Serve on the committee that chose truman for the award of biography 1993 and the ceremonies i first got to meet him briefly and come to admire his work and i know all of you do as well the lecture and historian the narrator of distinguished most historical series a recipient of the National Book foundation distinguished contribution and twice received the National Book award the most recent book is john adams. Other books include the johnstown flood warnings on horseback and truman so on behalf of laura bush and the library of congress and all readers everywhere please welcome david mccullough. [applause] thank you. What a warm welcome and thank you for your introduction. Im thrilled to be here and to take part and honored to take part with this historic and marvelous event. What a thrilling day this is to see thousands of people here on capitol hill the american acropolis right at the heart of the greatest libraries of the world. And to see it all with thousands of people out there today of all ages all parts of the city and country all in celebration of the book the miraculous ingredient called the book. There has never been a National Book festival never in the history of our country. And never a first lady who was a librarian to start and who got behind books, made a festival like this happen. She deserves all of our heartfelt thanks. [applause] i am extremely partial to librarians. [laughter] they have been my guiding stars. But for 40 years trying to become a writer of history and biography and here in this library, while i was employed in a government job as a young man, that i first discovered history and my vocation and found that what i wanted to do. So i can never ever express sufficiently my gratitude to the library of congress. Or to the Library System overall. If you think what we had in the public Library System, nothing like it in the world. When you walk through the doors of the Public Library, anywhere in the country, little town, big city , you walk through the portals of freedom. It is all there, all the wonder and journeys and touching experiences which move the heart, not just the mind and all three in a time and society were very little is free anymore. So thank god for the Public Libraries and librarians and lets give more support than we do to the public Library System. If you ever get down about the state of our country there are more Public Libraries in america than mcdonalds. [laughter] [applause] i would not be here or the life i have had order to discover those nuggets of idea leading to my first book if not my editor in chief was also here today. And chairman of the ethics committee. [laughter] and my wife and i i would like you to meet her please. [applause] we were just talking to a reporter from the Washington Post outside and told him she was my editor in chief and he said maybe you should call her editor and chief. [laughter] i have been privilege with my subjects i felt all along i have had wonderful rare chance to write about events past and turning points figures that are a protagonist in times past that are almost without equal as sources of story and understanding of who we are and where we come from. And also to go inside those times past to find out what it was like and the three books that i have done that are biography with truman and roosevelt and adams that i have what was described when she said a biographical subject should be someone that serves a lens through which you can see a whole era or time. And i must say for all i have enjoyed and learned from my subjects in the past years, i never ever had six more enjoyable years than i have had writing the story and life of john adams. I should say john and Abigail Adams. It has been a journey such as i have never had before i never set foot in the 18th century before. When one goes into the 18th century you give up a great deal that is advantageous to the writing biography in the 19h and 20th centuries. There are no photographs, no old outtakes from television interviews. Very few examples of what we take to mean as journalism to bear very little resemblance to the newspaper coverage that continues into our own time. But what it does have and in many ways are the letters and diaries of the people of the time but in the case of the adams it is possible because of what they wrote and their letters to each other and other members of the family and their diaries, to know them better than we can know any of the founders. Not even franklin takes us into his confidence the way john adams did. He poured out his innermost feelings all of his life on paper. Sometimes to his detriment to tell us more than he should. He was a wonderful writer as was abigail. Either one could of been a professional writer and have a career as a reporter or biographer or novelist. With a perfectly on perfectlys superb command of the language. When they think what they had to go through just to get through the day, the discomfort discomforts, labor, hard work, threats to ones health, and everyday life beginning at 5 00 oclock in the morning that with the long strenuous day, to put up with the inconvenience and concerns that never enter our mind today that they would sit down at the Kitchen Table or desk in philadelphia in a cramped boarding house it is exceptional and humbling one of the reasons i tried as best as i could to explore that time it was a very different time that it seems to me we can never know enough about the founding generation and era. We must never take it from on for granted we must understand what they did and against the odds they face , the personal sacrifice and the danger and risk of life one was signed you were recording you were a traitor and if caught you were hanged at best legal you to be drawn and quartered. Its not inconceivable that couldve happened. The temptation always is to look back at times past as events happening in a prescribed order we are taught this way in school that this follows this we get it straight and memorize it it is on the test on thursday so therefore you come away thinking it