Adams Marathon #2

A few thoughts about film as a medium for teaching history.

In the David McCullough documentary that was a special feature to the Adams boxed set, the author says what all of our history teachers say: that history is more than a collection of dates and quotes---it is about people, and their lives. This is doubtlessly true, but the reason that dates and quotes get so much play is that they are capable of accurate and ready determination. We know for sure what day the Declaration of Independence was ratified, and what was argued on either side of the surrounding debate. We don't know what Thomas Jefferson's face looked like as delegate after delegate altered its language. It seems that a historian's main challenge is to use the facts as a foundation, and to divine from them the human story.

In books, it is very easy to tell what is fact and what is guesswork. Ralph Ketcham, especially, takes liberties in trying to find the man in the collected papers and letters that are "James Madison." He frequently invites us to "imagine" Madison doing certain things: running through a swamp as a boy, despairing when his first relationship falls apart, nodding in agreement at a colleague's argument. These frolics are harmless--- there are certain gaps in the record, and it is useful to have educated guesses (when labeled as such) from an authority on the subject.

A movie, of course, is different, as the filmmaker is guessing all the time. Something as minor as the way an actor is standing when delivering a line can forever inform the way a viewer thinks of a subject. For example, Janet made the pithy comment yesterday that Thomas Jefferson was always "looking exasperated and leaning against stuff." This is not something we knew from any book, because an author couldn't get away with something like that. And it isn't like the filmmaker is trying to slip something by us, there's no choice. The guy playing Jefferson has to do something while he is talking so he might as well look exasperated and lean against something, because that seems pretty in character.

All of which is leading me to the question of whether using talented actors and paul giamatti to tell the story of John Adams is "better" history than using the facts---the dates and quotes---alone. I asked my friend Jenny about this---she is getting her Phd in history now, and she doesn't like that the book became a miniseries at all. She referred to it as "historical fiction," and drew no distinction between a work like the Adams miniseries and a Philippa Gregory novel.

I think for someone like me who doesn't have a phd in history, the film treatment does more good than harm. In the McCullough documentary to which I referred, he remembered meeting Harry Truman in 1952, and that what most surprised him was that Give 'Em Hell Harry was in color- he only knew him from newspapers and newsreels. And so it is with these historical figures who precede even photography. We forget that they were people before they were monuments, or as janet said, that they were not the founding fathers at the time. That's why it is important to see a Jefferson who is always leaning against stuff. Not because it teaches me that he is the specific type of person portrayed in the movie, but because it reminds me that he was a person at all.

All for now. Some thoughts on the war of 1812 tomorrow, then on to Monroe.

loyal opposition

On July 3, 1776, the day before the D of I was signed and independence declared, John Adams wrote this in a letter to Abigail:

The fourth day of July, 1776, will be memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever.

Dont fail to notice, people, that he said "one end of the continent to the other." Did they even know about California back then?

The miniseries had many flaws (not least of which was casting the marginally talented paul giamatti against the actress, laura linney), but one thing it was great at was contextualizing and respecting Adams's opponents- those like John Dickinson who did not want the colonies to declare their independence. Since we now know that declaring independence was so clearly the right decision, it seems right to portray the loyalists as british apologists at worst, and scaredy-cats at best. Now that we know that we won the war and survived our salad years, arguing for reconciliation seems reckless.

But John Dickinson wasn't the crazy one---John Adams was. There were too many obstacles in the way of independence to list, or fit in an 8 hour miniseries. But through guile, rhetoric, religious invocation, and a bit of fear-mongering, Adams convinced 12 state delegations composed of learned men to essentially ignore the facts on the ground, and start a suicidal war (12, not 13, because Dickinson ultimately abstained) because of idealism. The movie portrays Dickinson as he probably thought of himself--- a sober, thoughtful, grounded man with his finger in the dyke, holding off for as long as he could the deluge of revolution.

