an active war, but was pretty

25:18

close. How did John Adams respond to

25:20

these reports and then... the official news

25:22

when the delegates came home to say

25:24

yes this is exactly what happened we

25:27

were asked for bribes and there really

25:29

doesn't seem to be a chance for

25:31

peace right now when he first got

25:33

the reports he kind of was like

25:35

scribbling in the margins calling out the

25:37

areas where they had made rookie mistakes

25:40

and i think he would have handled

25:42

things quite differently and so there was

25:44

initially some frustration there but there was

25:46

a recognition that at that point diplomacy

25:48

was not necessarily possible although interestingly the

25:51

envoys once they were turned They did

25:53

say that while peace didn't seem possible

25:55

that France didn't seem

25:57

to necessarily want

25:59

war either, which was

26:02

a very important

26:04

distinction. Adams responded by encouraging

26:06

Congress to pass a series of

26:08

defensive measures, so not declaring war,

26:10

but doing things like boosting coastal

26:12

defenses, expanding the navy. He did

26:14

not want the huge army that

26:16

Congress ended up creating. But as

26:18

a good New Englander, he understood

26:20

the importance of the navy, both

26:23

for national defense, but also for

26:25

protecting US trade. So he felt

26:27

like that would be a very

26:29

good investment. So the

26:31

peace commissioners come home, the United

26:33

States starts to prepare for war by

26:35

increasing its army and navy. And

26:37

John Adams recognized that he really needs

26:39

to figure out a solution for this

26:41

diplomatic impasse because he still really wants to

26:44

chart a course for neutrality. But meanwhile,

26:46

the American people are enraged about how

26:48

the French treated the American

26:50

peace delegation. How did

26:52

Adams' cabinet secretaries

26:54

react to this failed peace negotiation? They

26:57

were a little bit split. Some initially

26:59

wanted to take cautious action, do the

27:01

same sort of defensive measures, but it

27:03

took a while for the envoys to

27:06

make their way out of France and

27:08

to make their way back to the

27:10

United States. And some members in

27:12

the cabinet were quite concerned that if

27:14

the US declared war right away, then the

27:16

envoys would be captured or imprisoned or

27:18

assassinated. And so they wanted to kind of

27:20

wait to see what happened with their

27:22

fellow Americans. Others like Secretary

27:25

of State Timothy Pickering was immediately

27:27

gung -ho for war and tried

27:29

to whip votes in Congress for

27:31

a war declaration. Yeah. Would

27:34

you tell us more about Timothy Pickering? Because

27:36

he seems to be a leader of this group

27:38

called the Arch Federalists. And Pickering also

27:40

seems to be the person on Adams'

27:42

cabinet who keeps Alexander Hamilton very informed

27:44

of the inner workings of the

27:46

Adams administration, and then of

27:48

course filters Alexander Hamilton's orders

27:51

and insights back to Adams without

27:53

Adams knowing that these orders and

27:55

insights are coming from Alexander Hamilton,

27:57

who John Adams really despised. Pickering

28:00

was probably one of the all-time worst

28:02

secretaries of state. He was often quite

28:04

difficult, sometimes insubordinate, sometimes outright to find

28:07

the president's orders. He believed himself to

28:09

be the smartest person in the room

28:11

all the time, despite sometimes sharing the

28:13

room with some of the greatest minds

28:15

in American history. He believed that anyone

28:18

who disagreed with him was an enemy

28:20

to be crushed, and he believed that

28:22

compromise was a moral failing. So these

28:24

are not generally personality traits you want

28:26

in the position that is most in

28:29

charge of diplomacy and compromise with foreign

28:31

nations. In particular, when it came to

28:33

France, he loathed France and he thought

28:35

war would be great and he really

28:37

liked the army. He was very loyal

28:40

to Hamilton, so he was funneling all

28:42

of the secret cabinet information to Hamilton

28:44

without Adam's permission or approval. and then

28:46

was taking what Hamilton was saying and

28:48

presenting it as his own opinions. This

28:51

is really where Pickering and Adams started

28:53

to split was over how to respond

28:55

to this threat from France and going

28:57

forward how best to handle the international

28:59

relationship. What about this standing army we

29:02

keep talking about? You mentioned that Congress

29:04

voted to create a standing army after

29:06

it learned about the XYZ affair, and

29:08

we know that John Adams hedged his

29:10

bets about war with France. And even

29:13

though he preferred to find a diplomatic

29:15

solution, he still understood that the United

29:17

States had a real need to be

29:19

prepared for war, just in case Peace

29:21

with France didn't work out. So what

29:24

should we know about this standing army

29:26

and where did it fit with Adams'

29:28

plans against a possible war with France?

29:30

So I think there were two reasons

29:32

that Adams felt like war was not

29:35

necessarily the best recourse or even the

29:37

most likely outcome. One, he understood how

29:39

much... France depended on American trade for

29:41

its colonial support. He understood that France

29:43

was in a war with Great Britain

29:46

and if the United States joined in

29:48

the war it would then ally with

29:50

Britain and that was not an...

