Birthdays Today

Today's birthdays include John Adams, born 275 years ago in 1735.   Many people might say that the single greatest act of political sacrifice in American history was Washington's decision to give up the Presidency, when he could have been President (or King for that matter) for life.   To me, however, the greatest act of political self-abnegation was John Adams' peaceful transition of power from the Federalist Party (his party) to the Democratic-Republic Party of Jefferson after the extraordinarily contentious election of 1800, the first American Presidential election involving political parties.  The election was a choice between two ideologies that are not much different than what we have now, a Burkean conservatism flowing from the political traditions of England (the Federalists), and a liberal-democratic-radical tradition flowing from the newly-minted political attitudes of Revolutionary France (the Jeffersonians).  Adams greatly feared what a French-style revolution might bring to America, yet he gave up power peacefully.

Adams' conservatism -- his fear that democracy would devolve into mob rule -- was based on a skeptical view of the sinfulness of men, as suggested by this letter he wrote in 1815 to Jefferson, long after both had retired from public life:

We may appeal to every page of history we have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous and cruel as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power ... All projects of government, formed upon a supposition of continual vigilance, sagacity, and virtue, firmness of the people, when possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats and delusions ... The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical.

Adams is also, of course, remembered for his long and happy marriage to his wife, Abigail Adams.   On her death, Jefferson wrote this short letter to Adams, which I think is quite beautiful:

MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818. The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medi­cine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.

Adams and Jefferson as old men were reconciled as friends, and their correspondence in their last years is an American treasure.   The single greatest factoid in American history is that Adams and Jefferson, arguably the two greatest intellectual leaders of the American Revolution, fierce political rivals in their middle years, and fast friends in old age, died on the same day, July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day of the Declaration of Independence.  On his deathbed, Adams' last words were reported to be "Thomas Jefferson still survives."  But Jefferson had actually died hours before him.

David McCullough's great biography is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, and the HBO miniseries biography with Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail Adams was also terrific.

 













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On a somewhat lighter note, today is also the 64th birthday of Bob Gibson, the great Cardinals pitcher, born in 1946 in Omaha, Nebraska.  Gibson is my favorite baseball player of all-time, and perhaps the single most fearsome pitcher in baseball history.  My son wears number 45 when he plays Little League and our Golden Retriever is named "Gibby."   Happy Birthday, Bob Gibson!