John Adams (miniseries)

I have no attachment to any country but my own. ~ John Adams

John Adams is a 2008 HBO miniseries on the life of John Adams and the first 50 years of the United States.

Directed by Tom Hooper. Written by Kirk Ellis, based on the book by David McCullough.

Join or Die.

Join or Die [1]

John Adams: I do not have the luxury of your birth or your purse, Sam, to spend my days fomenting dissension. I intend to prove this colony is governed by law, whatever you and your Sons of Liberty may say on the matter.

Samuel Adams: We're all Sons of Liberty here.

John Adams: [while cross-examining a witness who claims several men were carrying clubs] A lawful assembly. Not a riot, a lawful assembly in which people were carrying clubs. To make certain nothing unlawful occurred, perhaps?

Mr. Goddard: The men are rope makers, sir. As any true Boston man would know, the clubs they were carrying are for beating out rope.

John Adams: For beating out rope, indeed. But could they not also be used for beating out men's brains?

Abigail Adams: [after reviewing John's summary for the defense] John, there's not a person in Boston who doubts your education, your command of language...

John Adams: Oh, dear. You are charming me, Abigail. You never charm me unless what you're about to say is cutting.

Abigail Adams: John, vanity.

John Adams: Vain?

Abigail Adams: You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition. You do not need to quote great men to show you are one.

John Adams: Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments, that many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries even before Parliament existed. We have a right to them, derived from our Maker. Our forefathers have earned and bought liberty for us at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasures and their blood. Liberty is not built on the doctrine that a few nobles have a right to inherit the earth. It stands on this principle: That the meanest and lowest of the people are, by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and nature, as well entitled to the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat and clothes to wear as the nobles or the king. That is liberty. And liberty will reign in America!

Independence [2]

John Dickinson: One colony cannot be allowed to take its sister colonies headlong into the maelstrom of war. Parliament will be eager to call a halt to hostilities, as are we. They will seek conciliation. We must offer them an olive branch. I move this assembly consider a humble and dutiful petition be dispatched to His Majesty. One that includes a plain statement that the colony desires immediate negotiation and accommodation of these unhappy disputes and that we are willing to enter into measures to achieve that reconciliation.

John Adams: Mr. Dickinson? The time for negotiation is past. The actions of the British army at Lexington and Concord speak plainly enough. If we wish to regain our natural-born rights as Englishmen, then we must fight for them.

John Dickinson: I have looked for our rights in the laws of nature and can find them only in the laws of political society. I have looked for our rights in the constitution of the English government and found them there! Our rights have been violated, Mr. Adams; that is beyond dispute. We must provide a plan to convince Parliament to restore those rights! Do we wish to become aliens to the mother country? No! No, gentlemen, we must come to terms with the mother country. No doubt the same ship which carries forth our list of grievances will bring back their redress.

John Adams: Mr. Dickinson, my wife and young children live on the main road to Boston, fewer than five miles from the full might of the British Empire. Should they sit and wait for Gage and his savages to rob them of their home, their possessions, their very lives? No, sir! Powder and artillery are the surest and most infallible conciliatory measures we can adopt!

John Dickinson: If you explode the possibility of peace, Mr. Adams, and I tell you now, you will have blood on your hands!

John Adams: And I tell you, Mr. Dickinson, that to hold out an olive branch to Britain is a measure of gross imbecility.

John Dickinson: If you New England men continue to oppose our measures of reconciliation, you will leave us no choice but to break off from you entirely and carry on the opposition in our own way.

John Adams: I sit in judgment of no man's religion, Mr. Dickinson, but your Quaker sensibilities do us a gross disservice, sir. It is one thing to turn the other cheek. But to lie down in the ground like a snake and crawl toward the seat of power in abject surrender, well, that is quite another thing, sir. And I have no stomach for it, sir! No stomach at all!

John Dickinson: We will exhaust all peaceful approaches, Mr. Adams. And we will do it with or without the approbation of you and your Boston insurrectionists!

John Adams: It is not a question of men and women. It is a matter of politics.