What kind of man leads his countrymen into such chaos? The same kind of man/fanatic who knows specifically that 230 years later, the 4th of July will be celebrated with parades and fireworks. Only because his ideas seem reasonable now does history regard Adams as a reasonable man. But in the unfolding of his time, Adams was as daring a revolutionary as has lived. Film proved an especially good medium for reminding me of this.

a very special episode of At Times Dull

today david came to chicago and we marathoned the 7-hour john adams miniseries. there is much to say.

john adams - a few weeks ago i told my friend kait of our plans to watch the miniseries. "john sadams?" she asked, "because that thing will have you crying in 20 minutes." and yeah, what the crap, hbo? the miniseries is directly based on david mccullough's book, which is a real credit to him, but having read that very book i'd have to say that john adams is NOT that depressing. in fact, mccullough frequently paints him as the most candid, amiable of the founding fathers, most of whom where stiff-lipped aristocrats. the miniseries would have you think he was a big crankypants, always whining and badgering and huffing and puffing when he didn't get things his way. the impression i had of him was that he was brilliant, ambitious, persuasive, and extremely likeable, and that his moody, vain attributes were just the common b-side of a type a personality.

of course, you say, who am i to judge the character of john adams? i am no one. but consider the fact that he was repeatedly elected to public office, he was repeatedly chosen by his peers in government for the highest offices available, and george washington, benjamin franklin, and thomas jefferson all regarded him as talented and a reliable friend. the man depicted by hbo was simply too much of a downer to have accomplished any of those things.

the making-of featurette, which i rushed to view, is drenched in the goal "not to romanticize the founding fathers." this is a noble goal. as the director said, to understand the world of 1776, you have to live in a world where you don't know who the founding fathers are. they're not icons yet, they're still just dudes in wigs who spend a lot of time debating. and they are portrayed in the miniseries as very human, with all their flaws hanging out. the great providence of the american revolution is not the actions of a single one of them, but that they were all alive at the same time. they, shall we say, complete each other. i will now presume to call myself a student of the american revolution and say that, as a student of the american revolution, the scenes that had me on the edge of my seat were the personal interactions between the founding fathers, whom in the last few months have come to play a bizarrely large role in my daily life. there's a scene when franklin, adams, and jefferson are sitting around putting red pen to the first draft of the declaration. there's a scene where the continental congress does a roll call vote for independence. there's a scene where george washington is sworn in as president on a balcony in philadelphia. there's a scene where john and abigail drive up to the white house, still under construction, still called the president's house. some of the hair and make-up on the production is pure alchemy, and as david mccullough said in an interview, the first time he walked up to david morse in costume as george washington, it was heart-stopping.

these scenes gave me the goosebumps. i would refrain from saying that history came to life, but i guess i just did.

pride & prejudice: being the bromance between john adams and thomas jefferson: i believe i've already written at some length about the relationship between adams and jefferson, but it's the part of early american history that i find most captivating. i was delighted to find that i share this in common with david mccullough.

adams and jefferson died on the same day - july 4 1826 - the 50th anniversary of american independence. mccullough said that it was this extraordinary fact that he first wanted to write about, and that in exploring how to do so without being swept up in the glamour and legacy of jefferson, he discovered that adams' was the story that needed to be told. even so, the extraordinary friendship between the two steals the show in the both the book and the miniseries.

they met in 1776. adams was a brash orator and jefferson a shy idealist. adams pulled jefferson out of his shell to write the declaration. jefferson becomes a superstar. a few years later they both end up in paris as diplomats, and form a close friendship. when the adams' are called away to london, they are most saddened by the fact that they'll be away from jefferson's company. after the constitution is ratified, both men return to america to serve in the new federal government - adams as vice president and jefferson as secretary of state. as two political parties emerge, they find themselves torn asunder by domestic politics. as adams was part of the ruling federalist majority - first as vice president and then as president - it was jefferson who turned to the destructive political machinations of the minority, hurting adams professionally and personally. the rift was almost a matter of policy until after adams retirement when he found out that jefferson had secretly been funding a newspaper with the express instructions to write damaging and frequently untruthful articles about adams. and that was when he broke both adams and my heart.

