I found an amazing quote about whether it's right for an innocent person to be jailed in the effort to bring all guilty people to justice. Wow.
--Nat
John Adams, much to the dismay of his peers (not to mention -10 or so to his karma), volunteered to represent the British soldiers indicted for murder [in connection with the Boston Massacre] simply because he felt they deserved legal representation.
In truth, Adams was a bit of an enigma. Before the American Revolution, he was a strong critic of the British, even turning down an attorney position within the Court of Admiralty. But post-revolution, he was obsessed with the trappings of British-style rule. Brilliant and classically trained, his history of self-government was a major resource at the constitution conventions for the establishment of an apolitical framework. But then, during his presidency, his political machinations gone awry were largely responsible for the passage of the Alien and Sedition Act, which only managed to not set American government back fifty years only because it hadn't been around that long. He felt that the system was larger than any one man, yet believed the presidency was his by right - irritated that Washington was elected first, and infuriated that he actually had to run against Jefferson.
Re:Typical Adams
gnat on 2003-03-19T03:45:59
His peers didn't think that everyone deserved legal representation?:-) Great capsule summary of him. Did you study history? Can you recommend a (readable) biography of Adams?
--Nat
Re:Typical Adams
ajtaylor on 2003-03-19T06:41:53
John Adams by David McCullogh. EXCELLENT book. All his others are great as well. I've read 4 (John Adams, The Great Bridge, Path Between the Seas, and The Johnstown Flood). ISBN 0-7432-2313-6. Did you guess it's sitting on the shelf a few feet from me.:-) Re:Typical Adams
gnat on 2003-03-19T09:05:19
Thank you! (>>amazon_wishlist) I'm looking forward to it already.--Nat
Re:Typical Adams
Whammo on 2003-03-19T12:34:01
Did you study history? Can you recommend a (readable) biography of Adams?"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it in summer school." I'm, at best, a pragmatic student of history, but have seriously considered enrolling in some college history courses in an attempt to learn more of the "how" of historical research. (History classes up through high school are practically useless, and probably do more harm than good.)
By "pragmatic", I mean that I study history solely in the context of how it affects today, rather than because of any interest in the people or events of the past in an of themselves. (Much like learning assembler is helpful in understanding C, regardless of whether you're ever going to read or write assembler.)
So I'll defer to ajtaylor on a true biography. Most (if not all) of the information came from Richard Shenkman's book Presidential Ambition (0-06-093054-3), which specifically looks at how the American political landscape through the years has affected how presidents can govern.
