Newt Gingrich (3:04)
On this episode of Newts World. The lives of these men are essential to understand the American form of government and our ideals of liberty. The Founding fathers all played key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and in the creation of the government of the United States of America. And now the life of John Adams. We're going to talk about probably the most misunderstood of the Founding Fathers, John Adams. Adams is a little bit of an odd duck, partly because he's from New England, which at that time was just very different from either New York or Virginia. Partly because Adams himself was really, really smart, but he was very argumentative and he was very blunt. He also had enormous courage. Adams had really developed over time a view of the British as a tyranny. He didn't arrive at it immediately. He was also, of all of the Founding Fathers, probably the one who believed the most deeply in the rule of law. And in fact, one of the most creative and courageous parts of his life was his willingness to defend the British soldiers who were charged with murder during the Boston Massacre. It was very unpopular in Boston because it was sort of a lynch mob desire to just, you know, hang them. And Adams said, no, I mean, this whole thing is about the rule of law. He ultimately wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, which served as a model for the U.S. constitution. And he worked very, very hard to knit together the country. He understood that Virginia as the biggest colony and then biggest state in population and in wealth, had to be at the center. But at the same time, he also realized that bringing all of New England in really, really mattered. And it's important to remember that in this period, the idea of America is a really sort of vague idea to most people. Most people think of themselves in terms of their colony or later on in terms of their state. On Adam's case, he was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. So it's again hard for us to look back and realize. But his early life, starting in 1735 when he was born, you know, he was English. He thought of himself purely as a colonist. He didn't think. He was a nationalist. He was educated at Harvard, the first University created in the United States and gradually came to believe that the British were behaving in the manner of a dictatorship. And the real fight here is over power. It's not over money. The stamp tax and other kind of things are points they fight over. But what they're really fighting over is a core question. Can the British parliament sitting in London pass laws that affect directly people in the colonies? And the colonies had become increasingly independent and they were increasingly wealthy. By 1790, they would have about 3 million people, where Britain had about 5 million. So they were really pretty big already. And of course, given their geographic size, they were rapidly going to pass Britain in size and ultimately in power. So they're looking around thinking, wait a second, why is this parliament sitting in London telling me what to do? And why are they taking money out of my pocket? And why are they rigging the trade laws to favor the British and to hurt the Americans? So all of these things began to build a momentum of criticism. In a place like Boston, which had a very, very busy port and which had a trade which included the West Indies, the fact is that they were subject to British regulation in ways that very much disadvantaged the Boston sailors and advantage the British sailors. And so there was a resentment both about regulations, there was a resentment about taxes. But most of all, there was a resentment about power, about where the center of power ought to be. Adams is one of those who comes to believe that in the end, the colonies have to become independent. And they recognize that to become independent, they need all the colonies on the same side. Massachusetts by itself isn't big enough, isn't strong enough to take on the British. So I think it's important to recognize that Adams and his cousin Samuel Adams, who's more radical than John Adams, more of a populous rabble rouser, the kind of guy who would dress up like an Indian and throw tea in the harbor, Very, very different. John Adams is a scholar, he's an intellectual. He's a man who operates in a law court. He doesn't operate out on the street arousing people. The other thing, by the way, is that Adam's wife, Abigail Adams, is the most famous, certainly the most literate of the founding mothers. And her letters to John are just amazing. And it's very clear that she is sort of the archetype of the modern woman. She operates independently. He is gone for a long time. She's running the family farm. She is sending him advice on everything. She is very well educated. She's just such a remarkable woman. Adams himself, born in Massachusetts, October 30, 1735, was the oldest son to John Adams Senior and Susannah Boylston. His father was a deacon in the Congregational Church and earned a living as both a farmer and shoemaker in Braintree, Massachusetts. John wanted to become a farmer, but his father said no. He had to get an education and hoped he would become a minister, which in that period was a very, very prestigious position. But Adam's at 15. And it's useful to remember, by the way, that back then people went to college at a much younger age. They also went to work at a much younger age. In Adams case, at 15. He's off to college. Now, from Braintree to Cambridge is only 12 miles, but it's a very big 12 miles from rural farming to the center of learning in America. At that time, Adams was so anxiety ridden, he almost went home. In his diary, he wrote, quote, I at first resolved to return home, but foreseeing the grief of my father and apprehending he would not only be offended with me, but my master too, whom I sincerely loved, I aroused myself and collected resolution enough to proceed also gives you sort of a flavor. This guy's a little bit pompous. He thinks about himself, he thinks about life. He is perfectly at home. Once he gets used to Harvard. He excels academically, graduates in 1755 at the age of 20. But he doesn't want to be a clergyman, so he decides instead to teach in a Latin school to earn tuition fees to study the law. Now, back then, you usually studied the law by working with a lawyer. When they talked about reading the law, that's what they literally meant. You were in a law office and you were reading all these law books. You were learning about the process. And Adams becomes a lawyer. Now, he's not a very good lawyer. He only had one client in his first year, didn't win his first case until three years after he opened his practice. And part of it is being a lawyer in a small town requires a pleasing personality. Well, Adams wasn't very big on pleasing anybody, including himself. He represented sort of that curmudgeonly New England kind of religiosity. And as long as God was happy with him, what did he care about the rest of us? But he begins to get drawn into the politics of the time. He spoke very much against the stamp act of 1765, which was the first effort by Parliament to get money out of the Americans. I mean, here's what had happened. With the help of the Americans, the British won what they called the seven years