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John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 March 1809

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John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 March 1809 Fame Revisionist History “How happened it, that Jefferson was an Ambassador, and that first subscriber only a Minister? Oh History! How accurate thou art?” J. Andrews, The President’s House, engraving, ca. 1805. Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts. Department. William Weyks, Manuscript Translation of Dedication. August 15, 1825. The John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library. Enduring Legacy While John Adams’s fame never attained William Gordon, History of the Rise, Reverend William Gordon had spent years John Adams was a man driven by ambition, In particular, Adams was insulted by contemporary Progress, and Establishment of the the heights of glory heaped upon other Founding Independence of the United States of interviewing revolutionary leaders, including “~~To the Illustrious John Adams~~ Fathers, he enjoyed a far greater measure of although he often denied the charge. In his later books written about the American Revolution and America, 1788. The John Adams Library Adams, for his History of the Rise, Progress, and Vice President of the Federal Republic of North America at the Boston Public Library. respect and recognition than his disgruntled years, he grew increasingly embittered by the its heroes that exalted some founders but neglected Establishment of the United States of America and ....... the Entire Representative Senate Adams, equally in Genius and Talents, most illustrious…” letters and annotations suggest. The Adams Gilbert De Pusy Lafayette, President John public’s exaltation of America’s more charismatic to account for the important role Adams himself (above). Adams angrily noted in the margins that Library is filled with tokens of esteem from Adams, undated. Boston Public Library, Gordon’s account was “designed more for Book- founders: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, had played. As he wrote to friend Benjamin Rush Print Department. Manuscript Translation of Dedication. August 15, 1825. admirers, including books signed as presentation sellers’ and Author’s Profit than for the Honour copies by their authors and others bearing Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. All in 1790: “The history of our revolution will be one Thomas Jefferson, engraving. Boston Public of America or the Cause of Truth.” He took Library, Prints Department. printed dedications to Adams himself. were lavishly praised with orations and marble continued lye from one end to the other. The essence particular offense at his own listing in the List monuments, yet Adams felt his own contributions of the whole will be that Dr Franklin’s electrical of Subscribers included in the first volume: Adams met Dutch publisher John Luzac, a “His Excellency John Adams Esq., the late American fervent supporter of the American cause, during to American independence—including his call Rod smote the earth, and out sprung General Plenipotentiary.” Thomas Jefferson’s listing for revolution in the Continental Congress and Washington.” In his retirement, Adams resorted Adams’s ambassadorship to the Netherlands features a noticeable elevation in title; yet Adams in the 1780s. The two men collaborated on pivotal diplomatic negotiations abroad—had been to the margins of his books to personally revise had served far longer and in many more varied numerous publications, including the first painfully obscured. the written record of American history. posts. As Adams peevishly scrawled in the European translation of the Massachusetts margin: “How happened it that Jefferson was Constitution. Adams was 89 years old and nearly an Ambassador, and that first subscriber only blind when this lengthy printed dedication a Minister? Oh History! How accurate thou art?” to him in John Luzac’s work was translated from John Luzac, Ioannis Luzac Oratio De Socrate Latin into English by friend William Weyks. John Henri Isaac Browere, John Adams, 1825. Cive, 1796. The John Adams Library at the The two-sided manuscript was simply tucked Plaster bust. Courtesy of Fenimore Boston Public Library. loosely into the volume. Remarkably, Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY. Photo: Richard Walker. the document survived intact through all the library’s transfers. Adams received many books as gifts, and this small volume’s decoratively embossed cover belies Mausoleums, statues, its somber contents—two sermons eulogizing Adams’s distant relative Rebecca (Boylston) Gill, wife of then- Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor. Peter Thacher, A Sermon Preached to the monuments will never be Society in Brattle-Street, Boston, March 25th, 1798, Occasioned by the Death of Madam Rebecca Gill, 1798. The John Adams Library erected to me. I wish them at the Boston Public Library. not. Panegyrical romances will never be written, nor flattering orations spoken, to transmit me to posterity in brilliant colors. No, nor in true colors. All but the last I loathe. — John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 March 1809.
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