Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past (Sexuality Studies) (18 page)

Virtually all early-twentieth-century accounts similarly repeat his own
assertions about his moral uprightness and likewise underscore that he was
of an "amorous" nature that he "controlled" until he was married to Abigail. Taking pains to highlight Adams's normative desires, in 1928 Samuel
McCoy-a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist who also published under the name Ellery Queen, Jr.-published his biography just a
few years after Minnegerode's, rescuing from Adams's diary the passages
that speak to his having remained a virgin. He also includes Adams's writings about sexual immoralities that he witnessed in his own New England
community. Moreover, McCoy quotes a passage in which Adams writes that
"`every excess-of passion, prejudice, appetite; of love, fear, jealousy"' and
others "`may in some sense be called a disease of the mind.""' For McCoy,
this attitude is "modern to the last degree" and "removes Adams from the
ranks of those who have died with their century and makes him alive today."
Using Adams's language again to characterize his morality, he concludes
that Adams was without his wife for years while he was in France and England: "Constantly, nightly, during all these years of separation from her he
meets the brilliant, beautiful, sophisticated women of the two capitals, Paris and London; but as he says sturdily, at the age of seventy-six, 'Among all the
errors'... `I cannot recollect a single insinuation against me of any amorous
intrigue"' [as]... a "`bachelor or a married man."3'

By mid-century, the centrality of youthful loves to the depiction of proper
manhood had given rise to the new inclusion of an early love noted in his
personal writings but often overlooked by earlier writers. In the final decades
of the twentieth century, biographers routinely mention Adams's relationship with one Hannah Quincy. In 1969, one such account by journalist and
biographer Alfred Steinberg notes that the girl fell in love with Adams, who
did not share her interest in marriage, given that "he had no money, nor
was he yet established in law."33 But little else would change in the midtwentieth century, especially with regard to the portrayal of Adams's sexuality. Writes one, "John had a particular fondness for girls and they, in turn,
responded to him."34 In 1979, biographers were still relying almost exclusively on Adams for their assessment of his sexual compass. Thus, writes
one, he had an "early fondness for girls," underscoring his normativity in the
absence of scandals.35 And, as would become stock, a 1979 academic biography points out that while in Paris, Adams expressed an "uneasiness about
their religion and morals."36

By the end of the twentieth century, Adams's old reputation as a moral
man was serving him well but within a very new cultural context. In 1992,
historian John Ferling again finds in Adams a man of extraordinary background but suitably ordinary qualities. Writing at the rise of multiculturalism, Adams, a Federalist, elite and stuffy, with a reputation for being
priggish, was certainly one of those "dead white males" that so many complained were being pushed aside as the nation focused on the histories of
"underrepresented groups." Yet, Ferling has no trouble reaching a broad
audience for his Founder.

His characterization of Adams's morality is similar to that of previous
generations and is yoked to Adams's body. In contrast to the virile physical
portrayals touted for George Washington, Adams's desexualized physique
reinforces his image as a man about whom there could be no sexual scandal.
The image adorning the frontispiece of Ferling's book is one of Adams nearing fifty years old. And Adams, Ferling tells us, was a man who at thirty
was "pudgy and jowly," a man who "looked soft and flabby." This particular
body type could be easily associated with Adams the moral man. Readers are
also reminded of his reputation for being "priggish" and very much unlike
the charming Washington, Hamilton, Morris, or Franklin. Adams, Ferling points out, "had no idea how to conduct a conversation with a female."
Turning Adams's critique of French morals into a positive attribute, Ferling writes that for many of his contemporaries, Adams was a man who failed as
a diplomat because he could not "talk small talk or flirt with the ladies."37

It might strike some as odd that a person who begins as a nineteenthcentury model of moral manhood could appeal to modern readers. Yet
it is precisely this kind of man who may well serve as the antidote to an
increasingly alarming number of contemporary politicians and public
figures who seem sexually unhinged. The long line of political sex scandals that would most recently emerge at the turn of the new millennium
includes Gary Hart's withdrawal from the 1988 presidential race when pictures surfaced of him and a girlfriend on his boat, the aptly named Monkey Business. Adams, readers are reminded, was a man with utter control
over his sexual desires, which he had mastered at a young age. His one
serious crush, on Quincy, had never blossomed. Ferling is quick to point
out that he, indeed, felt all the appropriate and healthy attractions, "love"
and desire for her "beauty" and "coquettish ways." Indeed, she "captivated
Adams." But he was a young man of "constraint in sexual matters," and he
was determined to develop his law practice. And then before he knew it,
the story goes, she had become engaged to another man, breaking his very
normative and healthy heart.38