adams, it should be said, always refused to say anything bad about jefferson. even when running against each other in the presidential election of 1801, adams referred to jefferson as "a dear friend of many years."

but in their retirement, when both had wearied of national politics, adams wrote jefferson a letter, and jefferson wrote back. after not hearing or seeing each other in over a decade, they began a correspondence that lasted until their deaths. historians drool over it. and in the miniseries, it's the happy ending. in a touch that would be way too adorable were in not entirely factual, they had busts of each other in their bedrooms. busts. this stuff kills me.

abigail adams: for the love of heaven would someone give this woman a monument.

benjamin franklin: being a genius at french etiquette is maybe not something to be proud of.

paul giamatti: i remain unconvinced.

david mccullough: what a gem.

1780s

so you won a revolution. now what are you going to do?

the 1780s: not great.

the 1770s were all death to king george! no taxation without representation! give me liberty or give me death! we declare these truths to be self-evident!

and by the 1790s, we had a nation. a president that virtually everyone liked, some good trade agreements, and something that was, if not already so, on its way to being a stable currency.

in between, the 1780s happened. it's like the decade that america forgot, or would like to, and has been the hardest part to get through of every biography so far. so we won the war, which put us in massive debt. the states were being governed by the articles of confederation which, in a nutshell, said, "you're free! please behave yourselves." most of the luminaries of the revolution basically graduated out of legislative duty. some of them went to europe as diplomats, some retired, and some went home and said "i'm a hero! give me a state to run!" (read: patrick henry. good at sound bytes, bad at everything else, like running virginia.)

so when the first post-war congress convened, there were almost no big-name declaration signers there. just a bunch of talented younger guys, many of who had been active in state legislatures in voting for independence, but new to the national scene. and these guys had all the unexciting work to do. there were no more declarations to write, wars to win, philosophies to shout from the rooftops. there was inflation, debt, regional conflict, and state governments running wild with their independence. the main conflict of the 1780s went something like this:

congress: we owe several european nations millions of dollars, could you please tax your citizens?
states: do we have to?
congress: we'd like you to.
states: but we're free now! we hate tyranny!
congress: if we don't get some taxes we're going to become part of britain again.
states: stop oppressing me!

soon it became clear that the articles of confederation were based on way too much goodwill among the states, and a stronger central government was needed. the 1780s were a decade in which the states and the congress tested out their new government, found its flaws, started speeding towards self-implosion, and then tried to reshape the government from within the confines of the confederation. in short, it was the decade for james madison.

because james madison was a huge nerd. almost no description of him is ever written without getting to "man of learning" in the first few sentences. madison was part of the first post-war congress, and he became extremely frustrated with the weak national government. when his term was over, and he returned to virginia, he found himself without much to do, so he decided to embark on a course of study on how all governments had worked through the history of time. he made himself an expert on every republic, empire, monarchy, parliament, and senate that had ever ruled, and studied what worked and what didn't. he was doing his homework.

after a few years in the virginia legislature, madison went to serve in the federal convention where, basically, he walked that convention like a dog. many of the delegates were there with goals of protecting the private interests of their state. madison was there to create the most perfect government on the earth, and pretty soon he was running every debate.

madison was no idealist. unlike jefferson, his most particular friend, madison did not think that americans when left to their own devices would all decide to be virtuous farmers. but he did think a republican government was the only way to go. when the constitution was being ratified, madison and hamilton published a series of essays in its defense now known as the federalist papers. madison wrote, in the opening essay, "it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force."

a lot of these decisions and choices were made in the 1780s, by men whose states were going broke and who had very little reason to concede to each other. james madison is known as the father of the constitution because, during the very long and hot and miserable summer of 1787, he got them all to agree to fund a strong central government and start working for the greater good. he did this by merit of how blatantly smarter he was than everybody else in the room (and franklin was there). he was a huge nerd, and he was also a huge political genius. we should all be very glad we weren't alive in the 1780s, and we should be very glad that james madison was.

now if only the guy would get married.

presidential fact #7

 The delegates of the Federal Convention of 1787 (or FedCon, as we would call it nowadays) got a 10-day break after a month or two so a committe could summarize their progress. George Washington went on a trout-fishing trip with Gouverneur Morris (his actual name) to Valley Forge. It was the first time he had been there in the summer.

