From Today I Found Out.

This video is sponsored by the City of Quincy. To discover more about Quincy, check out the link – https://discoverquincy.com

“I think I have every day less ambition than the former to pursue a political career. In my profession I trudge along, without eminence, and without total idleness. I see very few things in this life beyond the wants of nature that I desire: and whether it be philosophy or insensibility, I find myself contented with my state as it is.”

These are the words of a 27 year old future world changer John Quincy Adams, written to his father on May 26, 1794. It was at this stage that, for the first time in his life, the junior Adams had finally, barely, achieved financial independence from his parents. But while this had for years been one of his principle goals, this was a man who was taught from childhood that his life was to be used in the service of his nation, meticulously trained to be one of the preeminent men of his era, and then with his parents tripling down on it all by continually drilling into him that anything less from him would be considered a failure. Nevertheless, after years of struggle to try to make something of himself and at best simply having managed to be able to support himself without the help of his parents, John Quincy Adams was close to resigning himself that the expectation for greatness put upon him would never come to pass.

As you might imagine, his parents did not particularly appreciate the apathy, with, only a month before in response to similar musings, John Adams more or less verbally slapping his son upside the head, writing, “The Mediocrity of Fortune that you profess or affect ought not to content you.—You come into Life with Advantages which will disgrace you, if your success is médiocre.—And if you do not rise to the head not only of your Profession but of your Country it will be owing to your own Laziness, Slovenliness and Obstinacy.”

But the elder Adams needn’t have continued to badger his son about his resignment to a life in obscurity, as just three days after sending the letter to his dear old dad stating every day he had less ambition for a political career, one would be abruptly thrust upon John Quincy whether he liked it or not. And it all began three years before when a few sentences Thomas Jefferson wrote, not meant for public consumption, were nonetheless published as a preface for one of the most read works in American history up to that point.

The publisher’s choice to print Jefferson’s brief note without permission would be the beginning of the end of the once familial bond between the Jefferson family and the Adams’s, a relationship that would only be mended in the last years of the two elder statesmen’s lives.

More significantly, it would help inflame the debate over defining how the U.S. Constitution was to function in practice, pushing the nation even closer to a two party system, with the battle lines more prominently being drawn, as well as helping spur the creation of the Democratic-Republican party, though noteworthy here this is more of a modern name for that entity, which was referred to in various ways by contemporaries of it, most notably by Jefferson often as simply the Republican party, though not to be confused with the modern Republican party which wasn’t formed until about 60 years later, primarily created by those in opposition to slavery.

But going back to Jefferson’s inadvertently published note, this pitted Jefferson on one side, and Adams and the Federalists on the other.

Most pertinent to the story at hand today, it was also the beginning of a massive shift in course for John Quincy Adams’ life. And, in so doing, would change world history given the astounding amount the younger Adams would do in the aftermath- in all a life more influential to world events in his era than few in world history can match. This was simply the first time he would set public political debate in the nation on fire, doing it anonymously no less. Somewhat fitting for a man whose countless accomplishments have mostly been forgotten by popular history.

Author/Host: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila

0:00 Intro
1:20 The Publisher’s Note That Changed History
4:58 Reflections on the Revolution in France and The Rights of Man
11:09 The Rise and Fall of Thomas Paine
30:37 Thomas Jefferson’s Mistake and Trying to Repair the Damage
45:13 John Adams’ Own Personal Knight in Shining Armor and Tearing Apart The Rights of Man
1:00:28 Thomas Jefferson the Liar?
1:05:08 The Rise of John Quincy Adams Begins