Washington’s Shadow
A Play-script about John Adams
(Enter John Adams, his wife Abigail, their daughter Abigail Junior, and her little brother John Quincy Adams.)
John: Nabby, Johnny, your Uncle Sam will be joining us.
John Quincy (whispering to his sister): Which one’s Uncle Sam, again, Nabby?
Abigail Junior: He’s dad’s cousin, Sam Adams.
Abigail: And when your Uncle Sam gets here, your father and I expect you two to be on your best behaviour. Is that understood?
The children (exasperated): Yes.
(Exit the children)
Abigail: You know, John, if Sam’s coming to Boston now then we both know why.
John: He might just want to keep in touch with his family.
(Enter Samuel Adams)
Sam: There you are John. There are pressing political matters we must discuss.
Abigail: I’m sure there are, Samuel but maybe you’d like to join John and me for a meal first.
Sam: No. The longer I’m here, the more probable it is that I’ll be charged with sedition.
John: Do you need my legal services, Sam?
Sam: No, I want to know how widespread Whig sentiment is in New England.
John: I can’t speak for New England, as such, Sam but it’s quite widespread in Massachusetts. Hardly a day goes by without several Bostonians chanting “no taxation without representation”.
Sam: And are you joining them?
John: I have too good a relationship with Governor Hutchinson for that.
Sam: The same one who enforced laws taxing tea and stamps?
Abigail: You sound like you’re trying to be accusative, Sam. You should know, sometimes it’s possible to fight against a bad system while operating within it.
Sam: Not a system as bad as the one the Tories have set up for us.
Abigail: I don’t know about that. When Pharaoh commanded the midwives of the Hebrews to kill every boy born unto them, they delivered the boys and lied to Pharaoh that Hebrew women were so like the women of the wild that by the time midwives arrived, they had already given birth.
Sam: But Pharaoh still had to be struck with Ten Plagues to end the enslavement of the Hebrews, so that’s not the best argument.
John: Actually, I thought it was a rather strong one. I would add that Esther saved her people by impersonating a Gentile and that Jesus told the Pharisees to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.
Sam: Do you really think Hutchinson is a man with whom you can negotiate?
John: What’s your counterproposal?
Sam: There’s a group whose members call themselves the Sons of Liberty-
John (interrupting): No.
Sam (continuing): They believe it possible and necessary to protest the Tory policies through less than lawful means.
Abigail: Not only unlawful means. Violent means.
Sam: I would hardly call smuggling or refusing to pay taxes violent offences.
John: Neither would I. But you know what I would call violent offences? Malicious destruction of property, arson, and assassination. All of those are crimes in which the Sons of Liberty are implicated.
Sam: Not all Sons of Liberty do that.
John: Enough of them do to preclude my membership.
Sam: Abigail, can you convince your husband to see reason?
Abigail: Actually, I agree with John, Sam.
Sam: How else can you hope to end taxation without representation? Legal protest?
John and Abigail: Yes, exactly.
Sam: And what happens when the Lobster-backs suppress those protests and the Tories inevitably impose draconian measures?
John: If that happens-
Sam (interrupting): When that happens!
John: If that happens then the dead protestors will become martyrs to our cause and those of us Whigs who remain will be able to use that to drum up support for revolution.
Sam: Violent revolution?
Abigail: Is there another kind?
John: No, no, there is not.
Sam: I can accept that response for now. For legal purposes, I am not planning to foment insurrection.
Abigail: If you hadn’t just said that we wouldn’t have thought it.
(Exit Sam)
Abigail: You know he plans to foment insurrection, right, John?
John: For legal purposes, my answer is he didn’t technically say that so we don’t really know.
(Abigail rolls her eyes)
John (smiling): You know what Shakespeare said Abigail. First, let’s kill all the lawyers.
(Abigail chuckles)
(Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams and Ensign John Graves Simcoe. Adams is writing a letter. Ensign Simcoe is wearing a Redcoat)
Simcoe: Mister Adams
Adams: Ensign Simcoe.
Simcoe: Captain Preston and his men require your services, Mister Adams.
Adams: if that were true, Ensign Simcoe, they should have come to me themselves. I have many clients.
Simcoe: They can’t easily come to you, Mister Adams.
Adams (removing his glasses): And why is that, Ensign Simcoe?
Simcoe: They’re in jail.
Adams: I beg your pardon?!
Simcoe: The Yankee doodles-
Adams (interrupting): Don’t call us that.
Simcoe: The Yanks arrested them on trumped up charges of murder. They face the death penalty.
Adams: My word.
Simcoe: And what’s more, Whigs are gathering from across Boston calling for their heads. Every Yankee fears that if he represents them in court…
Adams: He’ll never be able to work in Massachusetts again.
Simcoe: Yes.
Adams: I’m sure Governor Hutchinson will appoint a lawyer for them. I’m not worried.
(Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams and Governor Hutchinson)
Adams: I am immensely worried about this, Your Excellency. Do you really mean to tell me no lawyer you’ve appointed is willing to take this case?
Hutchinson: None of the good ones and few of the bad ones, John. You know your side is responsible, right? Revere and his ilk have started calling it the Boston Massacre. Anyone who tries to defend it will have his reputation dragged into the mud by a Whig smear campaign.
Adams: You could appoint a Tory, Governor.
Hutchinson: Any jury of New England men would convict just to spite a Tory.
Adams: Do you genuinely believe Captain Preston and his men were acting in self-defence?
Hutchinson: With every fibre of my being.
Adams: To think honesty of all men is foolishness, to think it of none is something even worse. I’ll take the case.
Hutchinson: Thank you, John.
Adams: Even the Devil himself is entitled to the benefit of the law. (Exit Hutchinson) (Enter Captain Preston, a judge, and a jury)
Adams: Captain Preston, please explain in your own words what happened during the Boston Massacre?
Preston (dazed): Massacre? They’re-they’re calling it a massacre now?
Adams: Five dead is still a massacre.
Preston: I never thought I’d see the day but I empathise with Colonel Washington.
Adams: I beg your pardon.
Preston: He lost control of his men when fighting Jumonville, it ended in a massacre and started the Seven Years War.
Adams: Why do people still think that?! The war was sparked by an Austrian succession crisis. That was going to happen regardless of the skirmishes between the Virginians and the French!
Preston: Yes, well, all the same.
Adams: All the same as what?
Preston: There was a, a party, we, we were worried about, about
Adams: About what?
Preston: You won’t like the answer, Mister Adams.
Adams: I need to know what it is, Captain.
Preston: About Yankee simpletons engaging in drunk and disorderly conduct.
Adams: And?
Preston: And we came to prevent it, my men and I, but then a drunkard came and threw snowballs at us.
Adams: So, you and your men killed a man for throwing snowballs?
Preston: No, your honour.
Adams: I’m not a judge, Captain. I’m your lawyer.
Preston: I told my men to hold their fire.
Adams: And they disobeyed?
Preston: No, they obeyed. The snowball thrower was angry about their obedience. He said he’d kill us.
Adams: A man armed only with a snowball could not kill a group of trained British soldiers armed with muskets.
Preston: That’s what we were thinking as well. Then he called us Lobster-backs, Redcoats, Tories.
Adams: So, you killed him because he insulted you?
Preston (shocked): No, of course not. He said he wanted us to prove ourselves. He dared us to shoot.
Adams: And you fulfilled the dare?
Preston: No. I saw that my men were tempted so I reminded them of their duty and then
Adams: Finish your thought.
