Chapter Forty-Seven
WASHINGTON CITY
District of Columbia
I returned from Mount Vernon with a puppy and would not be parted with her. “If you love me, John, you must love my dog.”
“As long as she doesn’t piddle on the country’s red velvet sofa,” John said, poring over his papers, for he still had many
duties to attend to before his successor took the helm. “Don’t let her up there next to you.”
“I can scarcely convince a dog named Juno that she ought not be allowed on the furniture. She thinks she rules Olympus.”
He didn’t smile. Not even slyly. He was still grieving over Charles and brooding about the election. “Two hundred and fifty
votes. A nation of five million people, and I lost by only two hundred and fifty votes.”
“Probably because most of those five million cannot vote.”
My husband sighed. “Perhaps I’d have lost by more if they could. I should’ve been a shoemaker.”
“Shoemakers don’t forge peace treaties,” I said, for my husband’s diplomatic gambit had finally paid off.
We’d lost the election, in part, because my husband cut the warmongering Hamilton off at the knees by securing a peace treaty.
It had finally arrived.
John had secured a true and lasting peace.
There would be no war with France.
“If this news had only come a little sooner,” he said.
I nodded, knowing what preyed on his mind. “You would’ve won re-election. You’d have won easily, even with Hamilton’s meddling.”
John’s jaw tightened, bitterly, so I reminded him of another bitter truth that might remedy the first. “Of course, you’d have
also won re-election if you’d taken our country to war.”
“Thereby leading my country to ruin.”
My smile was pained. “Yes. You saved the country rather than yourself.”
He said he would’ve died for Charles if it would have saved him. Well, he hadn’t been able to save his own son, but he did save the sons of his country. “It was a noble sacrifice. You may be content with that.”
“And are you content with it?”
The legacy of his administration was his—but I knew I could claim a large part of it, for both good and ill. And while I’d
have liked to see it end in glory and gratitude, I had, in the end, always been willing to love my country more than it loved
me.
One term was enough. Especially given all that was accomplished in furthering the strength and longevity of the nation. We
were leaving it at peace, without scandal or corruption, and with its coffers full.
“I have few regrets,” I told my husband. “At my age and with my bodily infirmities I shall be happier at Quincy. If I didn’t
rise to prominence with dignity, I can at least fall that way, which is the more difficult task.”
John rubbed his chin. “There are still a few more things to do and I hope to do them well.”
He had federal jobs to fill and judges to appoint. He was already making a list of them for me to review. So I said, “Give
Colonel Smith an appointment.” John sighed, but I didn’t care about his objections. “Are you really going to let Nabby be
banished to the frontier?”
“You know I can’t give family members a job.”
“Why not? Will it hurt your re-election chances?”
John barked a grim laugh at that. Then he laughed again, a real laugh, and I joined him in it. My dark jest had loosed a torrent
inside us and made us laugh like lunatics.
When I could finally speak, I said, “I wouldn’t ask if he were unqualified. Our son-in-law wants to serve his country. And if you weren’t his father-in-law he’d already have an honorable position in this government.”
My husband knew that to be true.
And so the appointment was made.
Our son-in-law would be federal surveyor and inspector of the port in New York. It wasn’t the military post that he dreamed
of, but it came with a handsome salary and opportunity enough for him to pay his debts and restore his reputation. It would
also allow Nabby and her children to live together under one roof in a modest but comfortable home, with money left over to
send our grandsons to college.
It was, to my mind, an easy choice.
The appointment of a new chief justice of the Supreme Court was, on the other hand, a more difficult one. John Jay refused
to take it up—he’d had quite enough of glowing effigies in his life—so my husband turned to John Marshall.
We couldn’t know then what a consequential appointment it would be, but we felt well satisfied by it. And we continued to
make the best appointments we could to the very last moment, because the business of the government must go on. And it might
be some time before we had a new president.
This was because, by some twist of fate, the electors had inadvertently cast an equal number of votes for Thomas Jefferson
and his colleague on the Democratic-Republican ticket, Aaron Burr. It was precisely the kind of vexing constitutional problem
that Hamilton tried to avoid all those years ago while undermining votes for my husband.
Now we didn’t know which man would end up being president, and John was almost amused. “The ironic justice of it! Thanks to
Hamilton’s scheming, the two men—the very two men—in all the world that Hamilton is most jealous of will now be placed above
him in one capacity or another.”
We again shared in the peculiar pleasure of dark amusement until I said, “Burr surely knows he was never meant to be elevated to the presidency. But, of course, it would serve Mr. Jefferson right if Burr were to snatch it anyway.”
John frowned. “But it wouldn’t serve the country.”
Sighing again, I had to admit, “No, it would not.”
They were neither of them fit to shine my husband’s boots, but Thomas Jefferson was the man of far better talent, reason,
and character. “Can we bolster Jefferson’s position somehow? Ought we try?”
“Officially, no,” John said. “It must work itself out as the Constitution specifies. The president has no part in it. But
I think Jefferson ought to prevail. It’s the will of the people. So if we wish to leave the republic with dignity, perhaps
you can be especially cordial to him as a guest of honor at your New Year’s levee.”
Oh, the gall of having to host the man turning us out! But John had his duties still to the country, and I had mine. “Very
well. I’ll do it. So long as our bags are already packed and ready to leave the next morning.”
“You’ll go ahead of me, my dear.”
“Why can’t we leave the capital together?”
“Because there is no telling how long it will take Congress to break the tied vote, and you shouldn’t have to suffer a winter
here. Besides, I’ll be occupied with various matters, the most important one being to bring Johnny home from Europe.”
Oh, those were some of the sweetest words I ever heard. The best possible consolation. At last, at long last, to have our
oldest son back. What we wanted most now was to put what remained of our family back together and finally be free to attend
to our own affairs without public care.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay?” I asked.
“With you gone, I will delight in the shutters being thrown open at night,” he teased. “When I return home I shall wish to
be simply Farmer John of Peacefield and nothing more the rest of my life.”
But, of course, John could never be simply anything. That night a fire broke out at the treasury building. And the president
of the United States grabbed his hat, rolled up his sleeves, and joined the bucket brigade to put it out.
It was his way.
It had always been his way to do any good possible.
And it was my inspiration to do the same.
At the reception for the new year, I received Jefferson with exaggerated warmth, as if his victory was inevitable. He seemed
both surprised and made happy by it. “Mrs. Adams, it is always a delight to be in your company.”
I wished I could say the same. Still, I kept up the cheerful charade with meaningless pleasantries until Jefferson said, “I
don’t suppose you know what the Congress might do about the tie vote . . .”
“I don’t know. But Our Lord said they know not what they do. And I’ve heard a clergyman preach that when people do not know what to do, they should take great care that they do not
do—they know not what.”
Jefferson laughed at my wordplay. “Mrs. Adams, I truly appreciate your everlasting good humor.”
It isn’t for you, I wanted to say. I was doing it to help ensure a peaceful transfer of power and the continuity of a benign government. Soon
we’d have to walk into the dining room together and put on a show of unity in front of officials from both parties.
Then I never wanted to see him again.
But Jefferson said, “In case I don’t have another opportunity to say so before your journey home, if it should lay in my power
to serve you or your family, nothing would give me more pleasure.”
This was more than I expected, but I was no longer so easily charmed. Nevertheless, I thanked him and plastered a smile upon
my face, entering the dining room on the vice president’s arm—which was the last and most difficult act of my public life.