29:52

outcome that France wanted,

29:54

and so he

29:57

was sort of thinking

29:59

in a real

30:01

politic fashion about what

30:03

France would do. The

30:06

second piece was the standing army. So

30:08

he had not asked for a

30:10

big army when he was asking for

30:12

defensive measures. Congress had sort of

30:14

created this on its own initiative. And

30:16

the question in particular was what

30:18

the officer core and the governing structure

30:20

of the army would look like to

30:23

sort of stave off Hamilton. Adams asked

30:25

Washington to come back and take command

30:27

of the forces. And Washington agreed, as

30:29

long as he could stay at home

30:31

in Mount Vernon until France invaded, which

30:33

meant that whoever was number two was going

30:35

to actually have most of the day -to -day

30:37

governing authority, Pickering and the

30:40

other cabinet secretaries all wanted that

30:42

to be Alexander Hamilton. And

30:44

John Adams wanted anyone else. He really

30:46

didn't trust Hamilton. And I think

30:48

for good reason, I mean, Hamilton was

30:50

incredibly talented, incredibly gifted and did

30:52

have the capacity to manage the type

30:54

of details that the position required.

30:57

But he also wanted to use

30:59

the army to march south through

31:01

Virginia, crush domestic opposition, and then

31:03

go to South America and start

31:06

some rebellions. So he was

31:08

not a particularly trustworthy person when

31:10

it came to a giant armed

31:12

force. Basically, the cabinet

31:14

maneuvered over the summer of 1798

31:16

and kind of convinced Washington to

31:18

threaten to resign unless he got

31:20

his way. And his way was

31:22

to have Hamilton as the number

31:24

two. I blame Washington a little bit

31:26

for this, but I also think a

31:28

lot of it was the maneuvering in

31:30

terms of no one was having face -to

31:32

-face conversations. And so it allowed for

31:34

a lot of behind -the -scenes machinations and

31:36

conniving among these various forces. Adams

31:39

at that point had to give in

31:41

because if Washington quit on him,

31:43

it would kneecap his presidency and would

31:45

be incredibly unpopular. But it

31:47

meant that he really distrusted the army because

31:49

he understood that it was a very political

31:51

force. It was not going to be loyal

31:53

to him. It was going to be loyal

31:55

to the Federalist Party first. And so

31:58

he started to find ways both to to

32:00

slow the development of the army

32:02

while increasing the development of the

32:04

Navy and also pursuing diplomacy to

32:06

negate the need for that big

32:09

of an army. Did John Adams

32:11

know at this point in 1798

32:13

that many of his cabinet secretaries

32:15

were working for another boss

32:17

in Alexander Hamilton and passing

32:19

messages between them? Actually,

32:21

wait, before you answer that, let's

32:23

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subscribe. Lindsay, did John Adams

33:37

know that his cabinet secretaries were

33:40

working for another boss in

33:42

Alexander Hamilton? It's a good question.

33:44

I think he started to suspect.

33:46

some things in the summer

33:48

of 1798 into 1799, he

33:50

didn't necessarily always have proof,

33:53

but he occasionally would say

33:55

statements to McHenry like, I

33:57

think this is how this

33:59

has happened. And usually his

34:01

hypothesis was spot on

34:03

why he took so long to do

34:05

something about it, is also an excellent

34:07

question. I think partly it was

34:09

he was trying not to split the

34:11

party while there was still a threat

34:14

of war lingering. He also understood that

34:16

doing so would harm any potential reelection

34:18

chances he hoped to have. So

34:20

I think it was both trying to hold

34:22

on as long as possible for the

34:24

good of the nation, but also perhaps politically

34:26

motivated. But what was Adams' interest in

34:28

keeping the Federalist Party together? What did

34:30

he and the other Federalists think would

34:32

happen if the Federalist Party collapsed and

34:35

lost their reelection? I think there

34:37

were two concerns. One, if you do end up

34:39

having a war, you don't want to have a

34:41

lot of intraparty fighting while a war is taking

34:43

place. You want the nation to be as unified

34:45

as possible. The other concern was

34:47

the Democratic Republicans, the opposition party, was

34:49

much more friendly to France. And

34:51

they worried that if the Federalist Party

34:53

split, the Democratic Republicans would either

34:56

join France in a war to destroy

34:58

the nation. That's kind of worst

35:00

case scenario. Or just bend

35:02

the knee and take very friendly

35:04

terms to France, even if they were

35:06

very humiliating or not in the

35:08

nation's best interest. We're talking

35:10

about this very matter of factly, but

35:12

I think when we talk about this

35:14

period, we often forget just how fractious

35:16

and vicious politics were. I mean, there

35:18

is no love lost between Democratic

35:21

Republicans and Federalists, and they have very

35:23

different views on the direction that

35:25

they want the new nation to take.

35:28

Horrible. Yeah, it really was. Okay,

35:31

we're now entering the period of the

35:33

crisis of 1798. We've

35:35

talked about how war with France was a

35:38

real possibility that the United States was

35:40

preparing for, even as John Adams still hoped

35:42

for a peaceful resolution. We've

35:44

also touched on the fact that there were the

35:46

Warhawks among the arch -Federalists, men like

35:48

Timothy Pickering, who perceived the

35:50

Democratic Republican Party as pandering to French

35:52

interests and willing to kind of

35:54

surrender the United States if they got

35:56

their way. It was also

35:58

during this period of... intense politics

36:01

and possibility of war with

36:03

France, that Congress passed the

36:05

now infamous Alien and Sedition

36:07

Acts. Lindsay, Diana would like to

36:09

know more about these acts, how they fit

36:11

into the crisis of 1798, and how John

36:14

Adams justified signing these acts

36:16

into law. Yeah, it's such a great question,

36:18

and it's proving to be a

36:21

more relevant topic than I anticipated.