was on track and preordained in fact nothing was on track all of those events of times past could have gone off in any number of Different Directions for Different Reasons along the way. And most importantly keep in mind what they didnt know. There is a hubris where we look back to say they didnt behave intelligently why they didnt realize is what happened . That is a huge advantage and arrogance of hindsight they dont know how that will come out. None of them. They took a poll of the country in 1776 deciding to go ahead they would have scrapped the whole thing. Only about one third was for it another third was adamantly against it and others were waiting to see how it came out. [laughter] the idea this scattered small population a settlement only reaching 50 miles along the Eastern Shore of the country was going to revolt the most powerful empire in the world and seem preposterous no colonial people had ever successfully broken away from the empire ever before in history. Furthermore none had any experience in revolution or nationbuilding. Always remember they were not starting off to launch a broadway show but founding a country. [laughter] in our vernacular, they were winging it and the miracle is they did what they did as human beings. The very first line of the declaration of independence, lets never forget when in the course of human events the crucial word is human they were human beings. Had feelings and flaws. They were vulnerable and inconsistent and contradictory and subject to ambition that all human beings are doing dumb things. Each of them. None were perfect by any means. They were not superman or god. If they were gods they wouldnt deserve much credit because god can do whatever they want. They were human beings and the fact a rose to the occasion and saw they were in one of the great dramas of all time and they had better play their part well is the miracle that they did it and succeeded. John adams was born 1735 living to the age nearly of 91. You live longer than any president in history. Commonly thought of as a rich boston bluebird on blueblood. He was a farmers son who because of a scholarship to harvard and discovered books that he read forever. And now lets remember it is john adams second president of the United States to sign legislation to create the library of congress so to talk about john adams it is altogether appropriate at this occasion. He was a man of genuine brilliance. Also a man of great heart, great humor, devoted to his country, truthful, his wife, family, godfearing and altogether one of the bravest patriots in history he was abrasive sometimes temperamental tactless sometimes overly concerned with his own position or place for posterity and also a man to his credit never considered popularity his mistress he never recorded popularity his courage was the courage of his convictions and one of the principal behaviors and conduct in life the only founding father who never owned a slave as a matter of principle. We know its important to judge those who did in the context of their time. That is correct and fair and the sensible and sound thing to do but dont forget they were also of their time in a proslavery. Abigail perhaps more ardently than her husband. At one point she says i wondered if all the travails and suffering we are going through is gods punishment for the sin of slavery. The San Andreas Fault of slavery that runs through the country story begins well before the revolution just as the revolution seem to not understand began well before the declaration of independence. John dickinson was in many ways launching into a storm of a skiff made of paper what made it more than just a piece of paper was the fact we succeeded in the revolution that we fought for and succeeded to gain our independence and john adams were not of said free and independent but independent and free and then comes the freedom after the independents and new englanders by nature and cultural tradition were fiercely independent people independence was a way of life and so was religion this is the utmost importance to understand that age and moment in history and the protagonist. We believe strongly in the separation of church and state and to a large degree they all did too but the separation of church and state did not mean separation of church and statesmen. If we really want to understand that we have to understand the part religion played in their outlook on what might happen next. They also had very Long Distance communication to take a lot of time and travail it almost beyond our reckoning to get a letter back and forth between philadelphia and boston where the items lived it took at least two weeks communication across the ocean when they were separated cumulatively ten years and that separation was created by the Atlantic Ocean and to communicate upwards of three to six months. What does that mean cracks adjustment in the personal life and diplomatic or official life one had to be more responsible than we understand today for ones own decisions. Abigail adams at home running the family and farm trying to keep people working with her to make the farm work because that was their only means of subsistence try to educate the children make decisions and to get smallpox shots park one. Had to make those herself she could not call her husband and ask. That was a part of life the assumption of responsibility to oneself when adams was serving in france and the netherlands as a diplomat again and again he had to make momentous decisions on his own that would affect the course of events at the time but also his own career. He made them because that was necessary nothing could be communicated any faster but at that time it was the same thing the vast difference they lived in a different time. Very different time in a very interesting time. I try to read not only what they wrote and they wrote. Neither john nor abigail was capable to write a short letter or a double sentence. And just between the two of them over 1000 letters to each other that survived. All at the Massachusetts Historical