The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality

by Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein Narrated by Robert Petkoff

Overview

"Told with authority and style. . . Crisply summarizing the Adamses' legacy, the authors stress principle over partisanship."--The Wall Street Journal

How the father and son presidents foresaw the rise of the cult of personality and fought those who sought to abuse the weaknesses inherent in our democracy, from the New York Times bestselling author of White Trash.

John and John Quincy Adams: rogue intellectuals, unsparing truth-tellers, too uncensored for their own political good. They held that political participation demanded moral courage. They did not seek popularity (it showed). They lamented the fact that hero worship in America substituted idolatry for results; and they made it clear that they were talking about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.

When John Adams succeeded George Washington as President, his son had already followed him into public service and was stationed in Europe as a diplomat. Though they spent many years apart--and as their careers spanned Europe, Washington DC, and their family home south of Boston--they maintained a close bond through extensive letter writing, debating history, political philosophy, and partisan maneuvering.

The problem of democracy is an urgent problem; the father-and-son presidents grasped the perilous psychology of politics and forecast what future generations would have to contend with: citizens wanting heroes to worship and covetous elites more than willing to mislead. Rejection at the polls, each after one term, does not prove that the presidents Adams had erroneous ideas. Intellectually, they were what we today call "independents," reluctant to commit blindly to an organized political party. No historian has attempted to dissect their intertwined lives as Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein do in these pages, and there is no better time than the present to learn from the American nation's most insightful malcontents.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

03/04/2019

Historians Isenberg and Burstein (Madison and Jefferson) reteam to provide a densely packed double-decker reassessment of the lives and political foresight of father-and-son presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The time period ranges from John’s pre-Revolutionary life as a farmer and lawyer to John Quincy’s postpresidential stint as a House representative from Massachusetts starting in 1830; in between, the authors revisit key episodes from both lives that highlight the Adamses’ nonconformist ways as a staunch warning against the ills of the partisanship, corruption, and personality politics that are rampant today. The authors point out parallels between the lives of their subjects, ranging from their long, successful marriages to the fact that a Hamilton played an instrumental role in both Adamses’ losses of their reelection bids. Isenberg and Burstein provide an acute evaluation of the Adamses’ intellectual development, and they have a knack for making prescient observations, such as John Adams’s warning that candidates with “the deepest purse, or the fewest scruples will generally prevail.” Analysis occasionally supersedes narrative, which can make this weighty analysis heavy lifting even for an interested reader. Readers fond of more traditional biographical treatments may want to pass on this one. Agent: Geri Thoma, Writers House. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

Although the current occupant of the White House is nowhere mentioned by name in this book, his prodigious shadow looms large. The trends that so distressed the Adamses in the nation’s early years have intensified to a degree they could scarcely have imagined, thanks to virulent social media, the injection of vast sums of money into American campaigns, a politicized judiciary and rising economic inequality. We can only be grateful that father and son were spared this vision of their worst fears coming true.”—The New York Times Book Review

"Ambitious and beautifully written...This book offers an abundance of riches. It is both biography and family history of two brilliant men who were deeply concerned about the long-range prospects of their country...Historians Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein show us how the presidents Adams' healthy skepticism about human nature and the fragility of government have caused them to be misunderstood and underappreciated."—BookPage

"[The Adamses’] stubborn, idealistic approaches to government left a lasting imprint on institutions that are being routinely tested and challenged 200 years later.”—NPR

“The Problem of Democracy is the first dual biography of the presidents Adams. Their entwined stories are told with authority and style by co-authors Andrew Burstein, a prolific historian of the early republic, and Nancy Isenberg, biographer of Aaron Burr and author of White Trash (2016), a pioneering examination of class in America. As ambitious as their protagonists, Mr. Burstein and Ms. Isenberg offer a frankly revisionist “lesson in myth busting,” portraying their subjects both as latter-day Ciceros and as victims of the “cult of personality” they blame for distorting modern-day elections as well as historical estimates of presidential performance.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“[A]n informative, often moving, account of the intimate relationship between John and John Quincy Adams…Isenberg and Burstein make a compelling case that the Adamses’ ideas, policies and leadership deserve our attention. As a guide to, if not a model for, addressing the flaws in our democratic processes, including the power of parties and the role celebrity plays in our political culture.”—Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"Fascinating...Isenberg and Burstein find an eerie prescience in the warnings of the Adams presidents, who cautioned that democracy would be ruled by those with the “deepest purse” and that democracy’s great risk was demagoguery...[The Problem of Democracy] is also keenly astute about political theory, politics of the day, and the twisted roots of American democracy."—The National Book Review