36:23

The Alien Sedition Acts are actually a

36:25

series of four bills. they were passed

36:27

in the summer of 1798 in this

36:29

sort of war fever moment. I think

36:31

the context is really important because

36:34

in some cases there were justifiable

36:36

fears that were then used for

36:38

political purposes and some of the

36:40

bills were outwardly political. The naturalization

36:43

bill was actually the first one passed

36:45

and that made it harder to become

36:47

a citizen. It increased the amount of

36:49

time you had to be in the

36:51

country from five to 14 years and

36:53

added a bunch of hoops that you

36:55

had to jump through. And this was

36:58

largely because immigrants tended to vote for

37:00

Democratic Republicans. So this was a completely

37:02

political bill. Second, there were two

37:04

alien acts. The first was called

37:06

the Alien Enemies Act. It was

37:08

a bipartisan measure that was actually

37:10

first put forward by the Democratic

37:12

Republicans hoping to stave off a

37:14

more extreme measure. And it was seen

37:16

as a very good bill because it had

37:19

two protections. One, it required a declaration of

37:21

war by Congress in order for it to

37:23

go into effect. That was a mechanism that

37:25

had not yet taken place, and so

37:27

it was sort of this check on

37:29

executive power. Second, if the president

37:32

did then order deportations of foreign

37:34

nationals of the enemy nation, it

37:36

still provided for due process for those

37:38

individuals. So it was seen as a

37:41

very understandable war measure and has actually

37:43

been on the books since. Now, sometimes

37:45

it has been used for very bad

37:47

purposes. For example, it was used

37:49

to justify Japanese internment. and the

37:52

Supreme Court has actually repudiated that

37:54

usage, but at the time it

37:56

was seen as reasonable. The second

37:58

one, the Alien Friends Act. gave the

38:00

president unlimited authority to deport foreign

38:02

nationals at will without any due

38:04

process. This was a very extreme

38:06

measure the federalist basically jammed it

38:08

through Congress. Critically, John Adams never

38:10

used it, so that's a really

38:12

important distinction. The last bill is

38:14

the sedition bill, and the sedition

38:16

bill made it a crime to

38:18

criticize Congress or the president, notably

38:20

leaving out the vice president who

38:22

was Thomas Jefferson. It also expired

38:24

on the last day of Adam's

38:26

first term, if he was reelected.

38:28

And it did provide for due

38:30

process and for defense, but the

38:32

problem was, how do you prove

38:34

the veracity of a political opinion?

38:36

It's really hard to do that,

38:38

and most of this edition was

38:40

political opinions. Context here, I mentioned

38:42

being really essential in particular applies

38:44

to this bill, because today we

38:46

have a pretty good understanding of

38:49

what the First Amendment applies to.

38:51

For example, you're not allowed to

38:53

say things like fire in a

38:55

crowded theater. You can use speech

38:57

to invoke violence, but that is

38:59

not protected. Those types of limitations

39:01

and understandings were not in place

39:03

at the time. Those types of

39:05

judicial opinions had not yet happened.

39:07

And what that meant was editors

39:09

could call for violence and regularly

39:11

did. There was violence in the

39:13

streets. I say all that not

39:15

to in any way excuse the

39:17

partisan nature of the enforcement. But

39:19

rather to say that I think

39:21

people genuinely were worried about how

39:23

speech was being used to cause

39:25

violence and could be used, especially

39:27

in war, to undermine the nation,

39:29

but then allowed that fear to

39:31

be perverted into this bill. Adams

39:33

did not ask for any of

39:35

these bills. He did not whip

39:37

votes for any of them. He

39:39

did not ask for support for

39:41

any of them, but he did

39:43

sign them. And when some of

39:45

the prosecutions happened, he occasionally was

39:47

happy about it because they were

39:49

particularly mean to him. So... It

39:51

is absolutely the dark mark on

39:53

his presidency. We should hold it

39:55

against him, but I think that

39:57

Congress deserves a lot more blame.

39:59

he does. And I think some of his

40:01

cabinet secretaries like Timothy Pickering

40:03

should also take a lot of blame. One

40:05

of the things that really struck me as

40:08

I read making the presidency was that it

40:10

wasn't John Adams, but Timothy Pickering, his

40:12

Secretary of State, who kept going to

40:14

the Attorney General and other lawyers

40:16

throughout the United States to point out

40:18

these printers who printed words and ideas

40:20

that Pickering didn't like. For example, he

40:23

told the Attorney General that he

40:25

should prosecute Benjamin Franklin's grandson,

40:27

Benjamin Franklin Bayesh. because

40:30

his Philadelphia-based aurora

40:32

newspaper was not printing news

40:34

favorable to the Federalist Party. And

40:36

when we read your book, we

40:38

get the impression that Pickering wasn't

40:40

asking for these prosecutions because John

40:43

Adams told him to ask for them,

40:45

but that he was asking for them because

40:47

he wanted them to happen. That's

40:49

right. A lot of people mistake

40:51

the way that Congress and the

40:53

executive branch works today and impose

40:55

that on the same government at

40:57

the time. Congress was way more

41:00

powerful than it was, but also

41:02

the Secretary of State had a

41:04

lot of domestic responsibilities. And so

41:06

Pickering was actually responsible for overseeing

41:08

these prosecutions. And he really genuinely

41:10

had a personality that was best

41:12

suited for the Spanish Inquisition, and

41:14

so he loved this activity. He

41:16

thought it was great. And so

41:18

he absolutely deserves most of the blame

41:21

for almost all bad things. Now, in

41:23

1799, because John Adams hadn't given

41:25

up hope for peace, Adams decided

41:27

against the wishes of his cabinet

41:29

to dispatch a second peace delegation

41:31

to France. Lindsay, why did Adams'

41:33

cabinet object to a second peace

41:36

delegation? Did they really want war?