War, what we called the French and Indian War. Now, the upside and downside of that was they drove the French out of Canada. It was an upside, obviously, because it meant Britain was dominant in all of North America. It was a downside because it meant the Americans no longer looked to Great Britain to protect them because there was no overt threat from France. And so the Americans kind of relaxed and thought, you know, everything's peaceful. Why are you bothering us? The British, however, had run up a huge debt, and they were trying to figure out a way to pay off their debt. And their thinking was, wait a second, you know, we saved you from the French and the Indians. You owe us. And the Americans are going, no, we don't. We volunteered. We fought in the war. It's not our fault. You guys are stupid. And it took longer than it should have because of you. And the result was that the Americans were unhappy to pay it and the British were unhappy not to get paid. Well, that's sort of like a bad marriage. By 1765, Adams is writing an anonymous essay in the Boston Gazette entitled A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law. And this is what he wrote. It seems very manifest from the Stamp act itself that a design is formed to strip us in a great measure of the means of knowledge by loading the press, the colleges, and even an almanac in a newspaper with restraints and duties, and to introduce the inequalities and dependencies of the feudal system by taking from the poorer sort of people all their little subsistence and conferring on a set of stamp officers, distributors, and their deputies. This is, by the way, the attitude Americans will take to the Internal Revenue Service and the general attitude Americans have had ever since, which is, why is the government bothering me? I made the money. I want to keep the money. Why are you putting your hand in my pocket? Now, Adams went on to write the Braintree instructions, which were in opposition to the Stamp Act. He presented it on September 24, 1765, at the Braintree town meeting, which unanimously approved it. And this is a key thing, he says, and notice, this is about power. The tax itself is just what they're fighting over. But the underlying core question is, where does power lie? This is what Adams wrote. This is 1765 now, more than a decade before we would declare independence, quote, and we have always understood it to be a grand and fundamental principle of the British Constitution that no free man should be subjected to any tax to which he has not given his own consent in person or by proxy. The paper was published in Draper's papers And in newspapers across Massachusetts, more than 40 towns endorsed and adopted it. Then in October 1765, representatives from Massachusetts and eight other felonies met in New York for what was called the Stamp Act. Congress, using Adams brain tree instructions, the and other resolutions across the colonies, Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson drafted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances which was sent to George III. Now this again is 11 years before we will declare our independence. In a December 18, 1765 diary entry, Adams called the Stamp act, quote, an enormous engine fabricated by the British Parliament for battering down all the rights and liberties of America. Notice again, this is not about money. It is, I want to repeat this one line. An enormous engine for battering down all the rights and liberties of America. This is an attitude about our rights and liberties which continues up to today. It's why the second Amendment fight is so deep. It's why the whole fight over the rule of law is so deep. It's why the intrusion of government spying on us arouses such rage. The fact is, Americans have now for 300 years had this deep sense that we are a free people and we deeply distrust any government. The British passage of the townshend Acts in 1767 led to mob violence throughout the colonies. On March 5, 1770, a group of British soldiers were struck with snowballs, ice and stones. In the chaos, they opened fire and shot five civilians. A few days later, Adams received a note from Captain Preston, who was in jail and on trial for murder of several Boston citizens during the massacre. Preston asked Adams if he would defend him in court since no one else would agree to him. This is not, let me go to Adams because he's the best lawyer around. He said, let me go to Adams because he's the only lawyer dumb enough to defend the British. Adams, believing in the rule of law and the right to trial, agreed to defend not only Captain Preston, but the eight other British soldiers charged with murder. Now think about this. Here's a guy who's not a very successful lawyer anyway, but he's a great political writer. He's already having an impact all the way across America with his writing. And now, even though he's a patriot, even though he's been very, very opposed to what the British are doing, he does something which confuses the average person. He agrees that he will defend these soldiers. During the week long trial, Adams argued that it was impossible to prove that Captain Preston had ordered his soldiers to fire. He brought in over 22 witnesses. Adams during the trial said, quote, facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or our dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. It's a very powerful moment because in the rule of law, the jury's job is to determine the facts, not to determine the emotions. Adams later went on to say, quote, it is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished. For guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial. For innocence itself is no protection. There is seldom but a better explanation of why the rule of law matters. It is the law which protects us from ourselves. It is the law which protects us from the mob. It is the law which protects us from a sudden wave of emotion. During the trial of the eight British soldiers, Adams argued that they acted in self defense. Adams argued that since it was unclear as to which soldier fired, quote, it's of more importance to community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished. The jury acquitted six of the eight soldiers, while two who fired directly into the crowd were convicted of manslaughter. This is not an outcome anyone could have predicted at the beginning. When Adams took on the trial on the third anniversary of the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1773, Adams wrote in his diary, quote, judgment of death against those soldiers would have been as foul a stain upon this country as as the execution of the Quakers or witches. This, however, is no reason why the town should not call the action of that night a massacre, nor is it any argument in favor of the governor or minister. Now, notice his reference back to executing Quakers and witches. Remember that Massachusetts had been the scene of the Salem witchcraft trials, a period of people allowing emotions to run amok to create threats that did not really exist, to prosecute people who clearly, in retrospect, were innocent. There was a deep feeling that controlling passion and doing what the law required in a calm and reasonable way was essential to avoid the kind of injustice that the Salem witchcraft trials had led to.