Abigail Adams: Politics? Politics? And do women not live politics, John Adams? When I go to the cupboard and I find no coffee, no sugar, no pins, no meat, am I not living politics? This war touches people that your Congress treats with the same contempt King George deserves for the people of Boston. I mean women, yes, and slaves, too, for that matter. Though I am sure you wish I would not mention that subject, as it might upset your southern friends.

John Adams: You're harsh, madam.

Abigail Adams: I am cold. And frightened. I am afraid this war will never end or begin.

John Adams: And however much I talk and talk, I will never carry the Congress.

Edward Rutledge: South Carolina, on behalf of its sister colonies ...

John Adams: STATES!

John Adams: Objects of the most stupendous magnitude. Measures which will affect the lives of millions, born and unborn are now before us. We must expect a great expense of blood to obtain them but we must always remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased a too dear a rate as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of greater importance to mankind. My worthy colleague from Pennsylvania has spoken with great ingenuity and eloquence. He's given you a grim prognostication of our national future, but where he foresees apocalypse, I see hope. I see a new nation ready to take its place in the world. Not an empire but a republic. And a republic of laws, not men. Gentlemen, we are in the very midst of revolution. The most complete unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of the world. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children? I am not without apprehensions, gentlemen. But the end that we have in sight is more than worth all the means. My belief says that the hour has come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to stake upon it. While I'll live, let me have a country. A free country.

John Adams: [writing a letter to Abigail] My dearest friend, the break is made and now our work begins. You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states. It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting and distresses yet more dreadful. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction.

Don't Tread on Me [3]

Abigail "Nabby": Why do boys have all the pleasure?

Abigail Adams: Because we let them.

...

Abigail "Nabby": When they get back, we shall be very strict with them.

Abigail Adams: When they get back, we shall be far too lenient with them

Benjamin Franklin: All of Paris is a school, master Adams. A young man need only to avail himself of the lessons.

Benjamin Franklin: Here in France you must practice the art of accomplishing much, while appearing to accomplish little.

John Adams: Our independence cannot be achieved if we are to be nothing more than a pawn in France’s never-ending game with our common enemy.

Benjamin Franklin: Is it your purpose to destroy everything we've accomplished? To engineer the recall of the fleet under Admiral d'Estaing? Or is this some new kind of diplomatic initiative? The direct insult followed by the petulant whine? What are you thinking of? A good diplomat, Mr. Adams, observes much, acts little and speaks softly.

John Adams: The Comte de Vergennes means to keep his hand beneath our chin to prevent us from drowning, but not to keep our heads above the water.

Benjamin Franklin: Have you learned nothing, Mr. Adams? If you continue to exasperate and antagonize these people...

John Adams: As I did in Philadelphia and we declared independence, you recall.

Benjamin Franklin: In Philadelphia, we negotiated independence.

John Adams: Well, you may be as patient and accommodating as you like, Doctor. But for myself, I will not voluntarily put on the chains of France while I am struggling to throw off those of Great Britain!

John Adams: You know, it is universally believed that dr. Franklin has accomplished our revolution entirely by himself with a simple wave of his electric wand. Whatever merits he may have as a philosopher, as a legislator he has done very little, sir. Very little indeed.

John Adams: If ever there was a natural alliance, surely it is between the republics of the Netherlands and the United States. The Dutch first gave asylum to the pilgrims. New York and New Jersey were first settled by your countrymen.

Dutch Banker: May I remind you, that the Netherlands were a republic long before America was even an idea?

John Adams: Indeed. Indeed, sir. If I may, America and Holland are so close, in history, in religion, in government, that every Dutchman instructed in the subject must pronounce the American Revolution just and necessary, or pass censure on the greatest actions of his immortal ancestors.

Dutch Banker: There are rumours, that America will settle for a negotiated peace.

John Adams: No, sir. No. No, the only acceptable outcome is complete and irrevocable independence.

John Adams: The charge of vanity is the last refuge of little wits and of mercenary quacks! I have long learned, that a man may give offense, and he may still succeed!

Abigail “Nabby”: Is the war over?

