Extensive manuscript collections largely comprised of the correspondences and the diaries and the manuscripts speeches, legal and business papers of both senior and junior president adams as well as all the members of this preeminent political dynasty. These documents remain so vital in the efforts to understand the evolution of american democracy, diplomacy and identity. They strive to make the papers and the entire 14 million item collections available to anyone with an interest in american life, culture and history and give it for free. If you value of this and enjoy y programming like todays talks and you are not a supporter, i would encourage you to do so. Tonight represents just one of many program seminars, exhibitions and workshops that we host. If you dont already have a copy, grab one on the way out and its also available on the website. I want to mention we will have copies of the democracy on sale after the program and i think we can get them signed by the authors. Now it is my pleasure to introduce the speaker Nancy Isenberg and andrew berstein. The professor of history at Louisiana State university. For 2016 best seller book white trash, 400yearold untold history of class in america has become an International Sensation and tackles one of todays most intensely debated social themes, costefficient and inequality in america. Doctor burstein also find a home at the State University as the professor of history. The 2,015th of democracy views illustrates how Thomas Jefferson slavthomasjeffersons life and s been used to support modernday partisan politics on both sides of the aisle. Anand the isenberg and Andrew Burstein are regular contributors to salon. Com and contribute pieces about modernday political and Cultural Affairs for a variety of the news outlets. Please join me in welcoming Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein. [applause] is the candidate likable enough inquiring minds want to know. Because you have to come across as likable, be a factor. Thats what democracy has come to. Like high school elections, the rifle, the common touch. Its not just a question of knowledge and judgment were a popularity context. It is a problem of democracy. The. Of the deep study and practical experience would backfire despite being two of the most recognizable spaces in the course of your they were to be remembered as the symbols of entitlements, nepotistic corruption with the fullblown democracy. We have written this book because im told now, no historical investigator has dissected the first of only two pairs of father and son president s. The president bush, president adams resisted the party affiliation. To be true to their values, they had to be independent of any party orthodoxy. Let us start with an undisputed fact. They forcthey foresaw the defece others ask in the american imaginary. For the personal favorite i have sworn upon. Though you wouldnt know it, he proceeds jeffersons truths is a half truth. Hes ironic, sarcastic, and this in 1778. A man must be his own, get a sph statue made and perpetuate fame. In many later years as we affectionately call the sun sune devoted himself by the initial j. Qa. He recalled jefferson as one who is, and i quote from a burning ambition coupled with an invented memory led him to mistreat the first. The second exception. Ive always been a prophet of guilty and punished accordingly, a martyr complex, we might also attribute. They refused to pander. They didnt charm like Abraham Lincoln with the melancholy. They argued idiosyncratically, hardly mysterious or handshaking lake and genial. But if that was a matter of style. They are painted as antidemocratic conservatives, yet they were neither antidemocratic or conventionally conservative. They conceptualized on chrissy in ways that make sense to the modern student of history. Concerned as we are it should be with the gap between rhetoric and reality. If jefferson is associated and optimistic principles of a democratic spirit watches in the eligible voters, that happens is, the older especially, probed human psychology and came away with a differenc different lessc view of popular democracy. The tendency to corruption exists in all forms of government and john adams felt even the most educated class of hunger for power. And that they should be isolated in the senate where the wellborn and be able, as he wrote, reciprocated from a mass and unable to dominate on their own. Its why he detested the chemical legislature that Benjamin Franklin proposed. One house was more prone to corruption and to. On the other hand, john adams concern about acrosstheboard popular election launched into one fact. The multitude has always been credulous, and the few are always artful. Let that sink in. [laughter] clitoris peachpit convince Common People, just about anyone can do to support the idea. The system have to protect the public from the foster, hypocrisy and superstition. Above all of father into some believe that it required inaccurate information slipping between citizens and their representatives. Its neither conservative nor liberal to campaign for the citizenry. Our book is about what made this beautiful and perfect dynasty tick. The intimate understanding between a father and a son, they shared a library, they marveled together at the republican Marcus Cicero and in perfect ways patterned their lives after him. Cicero respected the concept of wall and the favorite of justice. He prescribed the three branches of government we adhere to today. In their abundant correspondence which history overlooked the two president s had any talk with political dynasty and it was never about the outright power. It was about the feelings of inner satisfaction nevertheless across the correspondence any reader can see a motion move from the page with little self censoring. We give emphasis to the period in their public lives when they were diplomats in europe. As a teenager and largely without parental supervision, john quincy trekked across