The Adams Family
Richard Brookhiser discusses America’s First Dynasty.

Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO Executive Editor
February 16-17, 2002

ichard Brookhiser, historian, writer, and a National Review senior editor, is author of the new book, America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What was it that made you decide to write on the Adamses?

Richard Brookhiser: John Adams always struck me as an interesting character. My publishers suggested doing more than one Adams. That meant a book on the weight of the past. I jumped at the idea when I realized that John Adams himself, even though he had no famous ancestors, felt inspired and oppressed by past heroism of Puritan New England.

Lopez: Who is your favorite Adams? Has your favorite changed in the course of writing?

Brookhiser: None of the Adamses are likeable. They are proud, envious, self-pitying, and generally unfunny. You have to focus on their abilities, and their achievements. I came most to enjoy the company of John Quincy and Henry, because they are the best writers. John Quincy's diary is brilliant — he hates everyone — and ought to come back into print in a one-volume edition. Henry's book on the Middle Ages, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres, is a masterpiece: beautiful and painful.

Lopez: What was John Adams's most important contribution to the Founding?

Brookhiser: John Adams labored for declaring independence at the Continental Congress (as Richard Stockton said, he was "the Atlas of American independence"). Jefferson wrote the words, but he pushed hardest for the act. His services in negotiating the Treaty of Paris were also a necessary complement to Ben Franklin's francophilia. His presidency, alas, was a bust.

Lopez: What was the Adams-Washington relationship like?

Brookhiser: On Washington's part, distant; on Adams's, resentful but ultimately admiring. Adams's letter to Benjamin Rush (November 11, 1807) is a shrewd analysis of Washington's career.

Lopez: You have written that John Adams was overrated as a president and John Quincy Adams underrated as a writer. Was writing the Adamses' true calling?

Brookhiser: Except for Henry, they all needed public service as their grist, though they were certainly better writers than presidents.

Lopez: Why would a man seek political office after being president?

Brookhiser: Because you have something still to do, or a point still to prove. John Quincy wanted to rebuke his enemies, especially southerners.

Lopez: How is Henry Adams "the mirror of the nineteenth century"?

Brookhiser: He presents himself in the Education as the spectator of a changing world. That strikes me as too pat, which must be why I don't like the book.

Lopez: You focus on the four Adamses who were "great." What makes a man great?

Brookhiser: I define great men as those who have a large and positive effect on the world. This rules out both the "mute, inglorious Miltons," and Hitler.

Lopez: Was there any question about including Charles Francis Adams?

Brookhiser: Charles Francis differs from the rest of the family, because he was not hateful, and almost not great. He makes the cut because of his service as Minister to London during the Civil War — certainly a great deed, which neither his father nor his grandfather would have been patient enough to do so well.

Lopez: Are there any similarities between the Adams dynasty and the Bushes?

Brookhiser: One similarity is alcoholism. Two of John's three sons, and two of John Quincy's three sons were drunkards. In the Adams finally, it was either the White House or the ale house. George W. Bush, and his daughters, obviously have had similar problems. Another similarity is that both John Quincy and George W. are better politicians than their fathers.

Lopez: You write about contemporary politics, culture — what is it about history that makes you devote book writing to?

Brookhiser: Since the lives are complete, maybe it is easier to learn lessons from them.

Lopez: Thus far, among your books, do you have a favorite?

Brookhiser: Founding Father is the best, because it had the best subject.

Lopez: Who is your next book on?

Brookhiser: Gouverneur Morris — wit, cripple, ladies' man, and draftsman of the Constitution. How can you not like a guy who marries his twenty-years-younger housekeeper, then tells an angry niece that, "if the world were to live with my wife, I should certainly have consulted its taste"?