Produced by PBS for the bicentennial year, this ambitious project brings the
story of the Adams family to life down through five generations following the Revolution.
William Daniels (John Adams 1776; Samuel Adams The Bastard
returns to the role he "created," this time as John Quincy Adams.
The PBS story tells the traditional version of John Adams whose star rose with the Revolution,
the Declaration of Independence and the negotiation of the treaty of Paris which recognized
American Independence before it crashed in an unpopular and occasionally repressive administration
as President.
The saga of John Adams who was one of the principal movers of Revolution, Republic and Constitution
would have been of itself monumental but the family produced a second star: a career diplomat, Secretary
of State and President. In four years in office as President John Quincy Adams may not have
towered over Washington or Jefferson. The administration of the junior Adams came to
fruition in a disputed election where Adams had run a distant second to the War Hero Andrew Jackson.
However as a diplomat, John Quincy Adams rescued the country from its own excesses.
The Second Adams would play as pivotal a role in the American story just as
the saga itself would not have been complete without a Second Anglo-American War to
confirm the breach betwenn England and America. Much can be said on both sides of the friction between
England and America which flared into open warfare. Suffice to say that America picked the wrong
moment in 1812 to leap into the Napoleonic Wars on the losing side.
Two men prevented a dire outcome: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Regretfully they would never
be friends.
In the telling of two men who saved the country from destruction, the PBS series skirts over some nuances which might be regarded as extremely significant.
The War of 1812, despite a fair share of victories and heroes facing overwhelming odds,
gives little to cause for celebration. The major significance of the war is
that it ended the revolutionary period. The United States Army was small; its adjunct,
the state militias proved inadequate to take the offensive against well-trained
British Regulars, veterans of the war on the European continent. On the other hand, while
the British were able to take and burn the capitol, the Army was able to contain British
ambitions in the hinterland, to defeat Britain's Indian allies and even to repulse the Royal Navy's incursion at Baltimore.
With domestic opposition in the New England states to continued war, President Madison
sought a diplomatic solution to the differences with England. One of five commisioners
dispatched to Europe in the summer of 1814 to negotiate with the British, John Quincy Adams found himself confronted
with intolerable demands: accept an Indian buffer state between US and British territories.
Adams stood firm the negotiations must resolve the causus belli: freedom of the seas and respect for naturalized American
citizens. JQ Adams wrote
I [will] justly observe …
the wishes of every true American, [for] Peace upon honorable terms …
… I trust that neither myself nor any one of my colleagues would
deem his life or mine a sacrifice too great to obtain it...Dearly as I value peace, and much as I know it is needed and desired by our Country,
I … shall never see my name [put] to a treaty, … that shall give … cause to blush ….
The defeat of Napoleon would have seemed to given the British the upper hand in dealing with its rambunctious prodigal child. British newspapers screamed for humiliating terms: including removal of President Madison. Fortunately offered the opportunity to lead his veterans in another campaign, the Duke of
Wellington proposed peace terms to the British negotiators: status quo ante bellum without mentioning the grievances of either side and encouraged the Americans to accept the offer.
The result, The Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814, was ratified by the United States Senate on February 16, 1815. The ratification was rushed to the British representative later that day. US politicians were smart enough to realize they had been let off the hook. Lest Anglican subtlety fail, the Duke of Wellington sent a private message to President Madison through the U.S. minister to Spain that he found the news of peace "very agreeable." The terms could have been far worse for America; the United States had little choice but to ratify the treaty.
John Quincy Adams wrote:
[The treaty] is not such as under more propitious circumstances
might have been expected, and to be fairly estimated must be compared
not with or desires but with what the situation of both parties and
of the world at and during the negotiation made attainable.
Yet as instrumental as Wellington was to devising the formula which both sides could accept, his brother-in-law Major General Sir Edward Pakenham was already enroute with the largest expeditionary force of the war to New Orleans to attempt the conquest of the vast Louisiana territory.
The final phase of the war was in progress as treaty negotiations concluded.
Fresh from routing pro-British Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, MG Andrew
Jackson rushed to defend New Orleans against the final British offensive.
Collecting regular troops, militia, pirates, free Creoles (Afro-French) and volunteers, Jackson rapidly organized a defensive position behind bales of cotton covered with mud. Advancing British forces did not believe "low log breastwork manned by a backwoods rabble" could contain the veterans of the Peninsula campaign. A flood wave of red tunics marched in rows into the Great Turkey shoot. Within two hours, most of the British attackers were dead or in flight.
Andrew Jackson saved the city with light casualties and emerged as the authentic
American hero of the war.
Wellington had proposed terms in the belief that his brother in law
Pakenham would easily defeat the "American rabble" at New Orleans and proclaim English sovereignty over the entire Louisiana territory.
Although John Adams believed that the treaty was more of " a truce rather than a peace,"
an enduring peace did ensue. Despite tense moments, the Oregon Question and the Trent
Affair, the century that followed showed peaceful dysfunctionality in the relationship
between Albion and its wild seed. Even if who won the war remains a matter of debate
the US certainly won the peace giving rise to the myth not of a poorly conceived and
futile conflict in which vainglorious war hawks almost lost the entire country but of a glorious triumph in which the nation had single handedly defeated the Mistress of the Seas. The War of 1812 revived the pride of the American Revolution. In the international arena, the United States emerged from war with increased prestige and stature.
With the succession of James Monroe to the presidency, Adams become secretary of state. Now heir apparent to the Presidency, JQ Adams was selected as the insider candidate in 1824. However the War of 1812 had shattered the party of Jefferson.
Adams faced three opponents: Former Secretary of War William H. Crawford of Georgia, House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky, and the hero of New Orleans General Andrew Jackson.
Although the overwhelming choice of the electorate, Jackson fell 32 votes short in the electoral college. In the House of Representatives, Speaker Clay threw his votes to Adams; elected by a single vote, Adams appointed Clay the new heir apparent secretary of state. Resigning from the Senate with a vow to unseat Adams in 1828, Jackson called Clay, "The Judas of the West."
Jackson was the popular choice not Adams. Even with Clays backing, Adams could not muster Congressional support for Adam's ambitious program of constructing national improvements, roads, canals, and educational institutions. The Tariff of 1828, "the tariff of abominations" raised prices, cost votes and finished off Adam's career. Despite an intensely bitter campaign mostly directed at Jackson's wife Rachel, Adams suffered a humiliating defeat at the polls. With the inauguration of Jackson, the last president to have served as a soldier in the Revolution, the dream of the Revolutionaries, a representative popular republic
had been attained.
Dramatis Personae 