Eastern Europe and scandinavia. Once he and his father braved stormy crossing from the english coast, set ashore on an obscure cold backwater in the netherlands. Johnny come as he was then known, preserved the life of his father who was subject to all sorts of bodily ills. Ills. Jonathan expertly guided him back to civilization. The bond formed between the adams is, father and son in europe from 1778 to 1785 condition everything. Representing the Young Country and abroad, theabroad, they wery citizens of the world. And to a greater extent, then anyone else of the era. They stood as proud americans, converts to old world forms, as many wrongly indicated. They believed in expertise and governments that promote expertise over popularity. Yet remarkably, it was John Quincy Adams, the second president adams, was the first to pronounce in his inaugural address that america deserved to be called a functional representative democracy. It wasnt jefferson, whose typically seen as the first man of the people. It wasnt Andrew Jackson either, the impulsive vindictive jackson. Here he is stringing up his hapless predecessor, John Quincy Adams. Jackson had aids to compose his speeches. He craved loyalty and reward of his friends. That was his style. Making more upstarts to profit in the southern manner as slave owning entrepreneurs. Jackson didnt read history, let alone invite political thought. Jackson wasnt predisposed to the democracy in any real way. It seems an odd thing to say, but john adams lived more like a republican than Thomas Jefferson. And John Quincy Adams was a better democrat than Andrew Jackson. Wrap your mind around that one. You see, democracy is proclaimed more than it is practiced. That is all the president s adams were saying. On the basis of the competence of studies of history and human psychology. John adams was a disciple of the enlightenment as much as jefferson. At the heart of this revolutionary movement with the impulse to unmask the superstition like the divine right of king and cultivate independence and thought. John adams held that a desire for fame could be found in every heart. The audienc audience, if you nee masses to their masses into the night. This is why he identified at the danger of the cult of personality. The cult of personality is when the personality of the leader is equated with the nation. The worshiped idol replaces b. , the people, as the soul of the body politic. Now, adams botched the cold of close and personal first when he was in france. Thethere, franklin seduced the educated elite as americas first rock star. Adams understood the desire among human beings to be seen and loved. She zoomed in on the course of spectatorship then the opposite fear of insignificance long before any views that any american who wants 15 minutes of famfame committee placed the dar of adoratio adoration at the cef his constitutional theory. What was greater was the most superficial of the dazzling distraction. He explained that first richness and beauty shore up the power in aristocracy. The society divided people into classes. The Political Parties used the same method in the candidates and the attractive appearance of the prominent names, the glamorous reputation. If that wasnt enough, lies, flattery, his delightful words. Would keep the supporters mesmerized. It cannot divert the mad scramble for the public recognition. They are responsible for the worship of the western view. Since the majority of people would never take to the stage, they live vicariously through their idols. Vicarious was his word. The people felt a special sympathy for the powerful. It wasnt just a corrupt politician rode into office on the inflated reputation. It was thawas that the voters le show. The document these things. They are not collectively drawn so as to simply designate with the current political scene. We were researching long before the current political scene. Americans told themselves they value independent thinking in the enlightened and sense of the phrase. But in fact, citizens still swoon of the rich and famous. They join crowds as cheering fans. Adams extrapolated from this to say that the mentality is a dangerous force contained within democracy, and its often inflamed by the partisan press. Party organizers from Alexander Hamilton and forward have found a way to exploit the imaginary bond between voters and their heralded leaders. In the past president ial election in 1788, 89, hamilton made sure that the southern electors withheld their votes for adams by spreading a rumor that new englanders might steal the election from washington. From hamiltons perspective, there could be only one paying and one idolized star. Washingtons presidency barcode this royalty. The chief executive was housed in the grand mansion. Hhe rode in a lavishly equipped heritage and held receptions with the d. League. He made two grand national tours, like the king of england, his birthday is a national holiday. Washingtons image was known to all. A visiting dignitaries remarked that americans kept treasured portraits in their homes, much like the russians worshiped icons of the saints. Now adams cleverly dissected the cult of washington. He used his skil skills skill te worship of washington. The generals first, and most important trade, was to emphasize his handsome face and next, his tall stature. He was 6foot three. Evident in his elegant form, his graceful movements, and this large estate. Washington was a man of few words. Adams joked that his fellow virginians adored him because the mom delete, the geese and are swans. Image matters more than genius. Adams knew this. We knew it to be true as well. Voters take manufactured qualities as signs of an eight character. Adams of course suffered by comparison to washington. He acquired the nasty nickname of his rotundity and was used in the election of 1800. Political gamesmanship became more circus like by the time the second and third the president ial contest. In 1824, when then secretary of