One can only imagine the subtle, wise, magisterial, time-worn comment he made upon seeing the site not covered in snow and blood.

presidential fun fact #6

James Madison was both our shortest and lightest President. At 5'4 and 100 pounds, he was a little bit shorter and slighter than Victoria Beckham (h/t celebheights.com).

Madison, the Early Years

Ironically, James Madison had a weak constitution.

Centuries before Jimmy Carter bemoaned America's Crisis of Confidence, and Bill Clinton Felt Your Pain, Madison was the country's first emoter-in-chief. Starting in his college days Madison had a weird form of what was then called epileptoid hysteria, and what we would now call panic attacks. Madison described it like this: "a constitutional liability to sudden attacks, somewhat resembling Epilepsy, and suspending the intellectual functions." Madison took medicine for his disorder, but it seems to have been more in his head than body---the hysteria only appeared before sea voyages and other activities that involved intense physical or intellectual labor. When Jefferson invited him to Europe once, Madison wrote to his mentor, "I have some reason to suspect that crossing the sea would be unfriendly to a singular disease of my constitution." Throughout every step of his life, people close to Madison were always worried that whatever responsibility he was about to take would finally overwhelm his fragile health. He was too weak to become a farmer, and too stressed out to become a lawyer. Even studying for finals proved too difficult for him, and he had to stay at Princeton one summer because he was too drained to make the journey home after exams.

He was also shy. Whereas John Adams could not shut up about his love for Abigail, and Thomas Jefferson sent saucy letters to women happily married to his friends, Madison seemed almost embarrassed by his clumsy attempts at romance. For example, the world didn't know until 1948 that he had been engaged to a woman named Kitty Floyd (no relation to Kitty Boyd, happy birthday). Why? Because Madison had inked out every reference to her in every letter. After a couple hundred of years, the ink had faded sufficiently that historians could set to work deciphering the code that Madison used to write about his betrothed. The engagement ended when she cheated on him with a med student, as women will.

Even Madison's attempts at mischief seem virginal (Don't think I didn't see the opportunity for a joke about the Non-Intercourse Act of 1810. I just passed). At Princeton, he became involved in a flame war with a rival student association. About its leader, Moses Allen, Madison composed this attempt at bawdy humor: Great Allen founder of the crew/ If right I guess must keep a stew/ The lecherous rascal there will find/ A place just suited to his mind/ May whore and pimp and drink and swear/ Nor more the garb of Christians wear/ And free Nassau from such a pest/ A dunce a fool an ass at best.

Marshall Mathers he wasn't. But from this sensitive youth emerged the finest diplomatic mind America had known. In the early days of the country, America faced a choice between allying with Britain, whose economic and political interests best aligned with ours, and France, who had bailed us out during the Revolutionary War. In the midst of partisan profane discourse that would make Billy Martin sound like Judith Martin, it was Madison who forged a compromise that allowed France to save face. He was worried about their feelings. This deft maneuvering later served as a model for President Kennedy (another man who felt) in dealing with Khrushchev's bombastic ego during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Madison used the occasion of his first inaugural address to share his nuanced view of how the psyche affected politics: "Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing . . . the respect of the nations at war . . . . If there be candor in the world, the truth of these assertions will not be questioned."

And that's how far I am in the book. Can't wait to see how this guy reacts when the Brits burn down the White House. I will let you know.