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JOHN ADAMS: OBNOXIOUS AND DISLIKED - Page 2

© John S. Cooper

Abigail's father was a well-to-do Congregational minister who did not consider Adams, the son of a small farmer and a lawyer, good enough to marry his daughter. Rev. Smith shared the contemporary New England prejudice against lawyers, and treated Adams with scant courtesy. When John and Abigail got married anyway, Rev. Smith preached a sermon for the occasion based on the text, "For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine and ye say, he hath a devil." Although Adams said nothing about it, Abigail was highly amused by the choice of text.

After the war, Adams served his country as minister to the Court of St. James (England). This was a tough assignment, since most people in England considered him a traitor who should be hanged for his role in the American Revolution. His reward for his many years of service was to be elected as the first Vice-President of the United States.

Adams wrote Abigail, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." His main duty as Vice-President was to preside over the Senate and listen to their debates.

Adams once said, "I have reached the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress." Now Adams was the presiding officer of the upper house of Congress. He took his role very seriously.

Adams worried a great deal about the formalities of government. His time in the Court of St. James had made him appreciative of pomp and pageantry. He thought this was a vital issue to be decided right at the beginning, and asked the Senate for advice. Should he address the Senate standing or sitting? "Gentleman, I am possessed of two separate powers---the one in esse, the other in passe [Vice President of the United States but President of the Senate]...when the President comes into the Senate, what shall I be?"

Senator William Maclay's answer was, "Who cares?" Maclay kept a journal of these times. He wrote that Adams was fond of official titles without which "governments cannot be raised nor supported." He also wrote that Adams may go and dream about titles, for he will get none." Maclay and the other Senators did compromise and give Adams an unofficial title of "His Rotundity."

Adams was not the silent Vice President we are used to seeing in the Senate today. Admas felt it necessary to instruct his charges in the proper performance of their duties. Maclay complained in his journal "that before debate on any issue could begin, the Vice President insisted on addressing to the chamber a lecture on the constitutional responsibilities of the Senate. During debate, he was arbitrary and prejudiced in his decisions regarding who could and who could not participate. Before a vote could be taken, he would, like a schoolmaster talking to children, summarize the issue, or his own interpretation of it, and unhesitatingly instruct the Senators how to vote."

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