"A top-notch dual biography...An unsettling yet well-presented argument that the failures of John and John Quincy Adams illustrate a disturbing feature of American politics."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In this daring, lucid, and provocative book, Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein challenge founding myths to reveal democracy as an incomplete, contested, and often distorted ideal.  By exploring the failed presidencies and probing ideas of John and John Quincy Adams, The Problem of Democracy exposes the deep roots of contemporary demagogues and their polarizing deceptions."—Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

“Who better knows the byways between the Revolution and the 1840s, who else could address the politics and the personalities of both John and John Quincy Adamses with such wisdom and verve?  Better than any previous Adams chroniclers, they have identified the essential theme that persisted through both men's lives: one which concerns us now more than ever.” —David Waldstreicher, editor of The Diaries of John Quincy Adams, 1779-1848



Praise for White Trash:

A New York Times Notable and Critics' Top Book
Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016's Great Reads
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book

“Formidable and truth-dealing…necessary.”—The New York Times

“This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.”—O, The Oprah Magazine

“A gritty and sprawling assault on…American mythmaking.”—Washington Post

“An eloquent synthesis of the country’s history of class stratification.”—The Boston Globe 

“A bracing reminder of the persistent contempt for the white underclass.”—The Atlantic 

“[White Trash] sheds bright light on a long history of demagogic national politicking, beginning with Jackson. It makes Donald Trump seem far less unprecedented than today’s pundits proclaim.”—Slate

“Isenberg . . . has written an important call for Americans to treat class with the same care that they now treat race…Her work may well help that focus lead to progress.”—Time  

“With her strong academic background and accessible voice, Isenberg takes pains to reveal classism’s deep-seated roots.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Carefully researched…deeply relevant.”—The Christian Science Monitor 


Praise for Madison and Jefferson:
 
“A monumental account of a fifty-year political partnership… a dual biography of uncommon merit… a superb book that greatly deepens our understanding.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“A distinguished work, combining deep research, a pleasing narrative and an abundance of fresh insights.” —Dallas Morning News

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2019-01-21

An unsettling yet well-presented argument that the failures of John and John Quincy Adams illustrate a disturbing feature of American politics.

John Adams (1735-1826) became an early proponent of independence in the Continental Congress. Isenberg (White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, 2016, etc.) and Burstein (Democracy's Muse: How Thomas Jefferson Became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead, 2015, etc.), professors of history at Louisiana State University who co-authored Madison and Jefferson (2010), show how he disliked aristocracy but worried equally about the problems of a mass electorate. He believed that selfish humans would look after their own interests and persecute minorities they disliked. His solution was a strong president to oppose powerful interests and keep the majority from abusing fellow citizens. Missing the point, Thomas Jefferson considered Adams a closet monarchist. He entered office in 1797 as an independent in a nation with two parties: Hamilton's Federalists and Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans. Both worked successfully to ensure his defeat in 1800. It did not help that Adams was quarrelsome and insecure, lacking Jefferson's cosmopolitan appeal. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) became his father's secretary as an adolescent and spent a lifetime serving the nation as a diplomat, senator, and secretary of state. Equally testy and independent, he suffered the misfortune of running in the 1824 presidential election, finishing second to Andrew Jackson. No one obtained a majority, so the House of Representatives determined the president, choosing Adams. Of course, this enraged Jackson and his Democratic Party, which controlled Congress, ensuring that Adams endured an unhappy presidency. Besides lively, warts-and-all portraits of the men and the surprisingly nasty politics of the young nation, the authors delve deeply into their philosophies and those of Enlightenment thinkers who influenced them. They conclude that both were more intelligent and experienced than most two-term presidents but lacked the common touch, essential in America, where we "glorify equality but ogle self-made billionaires and tabloid royalty."

A top-notch dual biography of two presidents who deserved better.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169153644
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/16/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Exordium
Mythic Democracy 


They were the only two chief executives in the American republic’s first half century to be turned out of office after a single term. There is no giant marble memorial to either of them in Washington, D.C.

Alive or dead, they do not embody the beau ideal of the democratic spirit. Who would claim that John and John Quincy Adams speak credibly, meaningfully, to the modern age? We would.

It is precisely because they are not obvious symbols of democracy that we find the two Adamses compelling subjects as we search for a better way to understand how the United States could have proceeded from its ecstatic opening pledge—the magnanimous “spirit of 1776”—to where it is today as a distressed political system. No historical investigator until now has committed to telling in any depth the story of the first father‑and‑son presidents. In these pages, we retie the broken threads of our nearly 250‑year‑old political inheritance. We see the Adamses’ experiences and their unpopular (but not necessarily wrong) positions as an opportunity to present to the politically engaged of our own time an accurate picture of a political heritage too many Americans are loath to address. It includes, but is not limited to, the unfortunate tribalism of the two‑party system.

