To his credit, Pickering was energetic and conscientious. He was fond of music and enjoyed a happy marriage that had produced ten children. Adams, who had known him for years, though not well, was willing to give him—indeed all of his cabinet—the benefit of the doubt. “Pickering and all his colleagues are as much attached to me as I desire,” he told Elbridge Gerry.
To many the great question was the part Jefferson might play concerning relations with France—the Republicans hoping it would be considerable, the Federalists determined he should have no say whatever. Privately, Adams was ambivalent on the subject. While he had forgiven Jefferson most of his past trespasses, he had by no means forgotten them. “I may say to you that his patronage of Paine and Freneau and his entanglements with characters and politics which have been pernicious are and have been a source of inquietude and anxiety to me,” Adams confided to Tristram Dalton. “He will have too many French about him to flatter him, but I hope we can keep him steady.”
To Elbridge Gerry, however, Adams expressed greater confidence. In view of Jefferson's good sense and long friendship, Adams thought he could expect from his Vice President support of the kind he himself had given Washington, “which is and shall be the pride and boast of my life.” Benjamin Rush, meantime, had written to Jefferson to say what a lift it gave him to hear Adams “speak with pleasure of the prospect of administering the government in a connection with you. He does justice to you upon all occasions...”
Arriving in Philadelphia just days before the inauguration, Jefferson had called on Adams at the Francis Hotel, where Jefferson, too, was to stay. They had not seen one another for three years, and apparently the reunion went well. As a matter of courtesy, one such visit between the President and Vice President would have sufficed, but the fact that Adams promptly returned the call the next morning was taken as a clear signal that Adams meant truly to pursue a policy above party divisions.
According to Jefferson's account of the meeting, written years later, Adams “entered immediately” into discussion of the crisis at hand and his wish for Jefferson to play a lead part in resolving it. Faced with the prospect of war with France, Adams was determined to make a fresh effort at negotiations in Paris, to bring about a reconciliation, which he believed possible and desirable. “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war,” he had written to Abigail.
The government of France, led since 1795 by a five-headed executive commission known as the Directory, had chosen to interpret the Jay Treaty as an Anglo-American alliance. In an effort to improve relations with France, Washington had recalled the American minister, James Monroe, and sent in his place a staunch Federalist, General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. But as yet there was no word from Pinckney.
It was the “first wish of his heart,” Adams told Jefferson, to send him to Paris, though he supposed this would be out of the question. “It did not seem justifiable for him to send away the person destined to take his place in case of an accident to himself,” Jefferson would recall; “nor decent to remove from consideration one who was a rival for public favor.”
Jefferson agreed with Adams's reasoning. Irrespective of whether the Constitution would allow it, he was sick of residing in Europe, Jefferson said, and hoped never to cross the Atlantic again as long as he lived.
That being so, Adams continued, it was his plan to send two emissaries to join Pinckney, making it a bipartisan three-man commission, which by its “dignity” ought to satisfy France, and by its geographical and political balance satisfy both parties and all parts of the country. He had in mind Elbridge Gerry and James Madison, who had recently retired from Congress. Jefferson said he was certain Madison would not accept, but at Adams's request agreed to inquire.
This was on March 3, the day before the inauguration. The next morning, in his own brief inaugural remarks before the Senate, Jefferson made a point of commending Adams as that “eminent character,” and spoke of their “uninterrupted friendship.” For a fleeting interlude the prospect of truly nonpartisan cooperation between them appeared attainable. “I am much pleased,” one Supreme Court justice wrote, “that Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson lodge together. The thing looks well; it carries conciliation and healing with it, and may have a happy effect on parties.”
The day following the inauguration, however, when President Adams asked others, including Washington, for their opinion on sending Madison to Paris, he heard only stiff objections. To such High Federalists as Timothy Pickering and Secretary of the Treasury Wolcott, Madison was as unacceptable as Jefferson would have been. Wolcott told the President that sending Madison would “make dire work among the passions of our parties in Congress.” When Adams said he refused to be intimidated by party passions, Wolcott threatened to resign.
As Jefferson would recall, it was that evening while walking down Market Street with Adams, after a farewell dinner given by Washington, that he informed Adams of Madison's refusal to go to France. Adams indicated that in any event the issue was now academic. There had been a change of mind due to objections raised. To Jefferson it was clear that Adams, who imagined he might “steer impartially between the parties,” had been brought abruptly back into the Federalist fold. But it was also clear to Adams that neither Jefferson nor Madison had the least desire to work with the administration, and thus he could expect no help from any of the Republicans.
It was there on Market Street, according to Jefferson, that he and Adams reached the breaking point. Adams never again mentioned a word to him on the subject of France, “or ever consulted me as to any measures of the government.”