Abigail Adams: Not while there is a single British soldier remaining in America. But they cannot hold on for long. Not after this. God be praised, and General Washington.

Reunion [4]

Abigail Adams: Well, I have been in France for such a short time. It would be unfair to pass sentence or form judgement.

Thomas Jefferson: Which implies that you've already done both.

Abigail Adams: Well, if I had, Mr. Jefferson, I would only offer them after my further experience had shown my wisdom or the error of my ways.

Thomas Jefferson: An admirable caution.

John Adams: Yes, and highly uncharacteristic, I assure you.

Abigail Adams: Paris is unique.

Thomas Jefferson: Yes, and best enjoyed in the company of women.

Abigail Adams: Women would add interest to many things, Mr. Jefferson, if men would allow it.

Thomas Jefferson: Well, that has been my experience, Ms. Adams.

Thomas Jefferson: I've resolved to renounce embarrassment in favor of enjoyment

Benjamin Franklin: The English love an insult. It's their only test of a man's sincerity.

Benjamin Franklin: There is talk of a convention in Philadelphia. They are to discuss a binding constitution. I hope to attend if only to have an effect on the style of its prose.

Thomas Jefferson: I expect that any constitutional document that emerges from Philadelphia will be as compromised as our Declaration of Independency. I am increasingly persuaded that the Earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to its laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

John Adams: But surely the Constitution, as it did with the ones we wrote for our own states, is meant to establish the stability and the long-term legality essential to the continuation of a civilized society.

Thomas Jefferson: Yes, possibly. But I fear it could prove a breach in the integrity of our revolutionary ideals through which will pour the forces of reaction.

John Adams: [to Franklin] Doctor, Mr. Jefferson's pet topic is not the artful arrangement of political power but the cordoning off of a space in which no power exists at all. [to Jefferson] You, sir, you are a walking contradiction.

Benjamin Franklin: We're all contradictions, Mr. Adams.

John Adams: Indeed yes. And what is government ultimately but the putting into effect of the lessons which we have learned in dealing with the contradictions in our own characters?

Benjamin Franklin: It is no small thing to build a new world, gentlemen. We have our republic. We must endeavour to keep it if we can.

John Adams: [after being introduced to King George III] The United States of America have appointed me minister plenipotentiary to Your Majesty. I think myself more fortunate than all of my fellow citizens in having the distinguishing honor of being the first to stand in Your Majesty's presence in a diplomatic character. I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in restoring the confidence and affection, or, in better words, the good old nature and the good old humour between peoples who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same language, the same religion, and kindred blood. I beg your Majesty's permission to add that though I have been before entrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner more agreeable to myself.

King George III: The circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion that I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly disposition of the United States, but I am very glad that the choice has fallen on you to be their minister. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to separation. But the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.

John Adams: Thank you, Your Majesty.

King George III: There is an opinion among some people, Mr. Adams, that you are not the most attached of all your countrymen to the manners of France.

John Adams: Yes, well, I avow to Your Majesty that I have no attachment to any country but my own.

King George III: An honest man will never have any other.

John Adams: Here's a fine culmination to all my years of service. Fewer than half the votes of the Electoral College. General Washington is unanimously acclaimed president with 69 votes, whereas I apparently am scorned by all but 34 of the electors.

Abigail Adams: John, there are two, four, six, eight, ten other names here. You have more votes than all of them put together. And John Jay comes in third with nine.

John Adams: Nonetheless, I consider ... I consider such a showing a stain upon my character.

Abigail Adams: John!

John Adams: I will not and I cannot accept it.

Abigail Adams: John, you are vice president now.

Unite or Die [5]

John Adams: I have seen what the future holds, Abigail. Men and manners, principles, opinions. They've altered very much in this country. Authority is our only protection against discord, civil war and sedition. Now the office of the president, no doubt, is sufficient to establish such authority. But we must not be surprised if we ever find we need a monarch -

Abigail Adams: Oh! You would do well -

John Adams: - to keep us from coming asunder!

Abigail Adams: - to keep your thoughts to yourself, John! People will say that your mind has been tainted by foreign courts. They are already saying such things in Boston.

