It’s not easy being No. 2: The Presidency of John Adams

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

George Washington may have set the standard for American presidents, but those precedents wouldn’t have mattered if John Adams hadn’t followed through on them. Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the second U.S. president, how he solidified many of the functions of the chief executive we still know in the 21st Century, and why that meant he would sacrifice a second term. Her book is “Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ask a first grader who the first U.S. president was, and they'll probably get the right answer.
0:15.1	George Washington, Revolutionary War hero, our one and only unanimously elected chief executive, the precedent-setting president.
0:23.9	But here's the thing. The first in history to do something can set all kinds of great examples,
0:28.7	but the only things that develop into essential traditions are the ones that the next person in line for the job chooses to follow.
0:36.2	We may not call the name of John Adams to mind
0:38.7	as easily as George Washington, but a lot of what we think of as standard practice for U.S.
0:43.5	presidents can be traced to his decision. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd.
0:50.9	It took John Adams, after all, to demonstrate that the office of the president could even be
0:54.6	filled by somebody without the brand cachet of a Washington. It was Adams who helped clarify and
0:59.9	strengthen the authority of the chief executive over foreign policy and the military, and Adams
1:05.0	who acknowledged his defeat by vice president and rival Thomas Jefferson and left office with
1:10.3	dignity and without violence.
1:12.3	It wasn't easy and it didn't do much to make Adams popular in his own time. He served just a single
1:17.4	term. But as my guest will tell us, it was an extraordinarily consequential four years,
1:23.3	the influence of which has felt even into the 21st century. Lindsay Chervinsky is executive director
1:28.7	of the George Washington Presidential Library and author of Making the Presidency, John Adams, and the
1:34.4	precedents that forged the Republic. Lindsay, welcome to think. Thank you so much for having me. I'm
1:39.4	really excited to be here with you. To state the obvious right off the top, George Washington was always going to be a hard
1:46.9	act to follow, even by a guy as dedicated to the country as John Adams.
1:51.5	What did Washington have going for him as he assumed the presidency that Adams did not?
1:56.0	Well, Washington was blessed with a number of unique characteristics that presented him to the American people in a really special way.
2:04.3	He physically was quite dominating.
	...

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