Whether the parting was quite so clear-cut as Jefferson remembered is uncertain. But as Adams, too, later acknowledged, they “consulted very little together afterward.” Adams was to call on his Vice President for advice no more than Washington had called on him. The great difference, however, was that Jefferson was of the opposing party, with differing objectives and principles, and Adams consequently could never count on such loyalty from Jefferson as he had given Washington. Adams never knew when Jefferson might be working secretly to undercut or thwart him, for Jefferson's abiding flaw, Adams had concluded, was “want of sincerity.”
In his Farewell Address, Washington had warned against “the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” Particularly in governments of “popular form,” he had said, “it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.” Yet party spirit and animosities were as alive as ever, as Adams had been shown in the bluntest of terms in little more than twenty-four hours since taking office.
On March 8, Washington called at the Francis Hotel to say goodbye to Adams and wish him well. They were parting on good terms. For all his long coolness toward Adams, Washington before leaving office had written an unsolicited letter expressing the “strong hope” that as President, Adams would not withhold “merited promotion” from John Quincy. “I give it as my decided opinion,” Washington wrote, “that Mr. [John Quincy] Adams is the most valuable public character we have abroad, and there remains no doubt in my mind that he will prove himself to be the ablest of all our diplomatic corps if he is now to be brought into that line, or into any other public work.” Little that Washington might have said or done could have meant more to Adams.
“The President is fortunate to get off just as the bubble is bursting, leaving others to hold the bag,” Jefferson wrote to Madison. “Yet, as his departure will mark the moment when the difficulties begin to work, you will see, that they will be ascribed to the new administration.”
Jefferson, too, would depart shortly, after a quick farewell to Adams. “He is as he was,” Adams noted cryptically.
• • •
SO MUCH HAD HAPPENED in John Adams's life—he had done so much, taken such risks, given so much of himself heart and soul in the cause of his country—that he seems not to have viewed the presidency as an ultimate career objective or crowning life achievement. He was not one given to seeing life as a climb to the top of a ladder or
mountain, but more as a journey or adventure, even a “kind of romance, which a little embellished with fiction or exaggeration or only poetical ornament, would equal anything in the days of chivalry or knight errantry,” as once he confided to Abigail. If anything, he was inclined to look back upon the long struggle for independence as the proud defining chapter.
In this sense the presidency was but another episode in the long journey, and, as fate would have it, he was left little time to dwell overly on anything but the rush of events and the increasingly dangerous road ahead.
“My entrance into office is marked by a misunderstanding with France, which I shall endeavor to reconcile,” he wrote to John Quincy, “provided that no violation of faith, no stain upon honor is exacted.... America is not scared.”
On the evening of March 13, or possibly the next morning, Adams was hit with stunning news. The French Directory had refused to receive General Pinckney. Forced to leave Paris as though he were an undesirable alien, Pinckney had withdrawn to Amsterdam and was awaiting instructions.
To make matters worse, Adams learned of further French seizures of American ships in the Caribbean and that by decrees issued in Paris, the Directory had, in effect, launched an undeclared war on American shipping everywhere. The crisis had come to a head. Adams faced the threat of all-out war.
Days were consumed by tedious meetings. The weather was miserable, he reported to Abigail. “I have a great cold. The news is not pleasant.” Such confidence in his cabinet as he had expressed to Elbridge Gerry was badly shaken. From what he wrote privately to Abigail, it appears he already sensed what trouble was in store from that quarter. “From the situation where I now am, I see a scene of ambition beyond all my former suspicions or imagination.... Jealousies and rivalries... never stared me in the face in such horrid forms as in the present.”
On March 21 he moved into the President's House vacated by Washington, but what should rightfully have been a fulfilling moment proved only more demoralizing.
The furniture belonging to the public is in the most deplorable condition [he reported to Abigail]. There is not a chair to sit in. The beds and bedding are in a woeful pickle. This house has been a scene of the most scandalous drinking and disorder among the servants that I ever heard of. I would not have one of them for any consideration. There is not a carpet nor a curtain, nor a glass [mirror], nor linen, nor china, nor anything.
Rent for the house was an exorbitant $2,700 a year, plus another $2,500 for carriages and horses. Though Congress would allot $14,000 to purchase furniture, Adams worried that on his salary of $25,000, it would be impossible to make ends meet. They would be more “pinched” than ever in their lives, he warned Abigail. “All the glasses, ornaments, kitchen furniture ... all to purchase. All the china... glass and crockery.
“... All the linen besides.... Secretaries, servants, wood, charities... the million dittoes.” Yet not a word could they say. “We must stand our ground as long as we can.” To no one but her could he ever complain.
The work was more taxing than he had been prepared for, “very dry, dull,” “perplexing,” and “incessant.” But again nothing could be said. “Don't expose this croaking and groaning... I should lose all my character [reputation] for firmness.... Indeed, I sometimes suspect that I deserve a character of peevishness and fretfulness, rather than firmness.”