Thomas Jefferson: I've been, as you know, in revolutionary France, where the streets are filled with the songs of Liberty and Brotherhood, and the overthrow of ancient tyrannies of Europe. And to return from there to this, our cradle of revolution, and find the dinner table chatter is all of money, and banks, and authority, is an unwelcome surprise.

Alexander Hamilton: Unwelcome perhaps, but necessary.

Alexander Hamilton: The future prosperity of this nation rests chiefly in trade. Trade depends, among other things, on the willingness of other nations to lend us money.

Thomas Jefferson: And how would you propose to establish international credit?

Alexander Hamilton: Our first step would be to incur a national debt. The greater the debt, the greater the credit. And to that end I have recommended to the president that Congress adopt all the debts incurred by the individual states during the war through a national bank. The idea being that if the states owe Congress money, then other nations will feel more inclined to lend it to us.

Thomas Jefferson: If the states are indebted to a central authority, it increases the power of the central government.

Alexander Hamilton: There you have it exactly. The greater the government's responsibility, the greater its authority.

Thomas Jefferson: The moneyed interest in this country is all in the north, so the wealth and power would inevitably be concentrated there in a federal government. To the expense of the south.

Alexander Hamilton: If that is the case, it is unavoidable if the Union is to be preserved.

Thomas Jefferson: I fear our revolution will have been in vain if a Virginia farmer is to be held in hock to a New York stock jobber, who in turn is in hock to a London banker. The opportunities for avarice and corruption would certainly prove irresistible.

Alexander Hamilton: Well there you have it, as I have heard said, "If men were angels then no government would be necessary."

Thomas Jefferson: Our constitution has many good articles, and some bad ones. I do not know yet which predominate.

John Adams: Well without this government our republic would have collapsed into anarchy long ago.

Thomas Jefferson: With this government, I am not certain that we are a republic.

Thomas Jefferson: Well... to the revolution.

John Adams: Whose?

Thomas Jefferson: [angrily] They are one and the same, John! Are they not?

John Adams: Mr. President.

George Washington: Mr. President.

John Adams: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

George Washington: I am fairly out, and you are fairly in. See which of us will be the happiest.

Unnecessary War [6]

John Adams: There has been a gross misunderstanding with France that I must reconcile.

Thomas Jefferson: You made a devil's pact with the British, their sworn enemy. And ours, I'd thought.

John Adams: It may be difficult, Thomas, if not impossible, for me to maintain neutrality, but to be drawn into war with either France or England when our own confederation is still so fragile would be suicidal. It could bankrupt the nation, divide the people even further, lead God knows where. Now I am of a mind to send an envoy extraordinary to strengthen our hand in dealing with the French government. And I can think of no one more qualified to engage with Foreign Minister Talleyrand than yourself. And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to rekindle our partnership.

Thomas Jefferson: Some may say you seek to remove a rival for public office.

John Adams: Well, let them prattle. As a known friend of France, your presence would reflect our seriousness of purpose. No one can object to that.

Thomas Jefferson: I cannot accept this commission.

John Adams: Do you tell me this as my vice president or as the head of your party?

Thomas Jefferson: That you and I differ on our assessment of the best form of government for these states united is well-known to us both.

John Adams: Yes, but we have only differed as friends should do, respecting the purity of each other's motives. Oh, surely you and I, Thomas, can rise above the din of politics.

Thomas Jefferson: Nowhere is the din of politics greater than in your own cabinet, which you have inherited from Washington without making a single change. They are Hamilton's men. They are determined upon a course of war with France.

James McHenry: War is inevitable, sir.

John Adams: No, war is never inevitable. It must be the course of last resort. How great would be the guilt of an unnecessary war?

John Adams: These war measures will protect us from insurrection and subversion.

Thomas Jefferson: There is no war.

John Adams: And that is the principle behind these measures - the prevention of war.

Thomas Jefferson: You cannot protect the nation by attacking the right of every man to speak freely without fear. You're trampling on the Constitution. The states will have no alternative but to resist these measures, which are an assault on the liberty of their people.

