John And Abigail Adams - Founders of a dynasty.

they succeeded in siring three further generations of what you could call great people that's a like american it's probably the greatest family in american history I mean the james' are pretty pretty powerful uh... and i guess that people can argue the bushes can can claim uh... this but uh... the bushes uh well there is a there is the first father son president john and john quincy and then george and george w uh... but uh she was the she was the conscious founder of a dynasty you know they invested so much in john quincy from the time he was out of the womb they were expecting him to become the first magistrate of the republic they didn't have the presidency yet so they couldn't think that way uh... every kid in america now women as well as girls as well as boys are told you know they they could be president john quincy was told if you don't you're a failure uh... complete and uh... probably the best educated best read person ever to enter the presidency which he was a total failure at and um but you're right uh but in each generation of the adams' first in abigail and john's kids and then their kids their grandkids there's one person who excels and often quite quite impressively and the rest of them end up failures some cases uh... alcoholics drug addicts they have miserable lives they marry the wrong person abigail and john's case nab by the oldest and the only daughter ends up marrying this guy who's a former officer in the continental army on washington's staff graduate of princeton dashingly handsome perfect choice right it only shows you never know 'cause this guy ends up being a bum and um... and couldn't hold down a job loses all his money charles is the the charmer and it's difficult when you're reading the letters and you're encountering the young kids and what people are saying about them charles everybody loves charlie like charlie's even dogs just you know follow him wherever he goes and uh... and you know what's going to happen to charlie charlie is going to die at thirty years of age as an alcoholic and a drug addict and living in *** houses in new york city despite the fact that he has a wife and two kids right uh the other kid tommy who's almost invisible in the correspondence thomas the youngest uh he looks good he goes to harvard he works for john quincy as his assistant in uh…in prussia but like it never works out for him and he becomes an alcoholic and he moves back to live near his his parents and he meets a local girl and they have like eleven kids that's the only thing he seems to be able to do and uh... but he's a failure uh but after that generation there was the generation of charles francis adams right becomes american ambassador to england during the civil war and he keeps he keeps england off the side of the south right which is a huge achievement right and his son writes about that in the education of henry adams that's the third generation yeah and henry adams of course was uh he was a great uh... a great friend of theodore roosevelt theodore roosevelt and uh... who was the secretary of state hay john hay and they also have lodge and and that that whole crowd they they helped they got us into the spanish-american war right though he didn't like that i mean henry adams was not in favor of that yeah but roosevelt got us in it's like a miracle the way that happened you know like roosevelt the assistant secretary of the navy the secretary of the navy is playing golf and white he's playing golf roosevelt starts a war in the phillipines it's like you know he does it all himself yeah right it's unbelievable proceed immediately right right um…to manilla bay yeah unbelievable so he he was and then of course he wrote that book the education of henry adams so that generation and henry adams brother charles francis adams junior i think was president of the union pacific railroad was he not um hm and that's kinda where it ended yeah but but that's four generations yeah uh... that's pretty good yeah not bad that's pretty good this uh we were talking at lunch there's about all these people that claim to be descendants of adams but none of them yeah seems to be there's a man who's a corporate president that's probably a direct descendant uh but it petered out yeah it petered out and and henry adams never held office never ran for office yeah and the education of henry adams is about failure it's about being displaced by time and history you know it's an eloquent ironic tragic story about his life and he you know he marries this woman who commits suicide and uh... she's buried in rock creek park there's a big statue yeah and uh... by the way gore vidal purchased the plot right next to that for himself this excerpt is brought by the massachusetts school of law