Preston: Others joined with the man and they pelted us with ice.
Adams: Ah, and that’s when you fired.
Preston (frantically): No, no, no, I, I didn’t do that. A part of me wanted to do that but my better angels prevailed. I called upon my men to hold their fire.
Adams: And they disobeyed?
Preston: Not at first. They obeyed then a Yank hit one of them with a club. His musket misfired and killed the Yank. Another of my soldiers fired before I could tell him not to do so. The Yanks called us murderers and threatened to kill the lot of us. My men assumed that I had given the other two the order to fire but that they had previously failed to hear it. That’s when they fired at will and killed the Ya- the Bostonians.
Adams: You can say, Yankee. It isn’t offensive.
Preston: This is what happened, Mister Adams, I swear it.
Adams: I have no further questions for my hostile witness. (Exit Preston)
Adams: Your honour, gentlemen of the jury, taxation without representation is on everyone’s minds, including my own, but ’tis not a sin of which Captain Preston and his men are guilty. If donning the Redcoat were enough to damn them then we’d have to damn every British soldier in the world. The Crown’s witnesses for the prosecution have all admitted to Preston’s account and those of his soldiers. The prosecution seeks nothing more than to hang these men for wearing the uniform of the oppressor. To them, I say facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. The facts say that Captain Preston and his men acted in self-defence. I rest my case.
Judge: Has the jury reached a unanimous conclusion.
Jury: We have, your honour.
Judge: Which is?
Jury: We find the defendant not guilty.
Judge: Are you saying this of Captain Preston alone or also of his men?
Jury: The two men who fired first, we consider guilty of manslaughter, your honour. It’s been proven that they were dared to shoot but it’s not been sufficiently demonstrated that the provocation was as extreme as Mister Adams alleges it was. The prosecution has likewise not proven to us that they intended to kill their enemies rather than merely incapacitate them. The rest of Preston’s men, we find not guilty.
Judge: Does the Crown wish to appeal this verdict.
Prosecutor: No.
Preston: Thank you, Mister Adams. You saved my life.
Adams: No. ’Twas your rights as a natural born Englishman that did that.
Preston: Then you saw that my rights were secured. Thank you. You’re a second Daniel come to judgment.
Adams: I wouldn’t invoke that play, in this context, if I were you, Thomas.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Adams, a Crown-appointed Yankee tax collector and a crowd of Bostonians.)
The Crowd: It’s the Devil’s Advocate, for the actual Devil? How many other murderers do you want to shield from justice, Adams?!
Adams: Without the adversarial system, you wouldn’t even know whether they were murderers or not.
Tax Collector: Pardon me. Is something going on here?
Adams: Sir, I don’t think you should be here.
Tax collector: Why not?
Adams: Sir, I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation.
Crowd: It’s a Tory!
Tax Collector: Obviously, I’m a Tory. Governor Hutchinson doesn’t employ Whig tax collectors at this point. They’re insubordinate.
Adams: Please, sir, run.
Tax collector: Why? What’s going on?
Crowd: Get him!
Adams (nervously): That.
(Tax collector runs but the crowd grabs onto him.)
Crowd leader: Strip him!
(The crowd strips him naked)
Adams: Please, don’t!
Crowd leader: Tar him!
(Crowd covers tax collector with hot tar, the tax collector screams in pain, Adams averts his gaze)
Crowd leader: Feather him!
(Crowd covers Tax Collector with feathers)
Adams: This is barbaric!
(The crowd ignores Adams and marches the stripped, tarred, and feathered man through the streets until he dies)
Adams (quietly): Why?
Crowd leader (loudly): If the Redcoats can get away with murder, this is the price they must pay.
Adams: He wasn’t a Recoat!
Crowd leader: That doesn’t matter. He’s a Tory. They’re all the same to us.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Adams and Governor Hutchinson)
Hutchinson: Honestly, you Yanks are more savage than the Indians ever were.
Adams: Not every Yankee supports this, Your Excellency.
Hutchinson: No, the Tories oppose these tar-and-featherings. Do you Whigs?
Adams: Yes.
Hutchinson: Funny. I’m not hearing an outcry of opposition from the Whigs.
Adams: I’m opposed to this.
Hutchinson: The Sons of Liberty aren’t.
Adams: It’s not binary. Not everyone has to choose between being a loyal Tory or being a violent revolutionary.
Hutchinson: Yet. But don’t worry. I’ll prosecute the people who tarred and feathered this man. If a jury of New England men were willing to rule in Captain Preston’s favour, then far more people are on our side than I previously thought.
Adams: What do you mean, our sir?
Hutchinson: On your side and my side.
Adams: Sir, I am not a Tory. I’m a Whig.
Hutchinson: You’ve not been behaving like any Whig I’ve ever seen, John.
Adams: That’s the single most disturbing thing you could have told me, sir.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Paul Revere and over 100 others)
Revere: No so-called true Englishman will anticipate that Yankee simpletons would opt for a plan of craftiness. Today, we, the Sons of Liberty will take back our freedom from those who would dare tax our tea. Don your disguises.
(Revere and the others don Native American disguises. A ship enters Boston Harbor)
Revere (attempting a Native American accent): Me see tea. Heap tea. We go. Get tea.
Revere’s second in command: We haven’t gone to the ship yet, we don’t need to start impersonating the Indians.
Revere: How! Me understand that. Getting into character, heap difficult. I practise.
(Revere and the others go to the ship)
Revere: Me, Indian chief. We see heap tea. Commerce with white man, heap interested.
Ship’s first mate: Captain, I believe the Indians wish to inspect our tea in the hope of conducting commerce.
Captain: Okay but their skin seems lighter than that of most Indian tribes.
First Mate: Not all Indians look alike, sir.
Captain: Very well. Chief, you may inspect my cargo.
(Revere and the others board the ship)
Revere: You should know, Captain, you shouldn’t have doubted your instincts. I am not an Indian.
Captain: Then why are you dressed like that?
Revere (smugly): So that this can happen.
(Revere’s men ransack the ship of its tea and pour it into the water)
Captain: NO!
First Mate: What have we done to you to deserve this?!
Revere: You personally? Nothing. But your masters in the East India Company have wronged me. They’ve wronged us all by getting the Crown to tax our tea and to subsidise theirs. I’m not a man who takes these wrongs lightly. I want my pound of flesh.
Captain: You’re a madman!
Revere: A madman who will bring the East India Company to its knees.
First Mate: This is nothing but larceny!
Revere: I’m sure the Sheriff of Nottingham said the same thing to Robin Hood. Well, guess what, Prince John will fall!
(A crewman is thrown off the ship into the harbour)
Revere: He tried to salvage the tea by stuffing it into his trousers. Rookie mistake.
Captain: Hutchinson will have you drawn and quartered for this!
Revere (smiling): I’d like to see him try.
(Exeunt)
(Enter John and Abigail Adams)
Abigail: John, have you seen the newspaper.
John: Not yet. I presume it’s talking about the recent protest at Boston Harbor.
Abigail: In a manner of speaking.
John: Pharaoh’s been oppressing the Hebrews too long and now he has to deal with the plagues. Wait! Abigail, what did you mean in a manner of speaking?
Abigail: You might want to look at the paper, John.
(John puts on his glasses. Abigail hands him the paper.)
John: What! I’ll have to see Governor Hutchinson about this at once!
(Exit Abigail, enter Hutchinson)
Hutchinson: I assume you’re here about the news that I’m resigning.
Adams: No, I’m here about the news that-wait, you’re resigning?