41:38

The cabinet objected because they felt

41:40

like they didn't have reason to

41:42

trust that France would actually engage

41:44

in good faith negotiations. And on

41:47

one hand, that's understandable because the

41:49

previous peace delegation had been

41:51

treated so poorly. But Adams

41:53

had been quite meticulous in putting

41:56

out his feelers. He had this

41:58

incredible web of enforcement. across the

42:00

European continent, spearheaded by his son John

42:02

Quincy Adams, who was the minister to

42:05

Berlin at the time. And what they

42:07

were reporting back to him is that

42:09

France had expected that it could really

42:12

bully the United States, that it was

42:14

much more divided internally and would be

42:16

a pushover for anything that France had

42:19

asked for. And when instead, the United

42:21

States responded with strength, with outrage, with

42:23

these defensive measures, France had really done

42:26

a 180. They actually didn't want war

42:28

and Adams was very much right about

42:30

that assumption. So they started sending messages

42:33

saying we will treat whoever you send

42:35

with respect, we will welcome them, we

42:37

will negotiate with them, and at various

42:40

times they actually quoted the language that

42:42

Adams had used in his presidential addresses

42:44

saying they will treat the minister with

42:47

respect that is due to an independent

42:49

and sovereign nation. So Adams got these

42:51

letters and he said, look, I have

42:54

proof that they will act accordingly and

42:56

some of members of the cabinet felt

42:58

that that was still insufficient. But also,

43:01

they really wanted war. They wanted the

43:03

army to exist and they knew that

43:05

if diplomacy went well, a lot of

43:08

the officers would return their commissions, a

43:10

lot of the soldiers would leave and

43:12

that's exactly what happened. It also seemed

43:15

to be around this time, 1799, when

43:17

John Adams is making headway with a

43:19

second-piece delegation. that he became fully aware

43:22

that his cabinet secretaries were in fact

43:24

writing and getting orders from Alexander Hamilton.

43:26

Can you tell us the moment when

43:29

Adams fully realized that his cabinet was

43:31

meddling with his administration, that Alexander Hamilton

43:33

was trying to direct his actions, and

43:36

what he did to bring his cabinet

43:38

secretaries under his authority and control? Yeah,

43:40

absolutely. One of the turning points for

43:43

him was when he was getting ready

43:45

to send this second piece delegation and

43:47

he went to meet with his cabinet

43:50

which had hold up in Trenton, New

43:52

Jersey to escape the yellow fever outbreak

43:54

in Philadelphia and Alexander Hamilton just happened

43:56

to be there. Now it's possible that

43:59

Hamilton was there to talk with James

44:01

McHenry who was the Secretary of War

44:03

about the army and to meet with

44:06

other officials, but it also seemed highly

44:08

suspicious, especially when Hamilton took it upon

44:10

himself to come meet with the president

44:13

and to deliver a lecture on foreign

44:15

policy. But keep in mind that Alexander

44:17

Hamilton had never held a position of

44:19

foreign policy, he had never been a

44:22

diplomat, he had never been Secretary of

44:24

State, Adams. basically thought, like, who is

44:26

this nobody who was lecturing me on

44:29

a subject that he knows nothing about?

44:31

And he absolutely lost his mind. He

44:33

let Hamilton have it. He told him he

44:35

was nobody, and that conversation ended

44:38

very poorly. And I think really

44:40

convinced Adams that there was a

44:42

much more nefarious activity afoot than

44:44

he had originally expected. What's

44:47

interesting is that conversation took

44:49

place in October of 1799.

44:51

They then went back to Philadelphia once

44:53

the first frost had arrived and

44:55

the threat of yellow fever had

44:57

dissipated. And he kind of waited.

44:59

And he waited until May of

45:02

1800, I think, because he was

45:04

waiting to see how the electoral

45:06

politics unfolded. And once he was

45:08

selected as the federalist candidate, then

45:10

he basically said, fine, I can

45:13

now make my choices. And he

45:15

offered McHenry the opportunity to resign.

45:17

And then he offered Pickering the

45:19

opportunity to resign, which was the

45:21

gentleman's way out. It was totally

45:24

appropriate at that time to resign

45:26

from office. There was nothing dishonorable

45:28

about it. And so Adams made

45:30

this offer, which was kind of

45:32

big of him, given the very

45:35

poor relationships they had had at

45:37

that point, and Pickering said no.

45:39

He said he wanted to stay in office

45:41

until the end of the term and no

45:43

thank you. And it was a very snarky

45:46

letter. It's one of the snarkiest letters I

45:48

have ever seen a secretary send

45:50

to a president. Adams wrote

45:52

back, no salutation, no, thank you

45:54

for your service, basically just you

45:56

are relieved from office. And then for

45:58

good measure, he changed. the locks on

46:00

the Secretary of State offices, which

46:02

I really enjoy that level of

46:05

petty if I'm being honest. What

46:07

is important is what happened next.

46:09

He then submitted the replacement John

46:11

Marshall to the Senate for confirmation,

46:13

and when the Senate confirmed Marshall,

46:15

they were establishing a legal precedent

46:17

that did not exist before. It

46:19

was unclear how a secretary could

46:21

be removed from office because it

46:23

had never been done. When Washington

46:25

was displeased with someone, they were

46:27

so horrified that they would just

46:29

resign immediately. And so he had

46:32

never had to fire anybody. The

46:34

Constitution doesn't say how it's to

46:36

be done. The legislation creating the

46:38

executive departments doesn't say because Congress

46:40

couldn't agree. So they basically punted

46:42

on the issue. So in firing

46:44

a secretary and getting the Senate

46:46

to accept it, Adams was establishing

46:48

a precedent that the Supreme Court

46:50

actually confirmed in 1926, but critically

46:52

established the character of the presidency.