The depiction works well for Adams's image in that it firmly establishes him as having all the appropriate desires of a young man. It depicts
him in a way that is accessible to readers and sympathetic in his heartbreak but above moral reproach in the clear absence of any innuendo that
the relationship was ever consummated. Adams remained for Ferling, as
he had for many other chroniclers, a chaste man. Ferling even points out
that although Adams might well have had plenty of opportunity for sexual
dalliances with available women while in Europe, he remained faithful
to Abigail. This behavior came naturally for him, although such "month
after month of living alone would have tested the mettle of even the most
disciplined man."39

As noted at the start of this chapter, in 2001, McCullough published
his blockbuster Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, which went on to be
developed into an HBO miniseries that won Emmys and numerous other
accolades. McCullough, like so many before him, relies on Adams's declaration of being "amorous" and states about him that "the appeal of young
women was exceedingly strong," that he was naturally "lively" and "amiable," and that he enjoyed "flirting" with girls. As for the connection to
Quincy, McCullough describes it as fully engaging and claims that Adams
was "devoting every possible hour to her" before the relationship abruptly
fizzled after they were interrupted when he was about to "propose" to her.4o

As biographers have long enjoyed pointing out, Paris provided Adams
with much to shake his head over. Indeed, one biographer, borrowing from
Warren's own observation, explains that Adams was an ineffective European
diplomat because he wouldn't "flirt with the ladies."41 In one letter to Abigail, he assesses European morals in his typical fashion: "Luxury, dissipation, and Effeminacy, are pretty nearly at the same degree of Excess here,
and in every other Part of Europe."42 Even after nearly ten years in Europe,
he would comment in his diary while he was in London, "The Temples
to Bacchus and Venus, are quite unnecessary as Mankind have no need of
artificial Incitements, to such Amuzements."43 Typical of most biographers,
his self-fashioning has been taken at face value. Popular writer Judith St.
George, for example, explains, "John especially objected to Franklin's constant partying, his open flirtations with women."44

Charles Tansill in the 1960s does not include a chapter on Adams in his
work about the Founding Fathers, presumably finding him too lacking for
Tansill's method of focusing on sexuality to "humanize" his subjects. But in
the new millennium, Adams's image was too starched and Puritanical for
many modern audiences. Adams's early romance with Quincy was highlighted and framed as evidence of his capacity to love and of his view that
such desires were in conflict with his drive and determination in political
and legal affairs. In the new millennium, several authors would attempt to
make more of Adams's romantic life than before, hoping to fan the embers
of any stories they could pinpoint.

Historian John Patrick Diggins's 2003 biography, published as part of
the American Presidents series edited by Arthur M.Schlesinger, Jr., portrays
Adams as raging with heteronormative desires. Describing the "Wild and
Giddy Days" of his youth, Diggins takes pains to wrench Adams from his
Puritanical portrayals and highlight his "wit and charm" that he used with
the "belles." Setting up a juxtaposition of public and private male selves, Diggins writes, "Long before he was a practicing attorney, Adams felt himself
drawn to the female sex." Adams was "warned" of the dangers of premarital
sex by his friends, but "even so, Adams spent hours `gallanting the girls."'
Quincy, in this version of his youth, becomes but one of many unnamed
loves he may have had. She "captivated" him as she did many young men
(who, we are told, could not help "swarming around her like moths to a
flame"). And she is not described as a massive failed relationship on his part
but as someone who left him "lovesick." Although years passed before he
would marry Abigail, the quick succession of the telling here makes it seem
only a short while before he would do So.45 Diggins reasserts the contrast
between the youthful heteronormative and appealing Adams and his stuffy, offensively prudish Puritanical reputation to set the scene for Adams in
Paris. As this chapter demonstrates, calling him the "Puritan Diplomat in
Paris" shows how Adams's moral compass and above-reproach conduct set
him apart from those colleagues of his who had love and romance on their
minds while in Paris: Morris, Jefferson, and Franklin 46

