Holiday Tea Party

It was on this day in 1773 that Paul Revere and his fellow Sons of Liberty dressed up as Indians, boarded a merchant ship and dumped the cargo of tea into Boston Harbor. If you are picturing a delegation of clear-eyed, well-spoken idealists, think again. This was a mob action pure and simple, however legitimate their grievances were. Likely it was some of the same men who precipitated the Boston Massacre. Remember, John Adams defended the British soldiers charged with firing on that crowd––and won the case.

The origins of our Revolution are complex and not always pretty. Resentment of taxation began it, but once Washington's army was in the field, this same resentment of taxation left his soldiers hungry and barefoot through much of the war. During his second term, President Washington himself rode at the head of an army to put down a tax revolt on the frontier. Which places the Father of Our Country squarely on the side of taxing and spending. He was accused of betraying the principles our country was founded upon. Was he? Washington believed in a strong central government, which is why we stress the first word in our country's name. We are the United States, not a loose association of separate principalities. Washington learned from experience that the union meant something, and it also cost something to run.

It's interesting to consider the ages the founders were when they did these things. Paul Revere was 38 when he led that violent mob. (He didn't fit the profile of your average anarchist. He was a businessman.) John Adams was 34 when he defended the British soldiers who fired on a similar mob. Washington was 62 when he put on his old uniform to assert the government's taxing authority. Each of them appears several times in A Book of Ages, at critical moments in their lives.

John and Abigail

Twenty-eight year-old John Adams married Abigail Smith on October 25, 1764. The lawyer, founding father and second president appears five times in A Book of Ages.

Fourth of July

On July 4th, 1825, the five year-old Walt Whitman was embraced by the Marquis de Lafayette who was visiting Brooklyn. The poet Whitman appears three times in A Book of Ages, Lafayette once.

A year later, on the half-centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the document, and John Adams, a signer, both died, Jefferson at home in Virginia, Adams in Massachusetts. In 1826 Adams was 91, Jefferson 83.

The two men had become bitter political rivals in the early years of the Republic. Jefferson had hired a pamphleteer to smear Adams while the two were running for the presidency in 1800. The pamphleteer was a man named James Callendar, and the smear, while untrue, was believed by enough people to win Jefferson the election. Callendar went to prison over the libel and emerged a year later angry with Jefferson for the unpaid bill. He got his revenge by publishing a true story about the sitting president: that he'd had an affair with one of his slaves, a woman by the name of Sally Hemings, and had fathered children by her. The story dogged Jefferson for the rest of his life.

After the inauguration in 1801 Jefferson and Adams would not speak or write to each other for another decade. The reconciliation, when it came, was a warm one. The letters between Jefferson and Adams comprise one of the most interesting correspondences ever written, describing the intelligent differences of opinion––religious, philosophical, practical, political––which formed our country. Jefferson appears four times in A Book of Ages, John Adams five times.