By: Veronica Kogan

Let’s face it—do you really know what John Adams did for the birth of the U.S.? From my experience in history class, John Adams is a name you hear once or twice and forget shortly thereafter. I’ve always thought the main players in the birth of America were only George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. “Hamilton” the musical made me even more biased when I heard Hamilton sing “John Adams doesn’t have a real job anyway.”  That is until I saw HBO miniseries “John Adams.” 

 I was hesitant to watch a seven-episode-long series about someone even my history class didn’t care too much about. I finished it in a week. What’s so special about it, you ask? Well, it showed me a whole new perspective on the rebellious actions of the colonists, John Adams’s role in the creation of the nation, and the everyday conflicts that plagued the Founding Fathers.

The most eye-opening episode for me was the first. It dealt with the escalating tensions between Boston (where Adams lived) and the British. When it got to the Boston Massacre, I was expecting the same old story—the British fired on an innocent crowd of Patriot colonists and didn’t get what they deserved in court. I was shocked when John Adams, a lawyer at the time, proved the soldiers’ innocence to me. In court, he exposed the role of the colonists with the testimony of a brave man. Why brave? Let’s see how truthful you’re willing to be when incriminating the same men that surround you in the courtroom, all giving you death stares and cracking their knuckles. He proved that the colonists had provoked the soldiers with insults, death threats and the throwing of oyster shells, stone, and chunks of ice. Adams proved that even at that point, the soldiers were not ordered to fire, and the first shot that led to the opening of British fire was accidental. I never thought I would side with British soldiers at any point of the Revolution, but the mob mentality of the colonists and their blind hatred of the soldiers showed me that tyranny could exist among the most revered people if they allowed their emotions to overpower fact and justice. 

Then there was John Adams’s role in the war. He was one of Massachusetts’s delegates in the First and Second Continental Congress and one of the main reasons the colonies declared independence. Adams believed that the colonies’ only option was to go to war with Britain and become its own nation. He was met with strong backlash from many of the other delegates, whose colonies did not yet understand the extent of British tyranny as places like Boston did. His opposers believed that a simple letter of complaint and reassurance of love for the king would return everything back to normal. After many hours of arguing on the Congress floor and secret meetings with rival delegates, Adams convinced a majority to vote in favor of war.

Once the fighting had begun in Boston, Adams knew Congress had to act fast before the British navy tore the colonies apart. He told Congress that the men fighting to free Boston should be considered a Continental Army with their own commanding general. Not only that, but he was the man who nominated George Washington as the commanding general—are you as offended as I am that your teacher never mentioned that before?! Adams also sacrificed years of family life to ensure that the United States wouldn’t go broke from fighting the largest empire in the world. He won $5 million in loans at favorable interest rates, helping start up America’s credit system in its post-war years.

Now that we’ve validated Adams as a major player in the fledgling days of our nation, let’s talk about the juicy stuff: his beefs. And when it comes to beefs, his drama with Benjamin Franklin are at the top of my list. The two first met at the Continental Congress, and they started off as good friends. The moment it all went sour was when Adams was sent to France to gain their allyship in the Revolutionary War. His journey turned horrific when his ship was attacked by the British. He (and his accompanying son) took part in the battle and witnessed shrapnel blow off a man’s foot, only to find that Franklin had already made the alliance upon their arrival. All that PTSD and sea sickness for nada.

Adams stayed in France as a co-ambassador with Franklin. However, his Puritan background made him a direct, modest, and uptight man—the antithesis of the frivolous ways of the French court. Franklin, on the other hand, was practically a French man himself—he spoke French, posed all day for France’s most in-vogue artists, and charmed his French mistresses. Unfortunately for Adams, Franklin’s adaptation to French culture made him quite successful in getting his way with King Louis XVI, while Adams’s directness and zeal was not welcomed. That’s when Franklin decided to backstab his American friend by sending a letter to Congress badmouthing Adams and urging them to send him home.

Then there was the infamous Adams-Jefferson drama. Back in 1776, Adams and Thomas Jefferson worked together in the making of the Declaration of Independence. After the war, they continued to deeply respect each other, even though their political views began to split off into opposite directions—Adams was in favor of a strong central government, while Jefferson was a strong advocate for states’ rights. Their feud began when they ran against each other for President after Washington refused another term. Jefferson had spent many years with the French and wished to interfere in the French Revolution, while Adams was a firm believer in Washington’s non-interference policy. After all, America was not yet strong enough to fight a second war. Adams ended up winning by only three votes, and Thomas Jefferson was named his Vice President. Adams offered a friendly, tree-hugging bipartisan government to Jefferson, but Jefferson told him to talk to the hand. 

Their relationship got even more ugly in the following election of 1800. Jefferson backed a newspaper article that claimed John Adams had a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” What is up with the Founding-Father-backstabbing? Adams was so hurt that he refused to attend Jefferson’s inauguration, and they didn’t speak for 12 years. Later in their lives, they were able to rekindle their friendship through letters, but it just wasn’t the same.

The John Adams miniseries took the godly Founding Fathers off their pedestals, showing me their human side, which was not always pretty. It also taught me to trust only fact, even when the emotion comes from those with righteous intentions. And, most importantly, it made me realize that I need to have a chat with my history teachers about giving John Adams his well-deserved spotlight.