An Essay for the Fourth - Remembering John Adams

Pastor Rudiger wrote this essay last week, and it was published in The Clarion News on June 30, 2022.

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Soon, we’ll be celebrating the Fourth of July, our national independence day. And I think I’m safe in saying, we’ll do it with a lot of flags waving, fireworks exploding and hamburgers grilling, and I haven’t even mentioned all the holiday shopping. But of course, none of this is new and exciting; this is what we tend to do every year. 

And while we celebrate, I’m sure we’ll hear the same names mentioned. For example, George Washington is always a big deal on the Fourth, as well he should. I mean, he’s our country’s father. And we’ll hear about Thomas Jefferson who wrote those immortal words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And somewhere in the middle of flags and fireworks and hamburgers, we’ll hear about the guy who literally put his “John Hancock” near the bottom of the document that was signed by Congress on July 4, 1776. Now, I think these are the players we can expect to hear mentioned on the Fourth.

Unfortunately, a name that we may not hear is John Adams, and I’ll tell you, I think that’s a shame. You see, not only was Adams a member of the five-man committee that wrote the Declaration, along with Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, he was actually the first person who predicted that, in the future, we’d be celebrating the birth of our nation in early July. In a letter to his wife, John Adams wrote that Independence Day should be celebrated “with pomp and parade, with shews (shows), games, sports, guns, bells, bonfire and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” And of course, Adams was also the first Vice President of the United States and the second President, having been elected after George Washington decided not to run in 1796. Now those are some things that John Adams did, and in my opinion, that’s why he should be remembered somewhere during our celebration.

But as important as all he did was for the country he helped to birth, I believe his greatest gift to us as Americans was actually something he chose not to do. Remember, I wrote that he was the second President of the United States. Well, in 1800, he ran for reelection against his former friend and now political rival, Thomas Jefferson. And I’ll tell you, it was a nasty campaign, with both sides getting really personal in their attacks. They even misrepresented what their opponent believed and called one another names. Fortunately, we’ve risen above all this foolishness, right? That was the campaign of 1800. And after the electoral votes were counted, John Adams lost to the guy who’d called him a monarchist, the equivalent of be called a Nazi or communist now-a-days.

And it was right here that John Adams gave this nation the most incredible gift possible. He decided not to disregard the results and to stay in office, something he could have certainly done given the fact that he was not only the Commander-In-Chief but his political party controlled both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. And since George Washington had won both his elections unopposed, there was no precedent for what a President was supposed to do if he should lose. President Adams could have simply refused to leave the White House, forcing President-Elect Jefferson to remove him, something that would have demanded force. 

But of course, that’s not what President Adams did. Instead, on March 4, 1801, he simply left the capital, peacefully turning power over to his rival and establishing a precedent that other presidents have chosen to follow. And in my opinion, this saved America, allowing power to move between rivals without violence. I mean, it would have been impossible for the United States to survive, if every time a president failed either to be renominated by his party or to lose the general election (something that’s happened 14 times in our history), the country was thrown into civil war. That hasn’t happened. And for that, we can thank the voluntary sacrifice of John Adams. 

Of course, we don’t know what motivated President Adams to step aside peacefully. He never offered a reason or rationale. But since he was a Christian who valued the Bible as a guide for both faith and practice, I’d like to think that his decision was grounded, at least in part, on these words of Jesus Christ: 

You know that those foreigners who call themselves kings like to order their people around. And their great leaders have full power over the people they rule. But don't act like them. If you want to be great, you must be the servant of all the others. And if you want to be first, you must be everyone's slave. The Son of Man did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who will give his life to rescue many people. [Mark 10:42b-45, CEV]

This was the kind of perspective Jesus commanded his disciples to have. And since, in 1813 he wrote this in a letter, “I have examined all, as well as my narrow Sphere, my Streightened means and my busy Life would allow me; and the result is, that the Bible is the best book in the World,” I believe John Adams knew it.

But regardless of his motivation, President Adams offered us a wonderful gift in 1801, one that allowed us to develop as a nation and a people. Instead of holding onto power with bloody fingernails, he simply let go, trusting in the providence of God and confident that who we are as a country is so much more than a person or a party or an ideology. And for me, this is why we should remember John Adams on July 4th.