John Adams - Part 5 "Unite or Die" 4/6/2008
04-08-08, 09:03 AM
#2
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I read this with regard to Adams and his exclusion from the inner circle.
http://www.geocities.com/amer_pres/johnadams.html
The part about Adams: "Mr. President." Washington: "That will do!" made more sense when I caught the repeat of the episode since I missed Adams' "how to address the President" scene before the opening credits.
While Washington was the unanimous choice for president, Adams came in second in the electoral college and became Vice President in the presidential election of 1789. He played a minor role in the politics of the 1790s and was reelected in 1792. (But we need to expatiate this fact: the reason Adams played, involuntarily, a smaller roll in the government, and indeed in the decisions of the Executive, was for precisely and only the reason that the Senate forbade the Vice President from taking part in their debates and Washington never asked Adams' for input on policy and legal issues. - The view was that the Vice President was to be the tie breaker in the Senate and the step-in for any untimely death or incapacitation of the President. Which was hardly the backseat Adams, the firebrand of the Revolution, was accustomed to taking.)
The part about Adams: "Mr. President." Washington: "That will do!" made more sense when I caught the repeat of the episode since I missed Adams' "how to address the President" scene before the opening credits.
04-08-08, 03:13 PM
#3
I liked this episode - and was eager to see how they addressed the fact that Washington gave up his office to someone else.
There is a John Adams exhibit at Vassar College near Hyde Park NY if anyone is interested. It is the letters that he and his wife wrote one another. I think it started the weekend of 4/6.
There is a John Adams exhibit at Vassar College near Hyde Park NY if anyone is interested. It is the letters that he and his wife wrote one another. I think it started the weekend of 4/6.
04-08-08, 03:31 PM
#4
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It did an excellent job (through Abigail's observations) expressing the enormity of Washington's retirement... we didn't have term limits then. He literally could have camped out in that seat and become the new Monarch, and yet we see through his leaving office and his renunciation of any honorariums "Mr. President... and nothing else " how truly humble (and great) he was.
And Thomas Jefferson is still the coolest bastard to ever live.
-Doc
And Thomas Jefferson is still the coolest bastard to ever live.
-Doc
