Everyone is loving the John Adams special on HBO, and with good reason. It’s well done, and gives a real sense of who Adams was. But does it really spell out why he was great?
I was reviewing a study of De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the section where De Tocqueville talks about lawyers. To his mind, they are the linchpin of American democracy because lawyers combine a love and knowledge of democracy with a strong desire for stability and order.
Sounds like Adams, doesn’t it? What made him, and the other Founders, great was that they took their zeal for liberty and democracy and created a workable, stable framework for it to exist and thrive in. They knew that zeal alone resulted in anarchy. They had to combine passion with stability, and they did so with unprecendented success.
So when we see Adams fearing the mobs of Boston, or defending the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, or hammering out what seem like minor policy issues in the Continental Congress, what we see is Adams’ understanding that all that passion in the mob or the Congress has to find an orderly, sensible expression in government. Without government, passion is anarchy. Without good government, passion is killed.
Rather than seeing Adams’ focus on rules as pedantic or evidence of lovable curmudgeonliness, then, we should recognize it as the genius of democracy that De Tocqueville was wise enough to see.
We would be equally wise today to vote for politicians like Adams, who understand and love democracy and our founding principles, and combine that love with a desire to create stable, fair laws for our nation. At a time when politicians seem to rely more and more on stirring up the voters’ passions–usually about topics that have little to do with government–we need to step up and remind those who seek office that their job is to promote our democracy by creating laws that back our founding principles. If we were all passionate about that, we would be in a very good place.
The Historic Present 