46:54

Because if we think about the

46:57

implications of that decision, if a

46:59

secretary can do whatever they want,

47:01

then you don't have one executive.

47:03

You basically have an executive by

47:05

committee. But if a secretary can

47:07

be removed by the president, then

47:09

you have the type of president,

47:11

then Washington had embodied and envisioned.

47:13

Well, now that we moved on

47:15

to the highlights real of John

47:17

Adams' presidency, we should also talk

47:19

about the treaty of Morta Fontaine.

47:21

Because you declare in your book

47:24

making the presidency that this is

47:26

probably the biggest highlight of Adams'

47:28

presidency. So could you tell us

47:30

about this treaty, which many of

47:32

us have never heard of, and

47:34

why you think it's such a

47:36

highlight? Yeah, the Treaty of Mordefanteen

47:38

is really underappreciated because it established

47:40

the peaceful relations between the United

47:42

States and France, which have lasted

47:44

ever since. The United States and

47:46

France have not been at war

47:49

since 1800. because of this treaty.

47:51

Well, maybe not because of this

47:53

treaty, but it established a really

47:55

nice foundation. That is not something

47:57

we typically celebrate. We often celebrate

47:59

the special relationship. between the United

48:01

States and Great Britain. The United

48:03

States and Great Britain went

48:05

to war 15 years later. So

48:07

I think that as a foundation

48:10

for an important alliance, it is

48:12

critical. It did also preserve peace

48:14

in an honorable way. It restored

48:16

good trade relationships between the two

48:18

nations. I think we don't remember it

48:20

much because it was so divisive

48:23

within the Federalist Party. but also

48:25

because news of it did not arrive

48:27

until after the election of 1800. And

48:29

so we didn't have an electoral impact

48:32

and therefore isn't as remembered as it

48:34

could be. To be fair, also the Treaty

48:36

of Mordefanteen doesn't really roll off the

48:39

tongue like the Treaty of Paris or

48:41

the Treaty of Versailles. No, it really

48:43

doesn't, does it? No, I'm glad you brought

48:45

up the election of 1800 because where

48:48

many historians summarize the election is the

48:50

revolution of 1800. and state that there

48:52

was a tie that occurred between Thomas

48:55

Jefferson and Aaron Burr, which caused the

48:57

election to be decided by the House

48:59

of Representatives and then led to

49:01

the first peaceful transfer of power

49:03

between the political parties. But Lindsay,

49:06

you go beyond this summary to cover the

49:08

actual politicking that went on in

49:10

the House of Representatives to decide

49:12

this election between Jefferson and Burr.

49:14

So would you give us an overview of

49:17

what happened inside the House of Representatives

49:19

as they made this choice between

49:21

Jefferson and Burr? Yeah, this election is

49:23

so fascinating and I think it's

49:25

largely been condensed into this phrase

49:27

The revolution of 1800 and swept

49:29

under the rug because that serves

49:31

Jefferson's purposes But it actually was

49:34

a much more complex undertaking

49:36

So as you said Jefferson and Burr

49:38

tied at 73 electoral votes piece that

49:40

meant that the election was going to

49:42

go to the house where each state

49:44

received one vote not each representative each

49:46

state and those were the terms of the

49:48

Constitution Those are still the terms. If we

49:50

were to have a tie today, that would

49:52

still be how it was decided. What that

49:54

meant, however, was that Congress was

49:56

deadlocked because Jefferson had the support

49:58

of eight states. had the support

50:00

of six states and there were two

50:03

states that could not cast a vote

50:05

because their members were split evenly. Basically

50:07

everyone knew this by December 3rd, 1800,

50:10

but the votes were not starting to

50:12

be tallied on this new process until

50:14

February 11th. In that time, the Federalist

50:16

Party tried to think of all the

50:19

different ways that they could thwart the

50:21

election. So the easiest would be to

50:23

get some of the Jefferson states to

50:26

come over for Burr. make a bird

50:28

the president who they preferred because they

50:30

felt like he would be more malleable

50:32

and he would be indebted to them

50:35

and so he would be willing to

50:37

work with them. If that didn't work,

50:39

they were trying to delay the outcome

50:41

of the election until after March 4th,

50:44

which was the day of the inauguration

50:46

at the day of the inauguration at

50:48

the time, that would allow them to

50:51

either appoint a temporary president or call

50:53

a new election in which they thought

50:55

maybe they could have a different outcome.

50:57

In response, the Democratic Republicans started thinking

51:00

about had they combat these plans. And

51:02

they did things like station, the Virginia,

51:04

and Pennsylvania militias on the border of

51:06

the state, ready to march into the

51:09

city if someone else took the presidency.

51:11

They tried to think about how they

51:13

could constitutionally push back on these options.

51:16

And citizens also took it upon themselves

51:18

to make sure their voices were heard.

51:20

Thousands of citizens gathered outside the U.S.

51:22

capital in the wintery conditions and threatened

51:25

to kill anyone. who tried to seize

51:27

the presidency that wasn't Jefferson. The threat

51:29

of violence was so real that Albert

51:32

Gallatin wrote 50 years later that he

51:34

really genuinely thought that it was all

51:36

going to end. So Congress convenes its

51:38

session on February 11th with this context.

