Adams Family Correspondence : Volume 14 Hardback

by Adams Family

Edited by Hobson Woodward, Sara Martin, Christopher F. Minty, Amanda Mathews Norton, Neal E. Millikan, Gwen Fries, Sara Georgini

Part of the Adams Papers series

Hardback

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Description

John and Abigail Adamsâ€™ reflections on an emerging nation as they move into the new Presidentâ€™s House in Washington, D.C., are a highlight of the nearly 280 letters written over seventeen months printed in volume 14 of Adams Family Correspondence.

The volume opens with the Adamsesâ€™ public and private expressions on the death of George Washington and concludes with Johnâ€™s defeat in the contentious presidential election of 1800.

Electoral College maneuvering, charges of sedition, and state-by-state strategizing are debated by the Adamses and their correspondents as the election advances toward deadlock and finally victory for Thomas Jefferson in the House of Representatives.

Johnâ€™s retirement from public life had some sweet mixed with the bitter.

The U.S. mission to France resulted in the Convention of 1800 that ended the Quasi-War and the so-called midnight appointments at the close of his presidency ushered in the transformative U.S.

Supreme Court era of John Marshall, a coda anticipated in Abigailâ€™s request to John in the final days of his administrationâ€”â€œI want to see the list of judges.â€The domestic life of the Adamses was equally dynamic.

Abigail and John endured the crushing loss of their son Charles, whose struggle with alcohol ended in repudiation and death in New York.

Son Thomas Boylston and daughter Nabby spent the period in relative stability, while John Quincy chronicled a tour of Silesia in letters home from Europe.

At the volumeâ€™s close, the correspondence between John and Abigail comes to an end.

As they retired to Quincy, their rich observations on the formation of the American republic would continue in letters to others if not to each other.