Hutchinson: Yanks are an ungovernable people, John. Look at what they did to our supply of tea.
Adams: They’d never have done that if tea were not suddenly taxed.
Hutchinson: And they threw one of the ship’s crewmembers into the sea along with it.
Adams: I believe he was trying to salvage the tea.
Hutchinson: You say that as if his doing that were a bad thing.
Adams: Well, I suspect quite a lot of Whigs will be broadly sympathetic to the Tea Party.
Hutchinson: I don’t know about that. Brigadier General Washington was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses as a Whig. He rightly opposes it.
Adams (under his breath): Does he?
Hutchinson: General Gage will take over for me. He’ll enforce the laws we need to prevent another incident.
Adams: Speaking of those laws, I have strong concerns about them.
Hutchinson: They’re Gages problem now.
Adams: But-
Hutchinson: To quote another governor, I wash my hands of this.
Adams: Sir, I don’t think Pontius Pilate comes across well in that story.
Hutchinson: The Sons of Liberty already burned my house down once. Being alive is the way I’d like to end this story.
Adams: But, sir-
Hutchinson (interrupting): Take it up with Gage.
(Exit Hutchinson, enter General Gage)
Adams: Governor Gage.
Gage: Now what?
Adams: Your excellency, I am a concerned citizen of Massachusetts. I would like to-
Gage (interrupting): Register a formal complaint to the Crown about the Québec Act. I know. You’re all convinced we’re selling you out to the Catholics. I say you should take that up with Governor Carlton in Canada, not with me.
Adams: I have other concerns, sir?
Gage: Then you should be airing your grievances at the Provincial Assembly.
Adams: I can’t, sir.
Gage: And why, pray tell, is that?
Adams: Because it no longer exists.
Gage: You’re going to have to explain that statement.
Adams: The new laws indefinitely dissolved our provincial congress. The Massachusetts legislature no longer exists.
Gage: Probably due to the increasing levels of Whig sympathy in the legislature.
Adams: When Diocletian indefinitely dissolved the Senate, he sowed the seeds for the fall of the Roman Empire.
Gage: Thanks for the history lesson but shutting down one legislature in one colony won’t spell the end of our Empire.
Adams: No but the Yankees will scream bloody murder at you.
Gage: But they won’t be able to act on it because the new laws I’m enforcing ban the sale or importation of firearms to Massachusetts.
Adams: Speaking of which, how are the people supposed to defend themselves without guns?
Gage: I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. Quite a lot of you will be hosting an armed soldier in your homes. They’ll be willing, ready, and able to protect you if necessary.
Adams: Our homes which also include our wives and our daughters.
Gage: What’s your point?
Adams: Our virgin daughters.
Gage: I take exception to that. Are you seriously positing that British soldiers are would-be rapists?!
Adams: The majority of them? No. But some of them? Yes. And a rotten apple quickly infects its neighbour.
Gage: I assure you, if any of my soldiers were to do something so untoward, I’d have them shipped off to London and prosecuted.
Adams: I’m glad you brought up that point. Why must jury trials not take place in New England anymore?
Gage: Not just New England. Any of our North American colonies.
Adams: But why?
Gage: Listen I don’t know you but have you ever heard of John Adams.
Adams: I guess you could say that.
Gage: Every lawyer in New England says he’s the best and do you know why?
Adams: That sounds like a rhetorical question.
Gage: Because he successfully orchestrated the acquittal of Captain Preston and his men. Do you know why that was so impressive?
Adams: Enlighten me.
Gage: Because it was so unlikely. Yankee courts had such a bias against us that simply convincing a jury of New England men that people who had clearly acted in self-defence had acted in self-defence became an impressive phenomenon. Of course, we don’t trust colonial courts anymore.
Adams: But the only people likely to be witnesses to crimes the Redcoats committed are colonials. We’d have to sail from Massachusetts to England to testify.
Gage: What’s the problem with that?
Adams: Most of us can’t afford that and funding isn’t provided such that few people will be able to testify against the Redcoats at all.
Gage: it wasn’t my decision. It was Parliament’s.
Adams: Then do I have permission to organize a protest against Parliament’s decision.
Gage: No.
Adams: Why not?
Gage: My job is to keep violence out of this colony. Large groups of people gathering to vocalise their anger makes violence more likely not less.
Adams: But-
Gage (interrupting): There is nothing further to discuss, sirrah.
Adams (angrily): Sirrah!
(Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams, Abigail, Abigail Junior and John Quincy)
John: Sirrah! He called me sirrah!
Abigail: So you keep saying, John.
Abigail Junior: What’s a sirrah?
Abigail: It’s just a very not nice thing to call someone, Nabby.
Abigail Junior (to John Quincy): Johnny, you’re a sirrah.
John Quincy: What’s that?
Abigail Junior: it doesn’t work.
John Quincy (cottoning on): You’re a sirrah, Nabby.
Abigail Junior: No, I’m not.
John Quincy: Are too.
Abigail Junior: I know you are but what am I?
John Quincy: You’re glue and I’m rubber.
Abigail Junior: That doesn’t make sense.
John Quincy: You don’t make sense.
John (to Abigail): Should we intervene?
Abigail: Not yet. Give it a minute.
John: Of all the things. Hutchinson and I had many disagreements but we had respect.
Abigail: I thought he hated Whigs?
John: To be fair, the Sons of Liberty burned his house down in 1765.
Abigail: Is there anything you can do?
John: In a second. Kids, to your rooms!
Kids: But-
John: I will not have this bickering going on right now! Your mother and I are having a serious conversation!
(Exit Abigail Junior and John Quincy.)
John: Sixty seconds. I gave it a minute like you said.
Abigail: I was speaking figuratively.
John: I know but I needed an excuse to get them out of the room before what I’m about to say next. After all, I can’t exactly tell the kids they’re old man is going to help Uncle Sam foment insurrection.
Abigail: Are you seriously planning to do that?
John: No but I am seriously considering the possibility of doing that.
Abigail: That seems like a big step.
John: What else can I do? Gage destroyed every legal forum with which to vocalise my opposition to these measures.
Abigail: There might be another way.
John: Which is?
Abigail: Burgess Thomas Jefferson of Virginia has called for the creation of a general congress with elected members from all Thirteen Colonies. You could become a delegate for Massachusetts, get the other twelve colonies on your side and use their political power to get Parliament to repeal the Intolerable Acts.
John: That’s a good idea but do you think Gage will allow it?
(Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams, Governor Gage and acting Lieutenant John Graves Simcoe)
Gage: I’ll allow it.
Adams: Before you say no, consider that, wait a moment, what did you say?
Gage: I said yes.
Adams: Oh, well, thank you for that.
Gage: What did you think was going to happen? That I’d suspect this Congress of sedition.
Adams: Um. No.
Gage: You should have trusted your instincts. I suspect it of sedition. But seeing as I don’t have any proof, seeing as it’s in Pennsylvania, and seeing as it’s not explicitly forbidden by the law, it’s out of my hands.
Adams: All right, then. (Exit Adams)
(Simcoe rolls his eyes)
Gage: Do you object to this decision, Lieutenant Simcoe?
Simcoe: Is that a rhetorical question, sir?
Gage: No.
Simcoe: With respect, sir, I question the wisdom of your decision. If you suspect this group of sedition, then you shouldn’t allow it.
Gage: I know you’re right but I’ll get in trouble with my superiors unless I can find specific evidence against it.
