John Adams

While I don't universally love every book written by McCullough, I do like most of them This, to me, is his greatest work! I absolutely loved this book and in reading it, I came to love Jon Adams. Oh that men would stand on principle like he did. He did it at the waste of his reputation and good character often as well. This book clearly teaches the sacrifice of Adams whole life to the cause of freedom, liberty and the creation of a nation that is self governed. I cannot recommend it highly enough! ( )

Quotable:

"There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue." ( )

Noted title by a favorite author. ( )

This book was a bit of a slog in parts (hence how long it took me to finish) but in the end and overall a sympathetic, well-researched, well written biography of an often overlooked President. ( )

Although the Presidency of John Adams ended as the result of the moral and practical mistake of
sponsoring, with the support of Congress and Abigail,
the indefensible Alien and Sedition Act, at least he acted out in the open,
unlike leaders, from George Washington to Churchill and U.S. Presidents all the way through to Obama,

Until recent years, Adams was the easiest target.

Now, with journalists, politicians, Democrats, World Leaders, Native Americans, Veterans,
People of All Colors, Generals, Climate and Environmental activists, Women, People with Autism >
Rightly, Anyone who does not agree with the cruelty and greed demonstrated by
the racist monster is openly reviled and attacked, then subjected to loss of job,
career, money, reputation, and more....

...until the jail sentence and fine offered by John Adams, and that only after valid proof of sinister intent,
may seem like a fair deal.

John Adams' heroic legacy continued on to his son, John Quincy Adams,
who defended Cinque and his men, allowing The Amistad to take them back to Africa as free men.

And, it extended on to his grandson, Charles Frances Adams.
As the American Ambassador to London during The Civil War,
he convinced the British government to stay neutral and so prevented The South
from gaining desperately needed support.

Why John Adams relished renewing his betrayed friendship with the deceitful
adulterous slave master Thomas Jefferson is still a great mystery. Jefferson was definitely,
despite the final extension of friendship, a lying sneaky villain.

Jefferson, owing a lot to George Mason and his Virginia Declaration of Rights,
went astronomically, exponentially, beyond the other presidential slaveowners.

He seduced Sally Hemmings, a slave child who was his wife's relative,
fathered six children with her (Keeping her place hidden at Monticello)
then, in his will, Jefferson freed only their children and not his mistress.
He also refused to free the possibly hundreds of slaves on his plantations.

ALL THE TIME, in public, he strongly claimed to be against slavery.

Related to Adams and his Family, he was a hypocrite, a false friend, adulterer,
and a liar who sneaked behind the President to betray him.

As an American Hero, John Adams and his son were the only ones of the first Presidents:

Washington
Jefferson
Madison
Monroe
Andrew Jackson
Van Buren (the slave he owned escaped)
Harrison
Tyler
Polk
Taylor
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant (freed his only slave) ( )