Arthur Scherr - John Adams, Slavery, and Race: Ideas, Politics, and Diplomacy in an Age of Crisis

John Adams, Slavery, and Race

Copyright 2018 by Arthur Scherr

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Scherr, Arthur, 1951- author.

Title: John Adams, slavery, and race : ideas, politics, and diplomacy in an age of crisis / Arthur Scherr.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : Praeger, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017040186 (print) | LCCN 2017041616 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440859519 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440859502 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Adams, John, 17351826Political and social views. | Adams, John, 17351826Relations with African Americans. | Slavery Political aspectsUnited StatesHistory. | United StatesForeign relations Haiti. | HaitiForeign relationsUnited States. | United StatesForeign relations17971801

Classification: LCC E322 (ebook) | LCC E322 .S343 2018 (print) | DDC 973.4/4092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040186

ISBN: 978-1-4408-5950-2 (print)

978-1-4408-5951-9 (ebook)

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

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All Nations civil and Savage have practised Slavery and time must be allowed to eradicate an Evil that has infested the whole Earth.

John Adams to Rev. Henry Colman,

January 13, 1817, Adams Papers,

Massachusetts Historical Society

Contents

For more than fifty years, the most urgent topic of scholarly discussion and analysis, among historians and other members of the academic community as well as the general public, has been the question of black slavery and civil rights in the United States after emancipation. The role of the founding fathers, those who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution or both, in perpetuating or abolishing slavery and racial injustice looms large in the debate over white guilt for human bondage in the United States. Investigating (sometimes on a superficial level) several founders, especially Thomas Jefferson, but also George Washington and even Benjamin Franklin, scholars have condemned them for indulging in the profits and incidental pleasures of the horrendous institution and doing little or nothing to limit or abolish it. John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and second president of the United States, is one of the few statesmen of the early republic whom scholars give a clean bill of health, so to speak, on the issue. Often, they claim that he hated slavery and during his political career fought to abolish it. The funny thing is, they produce no evidence and little examination of what he actually said or did concerning the atrocious institution, their convictions being something of an act of faith. Many experts on Adamss life and thought simply ignore the question of slavery, as if it did not exist. One pertinent example is the most recent analysis of Adamss political thought by a leading Adams scholar, Richard Alan Ryerson. His meticulously researched work, John Adamss Republic: The One, the Few, and the Many (2016), contains nothing about Adamss attitude toward black slavery. A visit to the books index disappointingly reveals only one citation and a single sentence in the book. Predictably, it deplores Jeffersons (and more surprisingly, James Madisons) failure to demand the abolition of slavery. Since it is brief, I will quote it in full: The federal union survived the Civil War only by becoming less federal and more nationala development that James Madison at the Philadelphia Convention would have approvedand For those who are interested in the political history of the early republic, particularly the way its leaders confronted or failed to confront the periods most critical issue, slavery, it is somewhat shocking that no historian has bothered to study Adamss view of slavery, despite the popular interest in him (and more recently, his son, John Quincy Adams), which has resulted in the publication of several best-selling books. It is an issue that the historians establishment apparently does not want to consider, perhaps because it would embarrass too many of its most successful members.

Bucking establishment orthodoxy, as I have been doing for the past twenty years or so, I have tackled the ticklish question of John Adamss thoughts and actions concerning matters of race and slavery, and it is not a very inspiring picture. My discovery that Adams expressed views of African Americans that we would nowadays call racist; that in the course of his public career he generally either condoned or ignored the institution of slavery and took no political action to abolish it; and that as president, his much-touted, alleged assistance to Toussaint Louvertures revolt to establish the republic of Haiti (as historians invariably, erroneously call it) was motivated by political expediency in hopes of securing a military ally and gaining trade advantages during the United States undeclared war with France. My presentation, though brief, is convincing, I think, and I welcome the possibility that it will encourage future studies of the interplay between matters of race, politics, and ideology in the early republic.

As one might expect, in examining a topic that most members of the historians establishment view as taboo or embarrassment, I have neither expected, asked for, nor received much aid and comfort from the most prominent and well-heeled members of the scholarly establishment. However, a few members of that establishment have read portions of the manuscript. I would like to thank Professors David Waldstreicher and Franois Furstenberg for their efforts in this connection. Librarians at the New York Public Library, Columbia University, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the New-York Historical Society have also been very helpful. Michael Millman has rendered indispensable assistance in bringing this work to fruition. I alone am responsible for the contents of the book and any factual errors it may contain. I will be grateful if anyone out there brings such mistakes to my attention in the future.

In discussing attitudes toward slavery in the early American republic, recent studies have either ignored John Adams or depicted him as a firm enemy of human bondage. Specifically, they claim that he acted to promote abolition in the United States. For example, they stress that during his presidency, Adams employed U.S. armed forces to protect Haitis independence and its recently emancipated black population from Napoleons attempts to restore white rule.

The publics high regard for Founders like Adams, his wife Abigail, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, while remaining relatively ignorant of their political roles, resounds within American culture. The trend toward public adulation of Adams was epitomized by the popularity and critical success of David McCulloughs biography John Adams (2001) and the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams, with award-winning performances by Paul Giamatti (as John) and Laura Linney (as Abigail).

Indirectly attesting Adamss indifference to the question of human bondage, the index to McCulloughs best-selling biography has no entries for