Simcoe: Sir, far it be it from me to comment on a political decision but if I didn’t know better, I’d say it almost sounds like Your Excellency knowingly made the wrong choice.
Gage: I don’t see why you’re confused, Lieutenant Simcoe. That’s exactly what happened. There’s less paperwork this way.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Adams and the male landowning adult citizens of Massachusetts)
Adams: I, John Adams of Boston, stand before you to become a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress. Are you with me, yea or nay?
The people of Massachusetts: Yea!
(Exeunt)
(End of Act One)
(Enter George Washington, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and the rest of the First Continental Congress)
Franklin: I, Doctor Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia have invented the lightning rod, bifocal spectacles, the America stove, the urinary catheter, the glass harmonica, and swim fins. I also founded and run the best and most successful newspapers in all of Pennsylvania!
Adams (under his breath): And is a master of tooting his own horn, also, I take it.
Franklin: My point being, America is a land of opportunity and innovation. A land where you can come from nowhere and do remarkable things, if you have both the intelligence and the will to create. The issue is the more common commodities, like tea and stamps, are taxed, the more expensive producers will make their products so that they can afford to pay those taxes. The more expensive things become, the more difficult it becomes to purchase raw materials you need to create a viable invention. The more expensive raw materials become, the fewer things are invented. Gentlemen of the Congress, many of you, if not most of you, wear spectacles for distance, for reading, or, as in my case, for both. Imagine if the person who invented spectacles could ill afford the glass with which to make them. Few of us would be here today because few of us would be able to read our bills, let alone write them. Taxes make things more expensive, expenses hurt people. Tories say that Parliament’s taxes are necessary to repay the debts the Crown incurred paying for America’s defence in the recent war. I say that if that were true then we, the people of Pennsylvania, should have been allowed to elect our own representatives to Parliament that we may have a say in how our money is spent and if it were truly necessary, then we would have been the ones to convince. Yet, ’tis Parliament which makes decisions without regard to us or our interests. I say taxation without representation is utterly antithetical to our rights as natural born Englishmen.
Washington: Hear, hear. I would add to what Congressman Franklin just said that taxes are the price we pay for protection but we didn’t get that for which we paid. During the war, we, the people of Virginia and, I believe of the other colonies as well, were told that we would be permitted to defend our settlements should the French attack. The French attacked and we were forbidden to defend our settlements. We were promised the war’s taxes would end with the war and they did not. Parliament saw fit to tax our tea and stamps and King George vetoed our decisions to repeal this legislation. People in Massachusetts protested with unjust, unlawful, and untoward methods like burning down Governor Hutchinson’s house or stealing tea from the East India Company and pouring it into Boston Harbor. I, in no way, condone these methods. I abhor them.
Adams (aloud): I wouldn’t classify the latter of those as being in the same category as the former!
Washington (ignoring Adams): As reprehensible as these behaviours are, the reaction against them is far too extreme for us to tolerate. Being forced to house soldiers and unable to try them for crimes, whilst deprived of access to the very firearms with to defend ourselves and our families is unacceptable. I, Congressman George Washington move that this Congress boycott all goods from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until such time as Parliament sees fit to repeal these murderous acts!
Adams: I second that motion.
Franklin: We should write a strongly worded letter to the King explaining our boycott.
Adams: I concur with Congressman Franklin. We should also be prepared for when the king ignores our petition.
Franklin: You mean “if”.
Adams: No, I mean “when”. ‘There are disgruntled colonists in English America. What a shock, it never occurred to me that that would be the case.’ Do you think His Majesty will react that way? There are disgruntled colonists throughout the Empire. The Englishmen in Québec who lament that Canada’s been sold out to the Catholics. The Hindus in India who complain that the Crown has empowered Christians at their expense. The sugar merchants of the Caribbean who complain that they can’t get hurricane relief. Even people so obscene as to venture into darkest Africa seeking to kidnap and enslave the innocent are frustrated that they often must sell to our South to amass a profit for the Crown, instead of keeping slaves for themselves. King George will ignore the letter unless it clarifies that we’re armed with both the carrot and the stick. Thus far, I see many carrots but no sticks.
Franklin: What sticks do you recommend, Congressman Adams?
Adams: Gentlemen of the Congress, as you know or as you would know if you were intelligent and educated so as you probably don’t know, every colony has its own provincial militia. Not just the colony you happen to live in. At this juncture, the militias are disparate, disconnected, ineffectual. Congressman Washington barely had an army when he confronted Jumonville.
(Washington flinches)
Adams: I move that we merge every militia into a single Continental Army! We must incorporate its creation into our strongly worded letter such that King George will know we’re not simply speaking daggers to him. We’re wielding daggers in our defence and the defence of our rights as natural born Englishmen! Are you with me, yea or nay?
The Congress: Nay.
President of the Congress: The nays have it. We will send a strongly worded letter to King George and His Majesty’s most royal Parliament with which we will issue an ultimatum that we will not end our boycott unless and until the Intolerable Acts are repealed but we will make no changes to the organisation of our citizens’ militias at this time.
Adams (under his breath): This is a mistake.
(Exeunt)
(Enter King George and Lord North)
North (bowing): You wished to see me, Your Majesty?
George: Yes. Tell me North, what do you think of the American Continental Congress’s letter.
Get Matitya Loran’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
North: It’s quite strongly worded, sire.
George: And what is your response to it, North?
North: You mean your response to it, sire.
George: Legally speaking, yes, but in practise, your response to it.
North: Of course, the Yanks don’t get to serve as members of Parliament. It’s separated from them by the entire Atlantic Ocean! It would be impossible to represent them that way. Besides, they have virtual representation and they should be grateful for that. Not every colony can elect a legislature whose bills are relayed to us for Royal signature or veto. There are colonies with no representation at all. If the Yanks would go just slightly north then they would be in one of them.
George: Québec?
North: Yes, sire. And from Jamaica to India, all our colonies pay taxes.
George: The Yanks object to being taxed on tea and stamps.
North: Those commodities were taxed in our other colonies already, sire! These Yanks demand preferential treatment.
George: Burke disagrees.
North: Burke is posturing for his own goals. There are Englishmen, here in England, who are taxed without representation. Burke is just looking for an excuse to change that.
George: Their concerns over guns seem reminiscent of John Locke, do they not?
North: I’d be more sympathetic to that if they hadn’t burned Hutchinson’s house down, stolen our teas and, oh yes, tarred and feathered Crown appointees. When you foment insurrection this much, you clearly cannot be trusted with guns. Parliament will not repeal the laws that the Yanks now call Intolerable!
George: Is this a systemic problem or is it localised within New England?
North: There are fair shares of Tories in the Colonies. Even in New England.
George: But?
North: But Massachusetts is much too far gone for us to justify attempting to use reason.
George: What’s your plan, North?
North: We impose martial law on Massachusetts. In the other colonies, the status quo will remain.
George: Do you have the votes in Parliament?
North: Not yet, sir, but I’ll get them and I’ll get them easily.
(Exit George, enter Edmund Burke and the rest of Parliament)
Burke: I’m not one to use the rhetoric of rights in every sentence, they’re just a marketing tool, but the Congress’s strongly worded letter lists legitimate grievances and has legitimate demands. Taxation without representation is a gentler form of slavery and must end.
North: By that logic, Burke, slavery must end.
Burke: That’s a good point, Lord North, we should also end slavery.
North: Firstly, no. Secondly, we have to supress treason! Now!
Burke: I’m sure King James said the same thing during our Glorious Revolution.