With a fixation on influence‑buying, poll‑shifting dollars, we live at a moment in history when confusion reigns as to the dependability of all high‑sounding founding‑era rhetoric. If you were to ask an average citizen what America stands for, he or she would most likely repeat something from grade school about freedom and democracy. The simplistic response is not to be mocked, but it does betray what’s wrong: lack of definition. The framers of the Constitution did not erect a democracy. It was not their intent to do so. We must not assume that the United States is a democracy today ei‑ ther. That is why we have written this book. The presidents Adams are our vehicle in an effort to provide a germane, perhaps even urgent, interpretation of the nature of American politics. Persistent myths can no longer suffice.

How, then, do we extend the discussion from what we think we know about the two Adamses to what we should know about them? John Adams, the second president, assumed a lead role in the looming Revolution, vocally defending the Declaration of Independence when it came before the Continental Congress. But that is not what we consider most memorable about him. John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, was the first president not to have been old enough to take part in the Revolution; he stood before the Supreme Court in 1841 and argued valorously in order to win freedom for the kidnapped Africans who had dispatched their captors on board the Amistad. But that is not what we consider most memorable about him. The best reasons we find for remembering the Adamses are those that concern their stubborn insights into human psychology.
They understood the tricky relationship between human nature and political democracy, and how emotionally induced thought often undermined social and political justice.

To the extent that their critique has been dislodged from America’s proud history, it is because it does not comport with the ecstatic, celebratory, self‑congratulatory script that grew into the political faith we know as “American exceptionalism.” If the emotive writer Thomas Jefferson planted the seeds of exceptionalism (“this whole chapter in the history of man is new,” he pronounced), the presidents Adams cultivated a cautionary, less intoxicating political science favoring a balance of interests to counteract those urges that led a ruling few to undemocratic self‑aggrandizement.

The two shared a critical disposition in perceiving (much as we moderns claim we can perceive) the hollowness of celebrity. They saw how image supplanted truth and how the public mind was captured by a clever concept that hid a political agenda. They took note as popular personalities acquired power over citizens’ minds. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were perfect examples. But they were neither the first nor the last.

The presidents Adams knew that the powerful in government were elitists, no matter what they called themselves. There were those, like Jefferson, Jackson, and many of their fellow southerners, who skillfully employed a rhetoric that concealed their class interests, their impulse to protect those most like themselves; and there were those in the Adamses’ New England who dismissed all social inferiors without apology. The two Adamses might have been snobs in their own way, but they hated all forms of deception and intimidation, subtle or direct, regardless of its origin. To the endless frustration of father and son, each spent the greater part of his po‑ litical career facing the same charge: of holding an especially dangerous degree of elitist sympathy. Guilty or not, they took a perverse pride in refusing to court public opinion through dishonest means. They were, in short, pained politicians.

The presidents Adams were never very sanguine about the two‑party system, and this may be the most distinguishing feature in their political profile. Others forecast a favorable outcome to party competition, convinced that voters could safely decide which of two candidates best represented the majority’s interests. The Adamses balked at this vision. They decried the hypnotic sway of “party distinctions” and “party spirit” as the bane of political life.

On the day of his own inauguration as president, betting against his father’s prognosis for one brief shining moment, John Quincy Adams allowed that the two parties that dominated the early years of the Republic had both contributed “splendid talents” and “ardent patriotism” along with the more obvious “human infirmity and error.” For these defects, he adjudged, a “liberal indulgence” was due. Inaugural addresses were, then as now, intended to inspire more than to describe a work agenda, and over the course of a long and ruffled career in deliberative bodies John Quincy would nevermore invoke party business without presenting it as a history of manifest intrigue. Political parties did not guarantee democracy to everyone; they merely protected the interests of their most influential members. It is easy to relate to John Quincy’s inauguration day remarks on the “collisions of sentiments and sympathies” that accompanied party rivalry. Father and son identified flaws built into the two‑party system that would prove fatal to the Union in 1860, and that continue to harass political society even now. As conspicuously, they detested the provocative mania parties allowed for, when they roused an intense enthusiasm for select, heroically framed men without objectively assessing their merit first.

Few understand how much the Adamses worried about the emergence of one or another form of aristocracy in America, whether it was a moneyed oligarchy or a slave‑owning planter contingent that spoke with a single voice. Any faction that held outlandish power over laws and law‑making threatened good government. Their cure for malignant control was to be found in institutional solutions aimed at simultaneously mitigating personality‑driven considerations and preserving a balance of power across social classes.

To synthesize, then, as much as this book centers on the Adamses’ still fertile, endlessly rewarding world, it reassesses the roots of the fractured democracy of today. It tackles misperceptions, beginning with our common assumptions about democracy’s historical inevitability as a function of ethical progress. It challenges the orthodox American faith in “government by the people.” That hallowed phrase explains nothing. It ignores the real question: Who makes the wheels of power turn?

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