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The Adamses Retire

The Adamses Retire EDITH GELLES Institute for Research on Women and Gender Stanford University Thomas Boylston Adams was not sanguine when he wrote to his mother Abigail from Philadelphia on July 19, 1800. ``I have little doubt but your information regarding the little cock sparrow Genl is correct,'' he observed, and he agreed with the local pundit who had quipped: ``If Jefferson gets in, it will be the federalists who put him there.''1 The ``little cock sparrow Genl,'' of course, refers to Alexander Hamilton. With the election pending, the Adamses were closing ranks to defend the sitting president in what would be the first real contest in America's short history of the country's ability to conduct a partisan election and constitutionally select a new administration. Thomas Boylston, then twenty-three years old, though already a seasoned politician, had become a skeptic. ``I perceive great Electioneering zeal in the Boston newspapers, and . . . I see so much mischief done by writing falsehood and so little good done by writing truth, that I hardly think I shall draw the pen in the present contest.''2 As Thomas grimly perceived in that summer before the election, his father was on his way out of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal University of Pennsylvania Press

The Adamses Retire

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Publisher
University of Pennsylvania Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 University of Pennsylvania Press.
ISSN
1559-0895
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Abstract

EDITH GELLES Institute for Research on Women and Gender Stanford University Thomas Boylston Adams was not sanguine when he wrote to his mother Abigail from Philadelphia on July 19, 1800. ``I have little doubt but your information regarding the little cock sparrow Genl is correct,'' he observed, and he agreed with the local pundit who had quipped: ``If Jefferson gets in, it will be the federalists who put him there.''1 The ``little cock sparrow Genl,'' of course, refers to Alexander Hamilton. With the election pending, the Adamses were closing ranks to defend the sitting president in what would be the first real contest in America's short history of the country's ability to conduct a partisan election and constitutionally select a new administration. Thomas Boylston, then twenty-three years old, though already a seasoned politician, had become a skeptic. ``I perceive great Electioneering zeal in the Boston newspapers, and . . . I see so much mischief done by writing falsehood and so little good done by writing truth, that I hardly think I shall draw the pen in the present contest.''2 As Thomas grimly perceived in that summer before the election, his father was on his way out of

Journal

Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal – University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: Jun 1, 2006

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