51:41

They start casting votes. They cast 24

51:43

votes in the first 24 hours with

51:45

no resolution. That continues over the next

51:47

several days. In this time, John Adams

51:50

invites Thomas Jefferson over to the White

51:52

House and he assures him that he

51:54

believes he's the rightful winner. He said

51:57

he would have no part. in any

51:59

of the federalist schemes, he would not

52:01

run for office again, he would not

52:03

call up the militia or call up

52:06

the army to try and suppress a

52:08

vote, and he practiced restraint, which is

52:10

a remarkable thing to do in

52:12

a constitutional crisis. Ultimately, a

52:15

compromise was reached between two

52:17

moderate members, a moderate member

52:19

from Maryland, Samuel Smith, who

52:21

was a Democratic Republican, and

52:23

James Bayard of Delaware, who

52:25

was a moderate federalist. Interestingly,

52:28

they were both quite young. They were in their

52:30

late 30s and early 40s, which I think is

52:32

a good reminder that we can have people who

52:34

make a big difference while they were still young.

52:36

The way that they've made that compromise

52:38

was Bayard suggested that if Jefferson was

52:41

willing to keep the Navy, to avoid war

52:43

with France and Great Britain, to keep

52:45

the national bank, and to maintain the

52:47

national credit that they would then swing

52:49

the election. Smith brought these terms

52:51

to Jefferson, and I think what

52:53

basically happened is Jefferson sort of

52:55

did like a wink, not-dodd situation

52:57

where he gave his approval without

52:59

actually saying yes, so he could

53:02

maintain plausible deniability, but that night

53:04

he wrote to his son-in-law and

53:06

said, tomorrow there will be a

53:08

resolution. So he absolutely knew what

53:10

was happening. Indeed, the next day they

53:12

went, Baird cast a blank ballot for

53:14

Delaware, which took a state out of

53:17

Burr's column, the South Carolina Federalist. cast

53:19

a blank ballot, which took another

53:21

state out of Burr's column, and

53:23

then the Federalists from Maryland and

53:25

Vermont, which had been the two

53:27

states that were split, left the room

53:29

so that their Democratic Republican colleagues

53:31

could cast their votes for Jefferson. So

53:33

the final vote was 10 states for

53:36

Jefferson, four states for Burr. This, of

53:38

course, made Jefferson the third president of the

53:40

United States, and he had two and a

53:42

half weeks to write his inaugural address,

53:44

to staff his White House, and to

53:46

create his cabinet, which is a remarkable

53:48

feat. And in this transition period,

53:50

Adams was amazing because he

53:52

insisted that his cabinet cooperate

53:55

to help Jefferson to basically

53:57

give him briefings on what

53:59

was happening. He told Jefferson about what

54:01

was in the stables and what was

54:03

in the White House so that he

54:05

would know what was available to him.

54:07

And he set the tone for what

54:10

we want a transition to be long

54:12

before it's required by statute or mandate.

54:14

This was another part of your book

54:16

that really struck me because we do

54:18

read about how John Adams helped Thomas

54:20

Jefferson with information and whatever else he

54:23

needed to help make the transition of

54:25

Jefferson into the presidency run smoothly. And

54:27

it struck me because... This is a

54:29

constitutional crisis, and it seemed that if

54:31

John Adams had really wanted to remain

54:33

president, he could have set that precedent

54:36

because the federalists were already talking about

54:38

how they can maneuver things to keep

54:40

John Adams in office. And yet, as

54:42

you said, Lindsay, John Adams showed great

54:44

restraint, and he said, I'm not getting

54:46

involved with the House of Representatives. They

54:49

are going to decide between Thomas Jefferson

54:51

and Aaron Burr, and I think Thomas

54:53

Jefferson is the rightful winner. That's what

54:55

the people intended. That's definitely right. I

54:57

mean, if he had wanted to cause

54:59

a lot of trouble, he could have.

55:02

And a lot of people focus on

55:04

the fact that he didn't attend the

55:06

inauguration, but what is worth noting is

55:08

that he lost. He didn't try and

55:10

overturn the results, and then he went

55:12

home peacefully. And that is a revolutionary

55:15

thing to do at a time when

55:17

it was not done, and he was

55:19

the first to do it. Now before

55:21

we move into the time work, Lindsay

55:23

in making the presidency. You point out

55:26

that many historians have looked at John

55:28

Adams' presidency as the low moment, and

55:30

John Adams' otherwise very distinguished career of

55:32

public service to the United States. And

55:34

these historians have said, Adams was vain,

55:36

he was too direct in his speech,

55:39

he was uncompromising, and he was just

55:41

really difficult to work with. So this

55:43

is the legacy that we're left with

55:45

for John Adams, as the second president

55:47

of the United States. But you vehemently

55:49

disagree. In your book, making the presidency,

55:52

you go as far as to state

55:54

that you believe John Adams remains one

55:56

of the most qualified presidents that the

55:58

United States has ever had. tell us

56:00

why you think past historians are wrong

56:02

about their assessment of John Adams

56:04

and why you think he was

56:07

and still is one of the

56:09

most qualified presidents the United States

56:11

has ever had? I think there

56:13

are two different pieces to this.

56:15

The first is their description of

56:17

him as vain and difficult. These

56:19

are basically direct quotes from things

56:21

that Hamilton and Jefferson were writing

56:23

about Adams in 1800 while they

56:25

were competing against him for an election.