Society all on rag paper as a consequence they are as good as the day they are written you can hold them in your own hand and you are holding that letter the same distance from your eyes as they did with two hands. Believe me something tactful and very important, visceral happens when you are working with the real thing. Is not like microfilm are to be reproduced in about. The humanity immortality and the vulnerability comes through and the bravery. And shes in her kitchen 11 00 oclock at nine up since 5 00 a. M. Doing all she did to sit down and write those letters and nearly always to insert a wonderful quotation from one of her favorite poets or shakespeare and nearly always getting in a little bit wrong. [laughter] which shows she didnt look it up she didnt take a book down and say this will make me look erudite. She knew it. It was a part of her. That there is an equally important and rewarding experience not just what they wrote but what they read. I did a small piece in the Washington Post all of those that were required to read in courses in college and the novels of Samuel Richardson. And to be reminded of how terrific they were and what wonderful writers. We talk about progress living with the benefits of progress all the time certainly when we go to the dentist. [laughter] when i think of poor john adams at the end of his life not a tooth in his head everyone had to be pulled long before novocain. We had a certain vanity and arrogance about progress but when you read what they wrote in the 18th century nobody does it any better today or as well. And Something Else that ought to make us all stand up and shape up is a Literacy Rate in massachusetts was higher in their time than it is today. What a disgrace that is. And what a lot of work still has to be done about that. The books that they read affected their lives as they do our lives and our time. The notion of truth and heroism right and wrong and how you write a letter and john adams advised him dont try to write literature when you write. Dont strain for thrills or fancy effect. Right the way you talk. It is a letter. So when you read his letter letters, you hear them talk. One of the things i have done in my books and particularly in this book the way i approach biographies, is to let them talk is much as possible. Most of life is talk if you think about it. And how they talk, the words they use, the cadence in figure of speech is the cadence of personality, style. Abigail was hugely influenced by the writings of Samuel Richardson the great novel of the 18th century and she wrote a very interesting letter to her knees and said read clarissa and write your letter the way they are in the novel the whole novel is just letters. Thats all it is writing letters back and forth to each other. And mrs. Way those are written all of those that they wrote to the husband is in large part because they were separated and the suffering they experienced because of the separation is to our advantage because we have the letters. But even when she wasnt separated from her husband she would write to somebody else. She needed to write she needed to work her thoughts and feelings out on paper. This is a very important point about writing for all of us after the experience you sit down and write something you find you have an insight or a thought you never would have had if it did not force yourself to write. Something about writing focuses in a different way. It when they wrote those letters that was a need they were filling in their own way to approach life i will write about it then understand it better which is why john adams encouraged his son john quincy as a little boy to keep a diary. He kept it for 68 years. John quincy adams diary is one of the great treasures of American Literature not just american history. John quincy i think its fair to be said was a man even more brilliant than his father or Thomas Jefferson all the president s of the United States were given the iq test john quincy would come first. He wasnt a particularly successful president his heroic time is when he came back after the presidency to serve in Congress Something no other president has done ever or since. He died on the floor of congress which is now statuary hall. Battling slavery the same theme that runs through the adams family. And he wanted to be there because he wanted to serve. He saw no stepping down from the presidency congress. None. Nor do i think they see the presidency is the ultimate objective of his career he doesnt see life as climbing a mountain or a ladder of success. More closely is the example or the metaphor of the journey. The presidency was just part and necessarily the most important part. A word about his final year years, every biographer has to face not just questions of analysis and the gathering of information but writing problems and questions. Here is a man who served his country for more than 25 years and never not answered the call of this country to serve. Never. David never have anything much service. And has no power, has no influence, theres no popularity. It just novella living on his farm. South of boston in quincy, massachusetts. I thought, how my going to handle that. I can just a, will he went home from the white house. [laughter]. He didnt do much of anything pretty lived on virtually every years. [laughter]. Nor it was all entirely tedious, day after day and nothing happening, cannot possibly expect any intelligent reader to stay with another 50 pages about that. As lawson that we often worry about things we should worry about. In fact, in the final years of his life from the last two chapters of the book, many ways the most interesting part of the whole story. That was the inward journey beginning thin. In the inward ginny is because he was a man of such death. And such turmoil worried who needed the result love about himself about his family and his thoughts and his own mortality. It was beset by one terrible vote of another. Lots of children, grandchildren. While he had one child was really a property prophecy, a young qui