North: The difference is, King George governs with the advice and consent of His Majesty’s Prime Minister. That’s a function that this Parliament gave me, Burke.
Burke: Do you even have the votes?!
North: Are you with me, yea or nay?
Parliament: Yea!
North: I have the votes.
Burke: You will regret this.
North: I doubt that, Edmund.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Abigail Adams, writing a letter)
Abigail: Dear John, your absence makes my heart grow fonder. Still, I cannot say I wish you were here given what just transpired. Parliament declared Massachusetts a Rebel province. Gage arrested militia leaders en masse and initiated an effort to seize all the militia’s weapons. Our soldiers put up enough of a fight at Lexington that Revere’s compatriots could ride to Concord and warn of this plan. Redcoats and Yankees stood against one another at Concord, each side armed, seeking to negotiate the cessation of hostilities. Then one man fired his gun, no one knows on which side, and they all started attacking each other. We were able to evacuate our munitions factories before the battle was over but the Redcoats are ever more liberally occupying the homes of Yankee civilians. They fear sedition and conspiracy. I fear what they plan is to establish a tyranny. Did not John Locke write that the purpose for which the government exists is to assure the protection of man’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property? I think he’d be ashamed of what is happening now.
(Exit Abigail, enter John, reading Abigail’s letter, wearing his glasses, enter the Congress.)
John: Esteemed Congressmen, I am not happy. I am right but not happy. I warned you that exactly this would happen but did you listen to me? No. It may be unbecoming to say I told you so but I did, in fact, tell you so. Lexington and Concord were only the beginning. We have suffered an act of aggression while having no real means of responding to it. So, instead of merely gloating about being right, I’ll take the chance that you all learned from your mistakes. I move that we merge every Provincial militia into a single Continental Army and I nominate Congressman Washington to be that army’s Commander-in-Chief.
Washington: I accept Congressman Adams’ nomination.
Adams: So, tell me gentlemen of Congress, and this time get the answer right, are you with me yea or nay?
Congress: Yea.
President of Congress: The yeas have it. Congratulations, General Washington.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Recoat Major and Lieutenant John Graves Simcoe)
Major: The Rebels have a new general. Washington.
Simcoe: I take it he’s the one leading this siege, sir.
Major: He wants Massachusetts for the Rebels. Boston seems a good place to start.
Simcoe: I’ll fight for King and Country against them, sir.
Major: Speaking of which, Lieutenant Simcoe, you’re Captain, now.
Simcoe: I am honoured to accept this promotion, sir.
(Exeunt) (Enter Dr. Joseph Warren, Abigail Adams, Abigail Junior and John Quincy)
Warren: Mrs. Adams, there is an urgent situation.
Abigail: What is it, Dr. Warren?
Warren: They denounced the Continental Congress as seditious. The Redcoats are after John Hancok, Sam Adams, and
Abigail: And my husband.
Warren: Yes. I strongly urge you to relocate and to take your children with you.
Abigail: Understood (Exit Abigail and the children. Enter Redcoats and Rebels)
Warren (draws a gun): For freedom!
(The Redcoats shoot and kill Warren, Rebels fire at Redcoats, Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams and the Congress)
Adams: This is a travesty. I thought we could reclaim our rights as natural-born Englishmen. I was wrong! I demand that this Congress declare independence! Are you with me yea or nay?
Franklin: Yea.
The rest of Congress: Nay.
President of Congress: The nays have it.
(Exit except Franklin and Adams)
Franklin: The lesson here is that you shouldn’t be so smug.
Adams: How is that the lesson?!
Franklin: You went out of your way to antagonise everyone in this Congress. Now, they’re voting against independence to spite you. (Exit Franklin, enter Thomas Jefferson)
Jefferson (anxiously): Well, this is it. The Congress. I’m the person with whom Virginia saw fit to replace Washington, for some reason. Even though I’ll have to give speeches and have who knows how many people staring at me intensely, noticing every mistake or lapse I would ever dare make, ready to eat me alive and spit me out. I’m out of my depth here. I don’t know how to do, whatever I’m supposed to do here. Letters, essays, sure, I can do that. I wouldn’t have been able to get Virginia the separation of Church and state if I couldn’t. But this is a whole other game to play. The most important thing is that I don’t follow every sentence with a poem lauding the virtues of macaroni and cheese. If only I could have gotten James Madison to come here instead of me. But no, apparently, I have legitimacy, whatever in tarnation that means. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get this done. No one cherishes the union with Great Britain more than I do but Parliament has imposed utterly unacceptable terms.
Adams: Congressman Jefferson, I presume.
(Jefferson recoils)
Jefferson: I didn’t realise there was another person here. I beg your pardon, sir, I did not mean to intrude.
Adams: Never mind that. To whom were you speaking?
Jefferson: Myself.
Adams: You mean like a soliloquy, like a character in a play, like Hamlet?
Jefferson: Are we really going to vivisect my eccentricities Mister, er, what did you say your name was?
Adams: Adams. And I have a use for you.
Jefferson: How dare you, sir! I would not do something so depraved and obscene as you suggest. It’s unseemly and abominable.
Adams: It’s not what you think it is.
Jefferson (confused): It’s not writing a bill for you because you’re too lazy to put in the work yourself and heard me call myself a good writer?
Adams: Oh. Well. It’s not exactly what you think it is.
Jefferson: What do you want, Adams?
Adams: It’s not about what I want, Jefferson. It’s about what I need.
Jefferson: Which is?
Adams: A world where my wife and children aren’t subject to a regime wherein they’re likely to be compelled to house heavily armed strangers and denied the possibility of defence or justice.
Jefferson: And I would like a world wherein the union with Great Britain still made sense. I would like a world wherein the law that “no Negro or Indian slave shall be set free upon any pretense whatsoever, except for some meritorious services, to be adjusted by the governor and council, and a license thereupon obtained” had never been issued. We can’t always get what we want.
Adams: I thought that law wasn’t stringently enforced anymore.
Jefferson: That’s not the point.
Adams: The point is that both you and I want the colonies freed. That’s why you will write an open letter to the King declaring independence and why you will give a speech convincing Congress to vote in favour of this declaration.
Jefferson: I have to give a speech?!
Adams: Of course, it’s your declaration.
Jefferson: I’m happy to assist you in writing it but it sounds like you should be the one who puts pen to paper.
Adams: Unfortunately, it can’t be me.
Jefferson: Why not?
Adams: I have my reasons.
Jefferson: What are your reasons?
Adams: Reason One. You are a Virginian and Virginia ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason Two. I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular; you are very much otherwise. Reason Three. You can write ten times better than I can!
Jefferson: Well, if you are decided, I will do as well as I can. (Exeunt)
(Enter Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston)
Adams: Have you written the document?
Jefferson: Yes. (Puts on his glasses and begins reading)
Jefferson: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
Adams: I’m not sure I’d call King George a tyrant but continue.
Franklin: I believe what’s next is a list of our grievances against the king?
Jefferson: Correct. It’s a denunciation of the Intolerable Acts, taxation without representation and the king’s acts of retaliation against us.
Sherman: There also appear to be anti-slavery Philippics in this declaration.
Franklin: Why would there not be?
Adams: I am pleased about that as well. Let’s visit how the declaration ends though, shall we?
Jefferson: We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is ,and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Adams: What’s today’s date?
Jefferson: The Second of July, 1776.
Adams: A date which will forever be celebrated as our Independence Day. (Exit all except Adams and Franklin)
Franklin: You know Jefferson’s Southern brethren will cut out his anti-slavery Philippics, right?