56:28

We all know what election rhetoric

56:30

sounds like. We all know what

56:32

political campaigns sound like and political

56:34

ads. And they're often not always

56:36

the most accurate assessment of one's

56:38

opponent. And yet, although historians and Jefferson

56:40

and yet, although historians often take Hamilton

56:42

and Jefferson and with Hamilton and Jefferson

56:45

with a grain of salt, when it

56:47

comes to Adams, they haven't and they

56:49

tend to take their word verbatim and

56:51

I think that's a mistake because

56:53

oftentimes those descriptions are

56:56

highly politically motivated. but Jefferson

56:58

lies and Hamilton is totally erratic.

57:00

So I think we have to

57:02

balance these things. The second piece

57:04

is that we write history based on

57:06

the questions we ask because that informs

57:09

what information we use, how we find

57:11

it, how we analyze it, what we

57:13

see in the text. And that's not

57:16

to say that we're revisionist, but just

57:18

that everyone has a different perspective on

57:20

what they are seeing in front of

57:22

them. and all of the other works

57:24

on John Adams, of which there are

57:26

many fantastic ones, were written before January

57:29

6th, which meant that they hadn't

57:31

seen a contested transition, and I

57:33

think that they were probably taking

57:35

the peaceful transfer of power, like

57:37

I was until that point. And

57:39

it was really seeing how fragile these things

57:42

are that caused me to want to

57:44

know more about where they started and

57:46

how they were crafted for the first

57:48

time and why they were so important.

57:50

And in doing so... I started to

57:52

see the very small ways that the

57:54

things that Adams did behind the scenes

57:56

to ensure the survival of the presidency

57:58

and the republic that are easy to

58:00

go overlooked because they're not big and

58:02

splashy like winning a civil war. Okay,

58:05

we should move into the time work.

58:07

This is a segment of the show

58:09

where we ask you, a hypothetical history

58:11

question about what might have happened if

58:14

something had occurred differently or if someone

58:16

had acted differently. Lindsay, Travis would like

58:18

to know what would have happened if

58:21

Alexander Hamilton in the Essex Ginto, which

58:23

was that group of archfederalists that Timothy

58:25

Pickering was involved with, he'd like to

58:27

know what would have happened if Hamilton

58:30

in the had not undermined John Adams'

58:32

re-election bid. So in your opinion, Lindsay,

58:34

what might have happened if John Adams

58:36

had been elected to a second term

58:39

as president? Oh boy, that's such an

58:41

interesting question. So I do think the

58:43

undermining was much more significant than just

58:46

the pamphlet that Hamilton wrote in October

58:48

of 1800 because the undermining started at

58:50

the state level and in the state

58:52

level elections. and many of the states

58:55

still selected their presidential electors in the

58:57

state legislatures. And so I do think

58:59

it sort of had a trickle-up effect.

59:01

If Adams had won a second term,

59:04

we saw a breakdown of the political

59:06

party system in sort of the recreation

59:08

of new parties, and I think we

59:10

would have seen that, but in a

59:13

very different way, because Adams was starting

59:15

to spearhead a more moderate party. And

59:17

so I think we would have seen

59:20

him continue to push back against the

59:22

excesses of his own party and try

59:24

and find this center way, whether or

59:26

not he would have been as successful

59:29

as Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans ended

59:31

up being as hard to say. But

59:33

I think that that spirit would have

59:35

lingered on. Well, since we last spoke

59:38

with you, Lindsay, you're now the executive

59:40

director of the George Washington Presidential Library

59:42

at Mount Vernon. Do you even have

59:45

time for another book? And if you

59:47

do, what are you researching and writing

59:49

about now? I've started thinking about it.

59:51

I have a large stack of books

59:54

next to me to be working on

59:56

my reading, which unfortunately I do not.

59:58

them via osmosis. It's a good start

1:00:00

that they're at least in my house,

1:00:03

but I'm working on getting them into

1:00:05

my brain. I had had one idea

1:00:07

for a book that I think I

1:00:09

will absolutely do in the future, but

1:00:12

I think it's a pretty complex book

1:00:14

and it's not the right one to

1:00:16

be writing at this moment having started

1:00:19

the new job. So instead, I am

1:00:21

probably going to be writing a John

1:00:23

Quincy Adams book while he is still

1:00:25

with me. to review my text and

1:00:28

be in my author photo with me.

1:00:30

So that is probably what I will

1:00:32

be working on. And is there anything

1:00:34

happening at the George Washington Presidential Library

1:00:37

that we should be aware of? Gosh,

1:00:39

there's so much. We're open 365 days

1:00:41

a year. In 2025, we are really

1:00:44

going to be focused on a military

1:00:46

theme as the 250th anniversary of the

1:00:48

birth of the American Army. Washington taking

1:00:50

command as commander-in-chief, and so we will

1:00:53

have tons of public programming for all

1:00:55

ages, everything from a Revolutionary War encampment

1:00:57

out on the green, to adult programming

1:00:59

that looks at the history of the

1:01:02

Revolutionary War, but also the complicated subject

1:01:04

of civil-military divide, both then and now.

1:01:06

What if we have more questions about

1:01:08

John Adams, George Washington, or the presidency?

1:01:11

Where's the best place for us to

1:01:13

get in touch with you to pose

1:01:15

those questions? I am on all the

1:01:18

social media, so I'm kind of trying

1:01:20

to figure out what's going to survive,

1:01:22

so I have eggs and lots of

1:01:24

baskets at the moment, but you can

1:01:27

also visit my sub-stack, which is called

1:01:29

Inperfect Union, and I send out a

1:01:31

monthly newsletter with a history essay as

1:01:33

well as links to podcasts like this

1:01:36

one, and any other articles that I

1:01:38

write, and it's the best place to

1:01:40

stay on top of everything in one

1:01:43

spot. Lindsay Travinsky, thank you so much

1:01:45

for joining us for joining us again

1:01:47

and taking the presidency of John Adams.