state John Quincy Adams was seeking the presidency, a cartoon captured the foot race, socalled, and morphed into this today the president ial horse race. And this is relevant because tonight is the kentucky derby. [laughter] in the cartoon, John Quincy Adams is ahead of william crawford, and Andrew Jackson, dressed in his military uniform, is on their tail and coming up fast. John adams stands at the front of the crowd cheering on his son. While the spectators place wagers on the outcome. This is democracy at its worst. The Election Campaign is a gamble. The excitement of the race is what matters the most. In 1828, when second president adams lost the election to jackson, he found himself not only running against a national hero, but against a far better organized pro Jackson Party machine. The new yorker, martin van buren, with jacksons election nearing guru building on the earlier new yorker, hamiltons, plato. Jacksons admirers tried to re mold him into the air of the noble washington, but the effort failed because jackson was known to be impulsive and blustering, and too many concerned, autocratic. The general was promoted with a lavish campaign biography, the first of its kind. His brash arbitrary behavior was recast as a cardinal virtue. That is, he exhibited frontier boldness. While the incumbent adams was overly cerebral. There was something even darker at work here. John quincy adams concluded jacksons followers, and this was in his words is very important, obsequious champions of executive power. And jacksonian democracy was in fact a warrior cult of conquest. John christy is a smokescreen. Western expansion drove politics. Slaveholders wanted slavery to expand to the pacific. Behind the screen was a union of land speculators and southern slaveholders. John quincy adams was elected to congress in 1830 after his one term presidency ended. It was an unusual move, never to be repeated. He remained in the house until he died in 1848. Parties rolled. The art of party drilling, as he called it, was caused by military. Party membership became riots and that is his word, too, with sanctimonious calls to liberty, allowing the southern democrats to purchase auxiliary support for slavery from the free men of the north. What could be a greater irony . Jackson, the head of the democratic party, jefferson, the supposedly small party, was now a party of unchecked executive power. Electioneering rhetoric cast John Quincy Adams as a princely air, a man comfortable with titles and rituals of the royal european court, where he had so long served as a diplomat. Somehow, like his father before him, he was a secret promoter of monarchy. The sad truth is this, the colt of personality twists the truth and the voters often didnt care. And for John Quincy Adams, what happened was that a slaveholding oligarchy had taken hold of the presidency, along with the illusion of textbooks call jacksonian democracy. It would be helpful at this point to elaborate a bit on the two epigraphs, both from 1814, that opened our books. The first is from expresident john adams. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that didnt commit suicide. It is in vain to say democracy is less vain, less proud, selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than the aristocracy or monarchy. Under all forms of government when unchecked they produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty. He means there needs to be a healthy democratic elements in the government, a force that promotes class balance. There will always be money and interest. These need to be contested within the institutions of the government by those whose interests are not so confined. Thats democracy, like government by the few or by a monarch, is inherently unstable because equality is impossible. Because some emerge and become privileged. If democracy doesnt been morphed into aristocracy or the money oligarchy, its influence on its own accord, devolving into anarchy. This is heavy stuff. They say dont christy tends to stability, but we know that it doesnt. Exhibit a. , social media in 2019. Democracy is anxious. It is anxious because it envy. It needs a survival plan. And thats all that adams senior meant in referring to democracy suicidal tendencies. Democracy did not, does not automatically produce equal Educational Opportunity or equal access to government. Good government, therefore, requires expertise unbiased. Representation that doesnt have to compete with a thousand voices all clamoring for something. Now, here is jay qa also writing in 1814 in his case during the period when he was part of a negotiating team seeking to end. He writes in truth, human nature itself is little more than a composition of inconsistency. Throughout his political career, the second president adams regarded capitol hill debates as the drama perpetrated by scheming men. The moral philosophy, his father read thrented the moral philosoe upheld emphasized the dictatorships of the faculties, the manhood of self command, here citing adam smith. Its what led them to be independent, to go against the grain and refusing to adhere to the dictatorship of the party. It was moral ambiguity. The politics was and is about the nature of authority into the character of those who wield it. Human nature rules people are ruled by the authority they accept. We understand why the adams is not perceived as democratic. For them, the leaders ought to be in secular terms among the elect. It, the delectable shouldnt be the sole qualifications for the elections. But under the twoparty system, thats what often determines whs in coming electability. The outcomes, the elect are meant to perform a positive public service, to sacrifice the ease and fortune in order to be the eyes and ears of the whole people. Through our historical lens, we see the president ial elections often contributes little to advancing the real democracy. The adams is praised the town meeting because for them, it was the true Training Ground wherea