Adams: Yes but I certainly never would oppose our declaration calling for the end of Negro slavery.
(Exeunt)
(Enter the entire Congress)
President of Congress: This Congress has voted to remove all anti-slavery Philippics from Congressman’s Jefferson’s declaration. Having gone through this amendment process, the Congress has voted, on this day, the fourth of July, 1776, to ratify the rest of the declaration into law. From henceforth these colonies are free and independent states, the United States of America.
(Jefferson cries)
Adams (quietly): Congressman Jefferson, are you all right?
Jefferson: We were supposed to end slavery. I wrote all men are created equal. That means all men.
Franklin: There, there, Jefferson. We’ll get other chances. Besides, it’s unlikely we could integrate a coloured population at this time.
Jefferson: Then we should send them back to Africa but they should at least be free.
(Exeunt)
(Enter John, Abigail, John Quincy, and Abigail Junior)
Abigail: You’ve done a great thing, John. Because of you, this country can be free.
John: Some of it.
Abigail Junior (whispering): What does he mean some of it, Johnny?
John Quincy: I don’t know, Nabby. Dad, what do you mean, some of it?
Abigail: I’m not sure this is an appropriate question for your father to answer, Johnny.
John: No, the kids need to know eventually. How shall I explain? Ah. Do you know why we celebrate Easter?
John Quincy and Abigail Junior: Because it’s when Christ rose from the dead.
John: Precisely. Do you know what Christ was celebrating then?
John Quincy (underconfident): The Paschal Lamb?
John: Yes. Do you know what that is?
John Quincy: Uh
Abigail: Let me try this one. Long ago, a family called the children of Israel also known as the Hebrews or the Jews came to Egypt. Once they were there, the rulers of the land had them all made prisoners, forced to work for neither pay nor compensation, denied property, beaten for failure and often worked more than anyone ever should be expected to work solely for the benefit of their masters. And all children born to the Jews shared this fate. They had to be slaves as well.
John: The Jews prayed unto the Creator for salvation so He sent His servant Moses to the king of Egypt to tell him, Pharaoh, let my people go. Pharaoh refused, so the Creator said, Israel is my firstborn son, you have taken my firstborn away and refused to return him to me so I will kill your firstborn. Every Hebrew family slaughtered a lamb so that when the Angel of Death came to kill every Egyptian firstborn, he would pass over the Hebrew homes. That’s the Paschal Lamb.
Abigail Junior: Yes, you’ve told me about that before, Dad, but what does to do with us now.
John: Nabby, there are places across this country, even in my beloved New England, where people from Africa are forced to be slaves to us Engli- to us Americans.
John Quincy: Isn’t Africa very far away. How do they get here?
John: Men on ships sail to Africa, kidnap the people, drag them across the sea in chains, beat the resistance out of them and sell them like cattle to people in these col- in these states so that they can be forced to grow cotton in the South.
Abigail: Maybe, we should have this discussion when the kids are older, John.
John: Assuming I’m not executed for sedition before then.
Abigail: John?
John: We could ignore it, I suppose, like the Congress did. It’s a terrible idea. It’s only a matter of time before this issue leads to this country being torn apart by civil war.
Abigail: John!
John: Forgive me, children, I’m just a little worked up.
(Exit John Quincy and Abigail Junior)
Abigail: Changing the subject, I hear they’re sending Dr. Franklin to France.
John: They want to get the French on side because they’re enemies of the British Empire. They have been since the war.
Abigail: I hear Dr. Franklin wishes to have your diplomatic assistance.
John: I only reunited with my family quite recently, Abigail. I can’t leave you again.
Abigail: I can handle you spending a little time in Paris working out a treaty.
John: Can the kids?
Abigail: Nabby can.
John: What about Johnny?
Abigail: Perhaps you’ll have to take him to France with you. For all you know, Johnny will grow up to become a diplomat.
John: Do you really think I should do this?
Abigail: It’s for the good of the country, John.
(Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams, John Quincy, Franklin, and Madame Helvétius)
Franklin: Congressman Adams, I’m please you could join us. And who might this young lad be?
John Quincy: Je m’appelle John Adams.
John: He’s been practising French on the way here.
Helvétius: Did the boy make a mistake or is he John Adams fils.
John: We gave him the middle name Quincy to avoid confusion, Madame Helvétius.
Helvétius: I assume the two of you would like to dispense with the pleasantries and get to the point.
Franklin: Congressman Adams, I have some good news. King Louis has already agreed to send money to fund the war. We just need to dot the Is and cross the Ts.
John: Do you mean to tell me, I left one continent for another just to dot Is and cross Ts?
Franklin: No. King Louis is also open to providing us with the assistance of his army and/or his navy but is not yet fully convinced. I believe together we can sway him into providing us with that kind of support.
Helvétius: Though I would advise the two of you that you should present a strictly pragmatic argument. If you argue against the divine right of kings, Louis will be too concerned that we may pick up your bad habits. To put it bluntly, if Pennsylvania rebels then King George remains on his throne but if Paris rebels Louis loses his head.
John: Understood.
(Exit all except John and Franklin, enter King Louis XVI)
Louis: Our country is in terrible debt from the war and losing money funding your revolution already. We tax this country and her colonies quite highly to pay for that. So, please, tell me, what benefit we can possibly gain from providing military support for your revolution.
Franklin: You’ll humiliate England.
Louis: Tempting but not enough. We can do that by funding your war.
Adams: You’ll also bleed Britain of resources terribly weakening her empire to the point where she cannot easily compete with you elsewhere in the world.
Louis: And?
Franklin: And you’ll have America’s allegiance.
Louis: Will you Protestants be willing to aid Catholics in times of need?
Franklin: Technically, I’m a Deist.
Louis: Another heresy.
Adams: Your Majesty, I assure you, sire, we are perfectly willing to help or respect members of other religions. Why, in our country even Jews are equal citizens.
Louis (accusatively): Are you comparing us to the Jews?
Adams (gulps): No.
Louis: Good. I’ll confer with my minsters. We’ll see if the support you seek can be provided. (Exit Louis)
Adams: Now what?
Franklin: Now, we wait.
Adams: Wrong answer, Dr. Franklin. I am a man of action. I do not wait.
Franklin: Patience is a virtue, Adams. It’s how I got what we already have from the French. That wasn’t an accident.
Adams: Of course, you would take this as an opportunity to brag. Why do you always assume you’re the smartest person in the room?
Franklin: ’Tis not an assumption.
Adams: That’s what you would say.
Franklin: What other course of action would you consider preferable then, Adams?
Adams: We go to Holland and ask for a loan.
Franklin: Best of luck to you, in that, but I’m staying in Paris. I backed the right horse.
(Exit Franklin, enter Dutch moneylender)
Dutchman: You realise, if we lend you this money and you lose the war, then we won’t be able to collect our pound of flesh?
Adams: Which is why we will not lose.
Dutchman: What are your prospects for that? General Washington has lost more battles than he’s won.
Adams: The battles he lost still bled our adversaries of their resources considerably to the point where they lost later battles because of it.
Dutchman: Being a thorn in their side does not assure victory.
Adams: With more resources, it would.
Dutchman: If your victory depends entirely upon our resources then it’s doubtful you can afford to repay us for them.
Adams: It doesn’t depend completely on them. We’ve also spoken to the French. They’re providing us with weapons, for example. We have a shot at winning.
Dutchman: A shot but are you fast enough on the draw?