1:01:49

Thank you so much for having me.

1:01:52

John Adams' presidency proved instrumental in further

1:01:54

defining and solidifying the executive branch in

1:01:56

its work, how cabinet secretary should act

1:01:58

and communicate, and how presidents should enter

1:02:01

and leave office. John Adams also played

1:02:03

a major role in preserving the Union. As

1:02:05

we have the benefit of hindsight, we

1:02:07

can see that securing peace with France

1:02:09

was critical to the continuance of the

1:02:11

new nation. The young United States was

1:02:13

ill-prepared for war. The Continental

1:02:15

Army and Navy formed during the

1:02:17

American Revolution had disbanded, and there

1:02:20

were very few soldiers, sailors, and

1:02:22

warships to fight a transatlantic war.

1:02:24

Further, the young United States was

1:02:26

still trying to pay off its

1:02:28

revolutionary war debt. secure its economy,

1:02:30

and solidify its government after the

1:02:32

departure of President George Washington. As

1:02:34

Lindsay stated, early Americans really didn't

1:02:36

know if someone else could be president. Constitutionally,

1:02:39

it was possible. But could

1:02:41

someone else truly command the respect

1:02:43

and power of George Washington? What the nation

1:02:45

survived a president who didn't have

1:02:47

Washington's sense of command. Those are big questions,

1:02:50

and early Americans asked themselves

1:02:52

those questions. And I'll leave those questions

1:02:54

for you to consider. But what we can

1:02:56

say after our conversation with Lindsay, is that

1:02:58

John Adams may not have been George Washington.

1:03:01

He was often a lot shorter and a

1:03:03

little bit more rotund. But he did show

1:03:05

Washington-like restraint in sticking to his

1:03:07

plans for diplomacy and not meddling

1:03:09

with a constitutional crisis. Yes,

1:03:11

John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition

1:03:13

Acts into law for his fellow federalists,

1:03:16

but he personally never used them

1:03:18

against anyone. But like most humans, Adams

1:03:20

is guilty of having a sense of

1:03:22

shodden froyda. You know that sense of

1:03:24

feeling happy at someone else's misfortune? Adams

1:03:26

felt that any time a printer who

1:03:28

had been mean to him in his

1:03:30

pages somehow found his way to

1:03:32

prosecution. Now as Lindsay reminds us, we

1:03:34

don't have to let John Adams off

1:03:36

the hook for these acts. In fact,

1:03:39

when you read Making the Presidency, you'll

1:03:41

find that even John Adams regretted

1:03:43

having signed these acts into law. What

1:03:45

we should remember is that our historical

1:03:48

memories are shaped, and the quote, end

1:03:50

quote, winners or victors of history

1:03:52

often shaped them, and Thomas Jefferson

1:03:54

is an example. We remember Jefferson

1:03:56

for the Declaration of Independence, for his

1:03:58

diplomatic work in France. for his famous

1:04:00

feud with Alexander Hamilton, and then

1:04:03

as a great president who helped

1:04:05

grow the United States physically with

1:04:07

the Louisiana Purchase. We remember all

1:04:09

of these details because Jefferson and

1:04:11

his supporters wanted us to remember

1:04:13

them. What we often forget is

1:04:15

that Thomas Jefferson was insecure, a

1:04:18

poor public speaker. He abandoned Richmond,

1:04:20

Virginia's capital city during the American

1:04:22

Revolution, and he was horrible with

1:04:24

money. Even as he profited from

1:04:26

the work of the more than

1:04:28

600 enslaved people that he owned

1:04:30

throughout his lifetime. People are complicated.

1:04:32

They have many dimensions, and we

1:04:35

should remember this when we evaluate

1:04:37

their lives, deeds, and legacies. We

1:04:39

should also take moments to ask

1:04:41

ourselves, how do we know what

1:04:43

we know about a person, place,

1:04:45

or event from the past? If

1:04:47

we do, it may cause us

1:04:50

to rethink what we know, and

1:04:52

to seek out other sources and

1:04:54

viewpoints, which can reveal more details

1:04:56

and dimensions about a person's life

1:04:58

and actions, and things new and

1:05:00

reframe details, have the power to

1:05:02

reshape. or at least add to

1:05:05

our understanding about past people and

1:05:07

events, just as we found for

1:05:09

the presidency of John Adams. You

1:05:11

can find more information about Lindsay,

1:05:13

her book Making the Presidency, plus

1:05:15

notes, links, and a transcript for

1:05:17

everything we talked about today, on

1:05:19

the Show Notes page. Ben Franklin's

1:05:22

world.com/for zero three. Please help me

1:05:24

grow the audience for Ben Franklin's

1:05:26

world by telling your friends, family

1:05:28

and acquaintances about the podcast. Remember.

1:05:30

Friends tell friends about their favorite

1:05:32

podcasts. Production assistance for this podcast

1:05:34

comes from Oregon McCullough. Breakmaster Cylinder

1:05:37

composed our custom theme music. This

1:05:39

podcast is part of the Airwave

1:05:41

Media Podcast Network. To discover and

1:05:43

listen to their other podcasts, visit

1:05:45

Airwave media.com. Finally, what other historical

1:05:47

figures or actions do you think

1:05:49

we should reevaluate on this show?

1:05:52

Let me know. Liz at Ben

1:05:54

Franklin's world.com. Ben Franklin's world is

1:05:56

a production of Colonial Williamsburg innovation

1:05:58

studios.