In 2005, John Grant, like so many writers before him, lets Adams's passage about his youthful interest in sex and self-restraint stand for itself with
no commentary afterward and only this setup: Calling the autobiography a
"truth-telling" account, he observes that there is an "extraordinary passage
in the early pages about sex." He also argues that Quincy "may have been" an
early "distraction" for him but firmly establishes that Adams liked women
and they liked him, even if he was a "hard and unsentimental judge of the
opposite sex." Grant notes that Adams may actually have been tempted by
sex in Paris rather than repulsed by it. He claims that "we have it on his own
authority that John Adams was a hot-blooded youth, and his amorous fires
were only partially banked in middle age, or so Abigail's letters suggest."47

In 2009, Fleming attempts to create love interests for Adams in the manner of the other great Founders. Calling him "an amorous Puritan," Fleming
emphasizes Adams's personal writings in which he self-consciously chastises
himself for having a wandering eye and wandering thoughts of amusements,
including socializing with girls. While Adams's focus is on showing that
he has mastered his carnal self, Fleming uses the passages to highlight that
Adams did, indeed, have a carnal self, a side of Adams perhaps lost for many
who celebrate him as without "blemish." For Fleming, the youthful Adams
was, indeed, inherently sexual: "Growing up on a farm, he had no need
for sex education." And Fleming observes that Adams had many "`favorites'
throughout his Harvard years." Fleming links him specifically to Quincy,
whom he describes as a "beautiful" young woman with whom Adams
"found it extremely difficult to discuss love and marriage" (her favorite topics, according to Fleming) "without asking her to be his wife." Fleming asks
Americans to imagine Adams and Quincy "almost certainly" "strolling" in
"a lover's lane not far from her house. "48

If we compare two moments from Adams's diary with Fleming's interpretations, we can begin to see how the relationship with Quincy developed from something left out of many earlier accounts to a love and loss of
high order. Fleming describes a scene where Adams and Quincy were alone:
"John leaned toward Hannah, breathing her delicate perfume, lost in the liquid depths of her tantalizing eyes. The words of love and commitment were
on his lips," but they were interrupted by Hannah's cousin and her fiance. And the relationship sputtered and died, with Hannah becoming engaged
to another young suitor the following month. The actual diary passage is
much less romantic, including no references to perfume or "liquid depths."
It reads:

Accidents, as we call them, govern a great Part of the World, especially Marriages. Sewal and Esther broke in upon H. and me and
interrupted a Conversation that would have terminated in a Courtship, which would in spight of the Dr. have terminated in a Marriage, which Marriage might have depressed me to absolute Poverty
and obscurity, to the End of my Life. But the Accident seperated us,
and gave room for Lincolns addresses, which have delivered me from
very dangerous shackles, and left me at Liberty, if I will but mind my
studies, of making a Character and a fortune.49

According to Fleming, the experience was "heartbreak" for Adams, and
it pushed him to focus more intently on building his law practice.5o Again,
this interpretation is one that favors the heart and tends to make Adams
more accessible to modern readers. The original passage on which Fleming
bases his interpretation is one that describes a man whom many today would
find more difficult to understand. It reads:

Now let me collect my Thoughts, which have been long scattered,
among Girls, father, Mother, Grandmother, Brothers, Matrimony,
Husling, Chart, Provisions, Cloathing, fewel, servants for a family,
and apply them, with steady Resolution and an aspiring Spirit, to
the Prosecution of my studies. Now Let me form the great Habits
[illegible] of Thinking, Writing, Speaking. Let my whole Courtship
be applyed to win the Applause and Admiration of Gridley, Prat,
Otis, Thatcher &c. Let [illegible] Love and Vanity [illegible] be extinguished and the great [illegible] Passions of Ambition, love Patriotism, [illegible] break out and burn. Let little objects be neglected
and forgot, and great ones engross, arouse and exalt my soul.51