But more was happening than he let on. On Saturday, March 25, he called for Congress to reconvene in special session on May 15, “to consult and determine on such measures as their wisdom shall be deemed meet for the safety and welfare of the United States.” War clouds gathered over the capital—to the angry indignation of the Republicans. The Federalist press declared the United States had been grievously insulted by France; the Republican press affirmed American friendship with the French and, while expressing the hope that the President would remain true to his inaugural pledge to seek peace, reported that a “certain ex-Secretary” (Hamilton) was secretly preaching war to further his political ambitions.
A lively new newspaper had begun publication in Philadelphia, in answer to Bache's Aurora. Porcupine's Gazette was the work of an English printer and bookseller, William Cobbett, who wrote under the pen name “Peter Porcupine” and immediately demonstrated that he could be as biased, sarcastic, and full of invective as Bache, and attract no less attention. Headlines in Porcupine's Gazette announced that war with France was all but certain:
MR. PINCKNEY, THE AMERICAN MINISTER AT PARIS, HAVING RECEIVED ORDERS TO QUIT THE TERRITORIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, HAS ACTUALLY TAKEN HIS DEPARTURE ACCORDINGLY. WAR BETWEEN THESE TWO POWERS MAY THEREFORE BE CONSIDERED INEVITABLE.
Cobbett not only expected and wanted war with France, but favored the alliance with Britain that was bound to result—an increasingly popular view in many quarters.
It is manifestly the design of the French party to lull the people into a fatal security, to deaden their national energy and to defeat in this way those measures of defense which would secure to us our independence. With this view they will fabricate reports of accommodation with France—for this end they are constantly preaching up the improbability of a war with that nation, and some of the base traitors have even declared that in the event of war they will join France.
Adams remained silent, but in letters to Henry Knox and John Quincy said he would do everything possible to settle all disputes with France. To Abigail he confessed to being totally exhausted and begged her to come to his rescue. The more at odds he felt with his cabinet, the less he trusted their judgment, the greater his need for her insight and common sense, her presence in his life. His pleas for her to come grew more urgent even than those he had sent during his difficult debut as Vice President.
“I must go to you or you must come to me. I cannot live without you,” he wrote. And again: “I must entreat you to lose not a moment's time in preparing to come on, that you may take off from me every care of life but that of my public duty, assist me with your councils, and console me with your conversation.”
“The times are critical and dangerous, and I must have you here to assist me,” he told her. “I must now repeat this with zeal and earnestness. I can do nothing without you.”
• • •
ABIGAIL HAD BEEN corresponding faithfully the whole time, offering advice, opinions on people, often saying more than she knew she should as the wife of a president. “My pen runs riot,” she allowed. “I forget that it must grow cautious and prudent.” She had encouraged his confidence in Jefferson. Like others, she had thought the odd circumstance of having a President and Vice President of “differing sentiments” could prove a blessing were both to “aim at the same end, the good of their country.” Conceivably the combination of two well-meaning men could serve to continue the Union as Washington had managed all alone.
When Adams confided that he hoped to keep Hamilton at a safe distance, she provided a withering farsighted assessment. “Beware that spare Cassius has always occurred to me when I have seen that cock sparrow,” she wrote. “Oh, I have read his heart in his wicked eyes. The very devil is in them. They are lasciviousness itself.”
She prayed that “ ‘things which made for peace’ may not be hid from your eyes.” Her feelings were not those of pride or ostentation, but “solemnized” by the knowledge of the obligations and duties he had assumed. “That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with the satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your A.A.”
Her own days were taken up with all that would have preoccupied him had he been home, and more. She kept house, ran the farm, settled issues among the hired men, managed the family finances, and tried not to complain about her health or loneliness.
In a particularly memorable letter, she recounted a crisis that arose when the youngest of her hired hands, James Prince, a free black boy she had taken under her wing in Philadelphia, came to ask if he might attend evening classes in tow
n at a new school for apprentices. Abigail, who had taught him herself to read and write, warmly approved, but was soon asked by a neighbor to withdraw James. If she did not, she was told, the other boys would refuse to attend and the school would close. Had James misbehaved, Abigail asked. No, she was informed, it was because he was black. Did these other boys object when he attended church? No, they did not.
“The boy is a freeman as much as any of the young men, and merely because his face is black is he to be denied instruction?” she asked. “How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? Is this the Christian principle of doing unto others as we would have others to do to us?”
She requested that the boys be sent to her. “Tell them... that I hope we shall all go to Heaven together.” And this, she was pleased to report to Adams, ended the crisis. She heard no more on the subject; James continued in the school.
As ever, a very considerable part of her time was devoted to correspondence with the rest of the family, about whom she reported to John, seldom withholding her own opinions.
John Quincy was in love again, this time with Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of the American consul in London whom the Adamses knew. Though John Quincy assured his mother that his “matrimonial prospects” were still uncertain, she could not help worrying, as she told him, whether the young woman was right for him, whether she might be too young, too accustomed to the splendors and attractions of Europe—meaning her expensive tastes might be more than he could afford.