Adams: We are. We have the most skilled, the strongest, the smartest, the most resourceful ragtag army ever created. Tell me, when was the last time, in our era, that a rebellion against an empire as mighty as Great Britain lasted as long as ours did? I assure you, helping us is a good investment.
Dutchman: We will loan you mo-
Adams: Thank you, sir.
Dutchman: As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, we will loan money but not as much as you requested. Are those terms acceptable, Meneer Adams?
Adams: Yes, sir.
(Exeunt)
(Enter King Louis XVI, Adams, Franklin, John Jay, David Hartley and Richard Oswald.)
Louis: Monsieur Adams, Monsieur Jay, Dr. Franklin, these are Monsieur Hartley and Monsieur Oswald. They’re here to negotiate with you on King George’s behalf.
Hartley: Here is our offer. The Thirteen Colonies, pardon, the United States, will be recognised as a sovereign country. All our Rebel, pardon, all our American prisoners of war will be released. If you release your British and Loyalist prisoners of war, that is.
Oswald: We also ask that you earnestly recommend that your Congress provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to British subjects.
Jay: Do you stipulate that both of us will have equal access to the Mississippi River?
Oswald and Hartley: Yes.
Franklin and Adams: That seems good to us.
(Franklin, Adams, Jay, Hartley, and Oswald sign their names on the Treaty of Paris, Exeunt)
(Enter King George and William Pitt)
George: Mister Pitt, by and with the advice and consent of Parliament, I appoint you Prime Minister.
Pitt: Your Majesty, allow me to introduce Ambassador John Adams.
(Enter Adams)
George: Ambassador Adams. I was the last to consent to your country’s separation but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I will be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.
Adams: Thank you, sire. (Exeunt)
(End of Act Two)
(Enter Adams and John Graves Simcoe)
Adams: Congratulations on your election to Parliament, Mister Simcoe.
Simcoe: I have nothing to say to you, Ambassador Adams.
Adams: Why not?
Simcoe: Why not?! You bloody fomented a bloody insurrection against the bloody Empire! You’re more of a bloody traitor than bloody Benedict Arnold ever bloody was.
Adams: I had little choice considering how your Empire treated her colonies, Mister Simcoe.
Simcoe: The colonies had rebelled. We responded to it the way one responds to rebellions. When the so-called United States witnesses rebellions against her government, your country will respond the exact same way!
Adams: We have more honour than that, Simcoe.
Simcoe: What honour? Have your people respected our access to the Mississippi, granted by a treaty you signed? Have Loyalists actually had their property restored to them at war’s end or have they been tarred and feathered, like we all knew they would be?! The King isn’t at war with you anymore but we are still enemies and you’re responsible.
Adams: That’s not what the treaty says.
Simcoe: You were on the winning side, Ambassador Adams, but that doesn’t mean you were on the right one. It never did.
Adams: No but, in this instance, we were on the right side.
Simcoe: Keep telling yourself that, Ambassador. I’m sure it will help you live with your treason.
(Exit Simcoe)
Adams (writing): Dear Abigail, I find the duties of an ambassador to England completely elude me. Dr. Franklin managed as a diplomat in Paris and Jefferson succeeds in that capacity now but I am not cut from the same cloth as they are. I have therefore resolved to resign my ambassadorship and return to America. (Exeunt)
(Enter John and Abigail Adams)
Abigail: ’Tis good to have you back, John.
John: I’m glad to be back. (Sudden knocking on the door)
John: Who the Devil could that be?!
Abigail: Come in.
(Enter James Madison)
John (through gritted teeth): To what do we owe the pleasure, Mister Madison.
Madison: To the fact that you were right, Ambassador Adams. We need a stronger government than the one I envisioned.
John: Seeing you eat crow, that actually is a pleasure.
Abigail: But what does it have to do with John, now?
Madison: We need his help to co-write a new Constitution. I just thought I should deliver the news.
(Exit Madison)
John: What do you think, Abigail?
Abigail: Do we really need a new Constitution?
John: Yes.
Abigail: Then I could hardly think of a person better suited to drafting it than you are.
John: Wish me luck. (Exeunt)
(Enter John Adams and Madison)
Madison: We’ve done it now. A single government for all thirteen states.
Adams: E Pluribus Unum.
Madison: Of the many, one.
Adams: I should warn you, Madison, given how many Deist friends you have, this Constitution is made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the governance of any other.
Madison: If men were angels, Adams, we wouldn’t need a Constitution at all.
Adams: True.
(Enter a journalist)
Journalist: What sort of political regime have you created for us?
Adams: A Republic, if you can keep it. (Exeunt)
(Enter Abigail)
Abigail (to the audience): Each state could choose either by vote or by gubernatorial appointment people whose sole function was to vote for the President and Vice President. They were called electors. Each elector would vote for two candidates, his first and second choice for president. If more than half of the electors voted for the same man to be president, he would become president and his runner-up would become Vice President. If there were a tie or if no candidate got more than half the electors to vote for him then the presidency would be decided by Congress. General Washington declared his candidacy for the presidency in 1788. So did my husband. Every elector put Washington’s name atop his ballot. Most electors considered John their second choice. Washington became President and John became Vice President. Tensions between Washington’s Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton led to our statesmen being divided into two factions: The Federalists and the Republicans. John leaned towards the Federalists, he even derisively called the Republicans “Democrats” in reference to Secretary Jefferson’s support of the French Revolution. As to what John did as Vice President, he tells it best. (Enter John)
John: My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate.
Abigail (to the audience): Then everything changed. Jefferson resigned in protest of Washington’s refusal to support the Republic of France in her war against Great Britain. He resolved to run for president himself. Washington shocked us all by refusing to seek a third term as president, insisting that two terms as president were enough for any man. Then this happened.
John: Abigail, I know Washington left some big shoes to fill but do you think I could be a good president?
Abigail: Definitely.
John: Before you say no, consider this.
Abigail: I said yes.
John: Jefferson is a Francophile, a man of the South, a Democrat, and a slaveowner. He did great things for the revolution but can he be a good president? I don’t think so.
Abigail: You should run.
John: And before you say that the Federalists can find someone else to run, I should remind you that their most likely candidate is Secretary Hamilton. I don’t trust him.
Abigail: You should run, John. You’ll make a great president. (Exit John)
Abigail (to the audience): There were 138 electors in 1796. Seventy-one voted for John. He would be president. Sixty-eight voted for Jefferson. He would be Vice President. (Exeunt)
(Enter John Quincy Adams)
John Quincy (to the audience): I was already Washington’s ambassador to Portugal by that point. My father came to me and said, son, I would like to make you ambassador to Prussia. I told him I didn’t want to have things handed to me just because he was president. He asked me if my diplomatic career weren’t a good argument for me being granted the position. I acknowledged that it was but I warned him it would resemble nepotism. He just laughed and nominated me anyway. The Senate voted to confirm my nomination. Jefferson was not happy.
(Enter Jefferson)
Jefferson: John Quincy’s a good man but is he qualified to be Ambassador to Prussia? Maybe but his father shouldn’t be the person to make that call. It’s a conflict of interest.
John Quincy (to the audience): Meanwhile, my old man asks each ambassador the same question. Do we need to be worried about Napoleon? And the answer is always the same. Yes.
(Enter Hamilton)
Hamilton (to the audience): So President Adams convinces the Congress to create a Navy, reckoning that ’tis his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief. I tell him that that’s expensive so we’ll need to start taxing sales wages. He says I should go for it, so I convince the Congress to impose direct taxation. We fund the creation of our Navy and we provide some assistance, here and there, against Napoleon. Our message to the Europeans is clear. If they scratch our back, we’ll scratch theirs. Jefferson doesn’t see it that way.
