Passionate Sage: The Character And Legacy Of John Adams (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
Joseph J. Ellis writes biographies that I love reading. His ability to both make the men he writes about feel relevant to the modern age and to analyze both their legacy and character is, to me, remarkable. He brings these men out of history, and turns them from marble to flesh. It is fitting, then, that he would do this to a man who warned so furiously against the idea that Americans had overcome what he considered to be the deepest set instincts of man: a search for power, and a tendency toward corruption.Ellis' analysis first of what Adam felt and was like gives us an image of an old friend, a pessimistic curmudgeon at times, a prophetic sage at his best. The more recent work by David McCullough doesn't make this work obsolete, as it is an insightful description of the personality of our second president. One of my favorite lines in the book describes both what made Adams a powerful but not particularly liked man on the political front, as well as why his historical presence has been so overshadowed by men like Jefferson, and this is Ellis' assertion that Adams was only optimistic when he wanted to be contrary, his every energy devoted to being "the great American caveat." It is not popular now, and was not popular even then, to view the men of the revolutionary generation, especially Washington, as anything short of semi-mythic, untouchable near-deities. Even in his own lifetime Adams deplored this idea, and considered it ahistorical. His belief was always that the more important revolution was and always would be in the people, and that a title like "The Father of His Country" "belong to no man, but to the American People."It was this belief, along with his sometimes unfortunately prophetic pessimism, and his deeply personal and rooted belief that the will of the people is not inherently beyond corruption (a stunningly relevant idea, even today) that made him a caveat in his own time. Ellis expertly and eloquently draws the Adams portrait, by letting us grow attached to Adams' quirky, personal, and touching traits. He was the only one of the revolutionary generation who was outspoken in his belief that slavery was both morally wrong and would divide the republic, who assumed that women would necessarily be given more rights (if not quite in a modern sense), and the only one who argued so coherently that giving men like him "superhuman qualities... robs their character of consistency and their virtues of all merit." It was perhaps this, Ellis suggests, that partially shadowed Adams' legacy, because unlike Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, Adams could never keep his mouth and his opinions quiet long enough to create the images that his contemporaries carefully groomed.This book is a treasure for these insights into one of the most interesting humans of his generation, even if his belief that "there is no special providence for Americans" or their destiny is an opinion that would cause so many to cry foul today. His inability to let himself be anything but a contrarian on almost every developing national belief would make him an oddity. His pessimistic warnings about the dangers of what he called the 'aristocracy' and the proper role of government would make him attacked in his own time. Still, he held his ground. Power, he believed, was inherently corruptible, but only government could reign in the personal freedoms that Jefferson (and generations of American since) have argued is the single most sacred concept framed into the constitution. It is in that way that this book manages to do its most important duty, one that Adams would be proud of - and that is to be the voice of necessary caution still opposite Jefferson ideals, a cooling mist to the flame of American manifest destiny.If you liked this, Ellis' biography of Washington is another good sketch of a man from the myth.
Bought this book after a visit my sister and I took to to the Adams homes in Quincy, MA. Its focus is on the time after Adams finished being president and deals with his thoughts and actions connected to those thoughts over his later years. There is gold in this book. For example, her attacks the romanticization of our Founding Fathers, which he calls "ancestor worship," by reminding everyone that "Every measure of Congress from 1774 inclusively was disputed with acrimony, and decided by as small majorities as any question is decided these days" (99). We Americans are still at the mercy of false nostalgia by those who think our founding fathers were gods and that our entire nation sat in glowing approval of all they did, and Adams' words are a good corrective to remind us that what we are now is not that different from what we were then, at least in this respect. I read a bit of this book at a time, and may get back again as I have been watching HBO's John Adams series on Netflix. (Loved McCullough's book too).
What do You think about Passionate Sage: The Character And Legacy Of John Adams (2001)?
I found this to be an excellent book. Easily read and entertaining as well. The author is very meticulous about his references.Here's an entertaining snippet from the book - John Adams' opinion of the upper house of the legislature.From page 152:...Adams's motives for favoring the creation of a senate were entirely different and seemed to smack of an affection for a European-styled aristocracy. "The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense," he wrote in the Defence. He argued that these natural aristocrats "must, therefore, be separated from the mass and placed by themselves in a senate," an arrangement, he claimed, "that is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism." The notion that the people of the United States ought to conceive of senators as some kind of elected aristocracy struck most readers as odd. The belief that empowering such creatures by electing them into the Senate was a means of limiting their influence struck most readers as bizarre. Nevertheless, there is was in the Defence, not just an incidental point made in passing, but one of Adams's major preoccupations. In every society known to man, he assured his readers, "an aristocracy has risen up in a course of time, consisting of a few rich and honorable families, who have united with each other against both the people and the first magistrate." Best to put these talented but troublesome creatures in one place, the Senate, and watch them carefully. He seemed to be saying that the Senate was simultaneously a podium for the natural aristocrats and a prison.I highly recommend this book!
—Gene
Of the four Adams biographies I've read, this is the only one that I can say that I felt ambivalent about. I would not recommend this book to anyone who only wanted to read one book about John Adams. Ellis provides an overview of Adams' political theories and does so accurately and fairly, but one would hard-pressed to nail down a compendium of his policies, accomplishments and victories that truly define the man for posterity. More importantly, the author does a pretty amazing job of rendering a psychological profile of our nation's 2nd president. Ellis does not simply pull things from the air to critique Adams, mainly because he does not have to. There is probably no political figure that ever existed that left behind more documentation than Adams. Ellis has given the reader a very educated character portrait of the subject, not to be taken lightly.My only real problem with this book is that I felt that the author exceeded his bounds when judging Adams emotional constitution and animation. As I read it, I felt like every outpouring of emotion from Adams was a negative in his account as far as Ellis was concerned. Adams simply did not fit the status pro quo. At times, I felt as though Ellis might be a resurrected enemy from Adams' past. A question that kept popping up in my mind was "If You don't like the man, why did you take the time to write about him?" All in all, by the end of the book I changed my mind about him and was glad I had read it. I still disagree with him on some things but he's probably more right than I am.I recommend this book but only as an addendum to a full length biography on John Adams.
—Greg Boswell
4.5 stars. I have to admit, the strong rating might have something to do with the fact that I just love John Adams. Ellis, one of my favorite history authors, does not disappoint. This isn't really a biography; rather, it's a look into the later years in Adams' life, Adams' concern for his place in history, and his legacy. This is a probe of Adams' psychology and inner life more than a recounting of events. Since Adams wrote so prolifically and was pretty much incapable of disguising his true feelings, Ellis is able to piece together Adams' rambling and sometimes contradictory statements to give us an in-depth look at the man.
—Melanie