Jefferson: Gentlemen of the Senate, this country was founded in a tax revolt, something my esteemed colleagues have seemingly forgotten. Washington refused to support France despite the French having helped us because he reckoned that we should pursue goodwill, friendship, and honest commerce with all, entangling alliances with none. Actively assisting the enemies of France with our new Navy completely undermines that. If Adams believes the French have broken our treaty, then he should go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war. He has no authority to begin one himself.
John Quincy: A group of people riot in protest. Their leaders are arrested for treason. Jefferson doesn’t think that’s fair.
Jefferson: These men incited riotous activity and that is a crime for which they should be prosecuted but they did not commit treason and, as such, should not be prosecuted for it.
(Exit Jefferson, enter John Adams)
Hamilton: Ignore him, sir. Let the traitors hang for their treason.
Adams: How would we be different from the British if we did that, Secretary Hamilton?
Hamilton: These people are rebels. We must respond to them the way one responds to rebellions.
Adams: That settles it. I’m pardoning them.
Hamilton: But, sir,
Adams: But nothing! This is the precise situation for which you created the pardon power in the first place, Hamilton! (Adams puts on his glasses and signs a presidential pardon)
Hamilton: Mister President, there is way to avoid this situation being repeated.
Adams: Which is?
Hamilton: Federalists in Congress have voted in favour of laws severely restricting immigration and empowering the Federal government to prosecute journalists who are unfairly critical of our policies.
Adams: How is that any different from the British suppressing our freedom of speech?
Hamilton: Because they were wrong and we’re right.
Adams (unconvincingly): Okay, then. (Adams signs the Alien and Sedition Acts)
(Enter Jefferson)
Jefferson: Members of the Senate, will you tolerate such a gross infraction of states’ rights?! These laws are exactly the kind of legislation that Madison wanted to prevent when he wrote the First Amendment. Ask him, he’ll tell you. I will do everything within my power to raise money for the legal defences of any journalist prosecuted under these so-called Alien and Sedition Acts, I will denounce these laws in every letter, essay and, if necessary, speech. And I assure you should I ever become president, I will pardon anyone prosecuted by these draconian measures. These laws must be repealed and that is why I will run for President in 1800! (Exit Jefferson)
Adams: I think we made a terrible mistake.
Hamilton: Yes, the Alien and Sedition Acts clearly didn’t go far enough.
Adams: Are you mad! They alienated countless Americans.
Hamilton: Only because honesty was treated as such a strong defence that someone who accused you of being a would-be tyrant could have himself published in a newspaper if it were a sincere opinion. We should not tolerate that kind of behaviour.
Adams: For your own good and mine, never say that again. (Exit Adams)
(Enter Thomas Pinckney)
Hamilton: Pinckney, the President won’t listen to me. What we need is a new president.
Pinckney: I’m a Federalist. I won’t support Jefferson.
Hamilton: I’m not asking you to do that. I’m asking you to run for president as a Federalist so that we needn’t worry about Adams any longer.
Pinckney: I’m all ears. (Exit Pinckney)
(Enter Adams)
Adams (angrily): You thought you could undermine me! You ungrateful wretch! I should have replaced you the second I replaced Washington.
Hamilton: Washington valued my advice, sir.
Adams: I’m sure that there was a time when that made sense but you should learn to stay in line, sirrah!
Hamilton: Sirrah! Don’t call me sirrah!
Adams: Or what!
Hamilton: I quit.
Adams: Good riddance. Creole bastard.
Hamilton: I am not Creole!
(Exit Adams)
(Hamilton begins writing)
Hamilton: My fellow Federalists and electors sympathetic thereto. I strongly urge you not to vote for, endorse, or imply support for Adams in the upcoming election.
(Exeunt)
(Enter Jefferson and Aaron Burr)
Jefferson: Senator Burr, I need a Northerner, non-slaveowner, moderate Republican, with military experience to run for President and split the Federalist vote, so I can be President.
Burr: Why do you believe I would be this candidate?
Jefferson: I’ll tell everyone that every Republican elector should rank you as their second choice. We can beat Adams together. Senator Burr, sir, you’ll be Vice President.
Burr: And I presume I’m supposed to tell people who like me to vote for you as their second choice.
Jefferson: Exactly. (Exit Burr)
Jefferson (to the audience): That’s when everything started to take a turn for the worse. Burr and I won the same number of votes. In the event of a tie, the Congress chooses one of the top five candidates to become President. That means that the sixty-five electors who voted for Adams put him in the running. Naturally, I asked Burr to drop out of the race and endorse me against Adams so that I could be president and Burr could be Vice President, in the spirit of our agreement. Instead, Burr went door to door and started trying to convince every Congressman that I was too dangerous to be president and they should vote for him instead. That snake! (Exeunt)
(Enter Adams, Jefferson, Burr, Hamilton and the Congress)
Hamilton: Gentlemen of the Congress. I believe Mister Burr to be a dangerous man and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government.
Jefferson: Does the Congress vote for Jefferson, Burr, Adams, or Pinckney?
Congress: Jefferson!
Adams: You choose a slaveowner who to be your president! Shame on all of you!
Jefferson: You were never this upset about Washington, John.
Adams: Washington freed his slaves upon his death, Thomas, that’s the difference.
Jefferson: I don’t know if you noticed this, John, but I’m still alive. (Exeunt)
(Enter John Quincy Adams)
John Quincy (to the audience): Meanwhile, my sister Nabby married a man named Smith. She sadly died in 1813. Meanwhile, my mother, Abigail Senior, died in 1818. Meanwhile Madison replaced Jefferson as President and James Monroe replaced Madison. Monroe made me Secretary of State but I’m not the person whose story is being told here, my father is. This is what happened with him.
(Enter John Adams and Madison)
Madison: Mister President.
Adams: Mister President.
Madison: Did you know when Washington died, he wasn’t on speaking terms with Jefferson anymore?
Adams: That’s too bad, James. I didn’t think of Washington as someone who would bear a grudge.
Madison: Would you consider burying that hatchet, John?
Adams: Why should I?
Madison: You did great things together, John. Like the Declaration of Independence.
Adams: A declaration Thomas breaks daily by engaging in the enslavement of others.
Madison: Do you damn me as well, John? I’m also a slaveowner.
Adams: I know. Far too many of us are.
Madison: Thomas agrees with that. He wrote anti-slavery provisions into the Declaration which were cut out by Congress.
Adams: I know, James, I was there.
Madison: And he banned the slave trade as soon as it became constitutional to do so. Do you deny that that was a good thing?
Adams: I’ll reach out to Thomas and see if we can end the animosity between us.
(Enter John Quincy)
John Quincy (to the audience): My father succeeded in reconciling with Jefferson but was sadly unable to convince Jefferson to free his slaves. All the other signatories of the Declaration died but my father and Jefferson lived to witness my presidency. Then on the fourth of July, 1826, forty years to the day after independence, my father died. His last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives”. He was wrong. Jefferson had died three hours earlier. My father shall surely be remembered as Washington’s Vice President and as Washington’s successor but I say he should be remembered, first and foremost, for the extraordinary things he did. I ask you, this play’s audience, to recall this when hearing stories of the American Revolution. Do not let the John Adams’ legacy be forced to live in Washington’s shadow.
(End)