John Adams: Yes, but the people's representatives demanded these acts. Would you have me deaf to the voice of the people?

Alexander Hamilton: If we're forced to rely on incompetent state militias for our defense, we may as well start learning French now, Mr. President. [chuckling] A national army binds the country much as a national bank does.

Alexander Hamilton: Should victory fall to Britain, as it most surely must, then the Bourbons are likely to regain the throne of France. Any dealings with a current illegitimate government there could well redound to our detriment, leading us back into a war with Britain we can ill-afford to wage.

John Adams: What if the French, not the British, emerge victorious, Mr. Hamilton? The pretender Bonaparte is within a hairsbreadth of victory over most of Europe.

Alexander Hamilton: In that regrettable instance, we must be prepared to take possession of valuable, strategic territory before France can lay her hands on it. All the territory this side of the Mississippi must be ours.

John Adams: You would seize Spanish Florida and Louisiana?

Alexander Hamilton: And not only those, sir. If universal empire is to be the pursuit of France, what can tend to defeat their purpose better than to detach South America from Spain? It is the only channel through which the riches of Mexico and Peru convey to France. Let us not forget there are those in our own country, sir, who would prefer secession to our continued Union. If they should be so bold as to act on their threats in the event, say, of a French victory, we must be prepared to bring the renegades back into the fold by force if necessary.

John Adams: Never in my life have I heard a man speak more like a fool.

Alexander Hamilton: Sir?

John Adams: Your actions, Mr. Hamilton, would precipitate the very thing that you pretend to protect against: the dissolution of this nation. May I inform you as well, sir, that I am in possession of intelligence that confirms that we are as likely to see a French army on these shores as we are on the moon! You dream of empire, Mr. Hamilton!

Alexander Hamilton: You question my loyalty, sir?

John Adams: Oh, no, Mr. Hamilton, I question your sanity. Now either you are stark raving mad, or I am! Good day, sir!

Timothy Pickering: [after he and James McHenry fail to convince Adams to go to war with France] Your stubbornness will be our ruin. You would surrender our party's interests to Mr. Jefferson and his so-called Republicans.

John Adams: And you, sirs, are subservient to Hamilton, who ruled General Washington and would rule me if he could. Mr. Jefferson, whom you despise, is an infinitely better man. I would rather be vice president under him or resident minister to the Barbary pirates than be indebted to a creature such as Hamilton for my present post! Now, your immediate resignations will be accepted, gentlemen.

Timothy Pickering: I do not feel it my duty to resign.

John Adams: Excellent, excellent. Then you leave me with the far more satisfying remedy of removing you from office. Both of you.

Abigail Adams: Half-fed slaves building our nation's capital. What possible good can come from such a place?

Thomas Jefferson: If the Federalist conspirators are allowed to defeat this election, there will be resistance by force, and the consequences could be incalculable.

John Adams: The outcome of this election is within your power. You would do well to quiet your revolutionary notions, Thomas. You have only to say that you will not turn out the government's officers, will maintain the navy, that you will honor the national debt - all of which the Federalists hold dear - and the government will instantly be in your hands.

Thomas Jefferson: I will not enter office but in perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgment.

Peacefield [7]

John Adams: [while examining John Trumbull's depiction of the Declaration of Independence presentation] You know, I, I am informed that one of the greatest talents of a painter is the capability to comprehend a large space. Herr Rubens, whose canvases I always paused to admire when I was staying in Holland, was a master of this. You, Mr. Trumbull, are no Rubens.

John Trumbull: I do not claim to be a Rubens, sir. I would, however, remind you that Herr Rubens never painted such a uniquely American subject.

John Adams: As to the painting's singularity, I can offer no opinion. But I will say this. It is very bad history.

John Trumbull: The likenesses have been very carefully researched...

John Adams: No scene such as you depict here ever took place. There was not one moment or one day when all the delegates from the Congress gathered to record their signatures.

John Trumbull: This is a matter of detail.

John Adams: May I remind you, sir, that we were already at war? Now, contrary to your tranquil scene, your subjects were scurrying in and out of Philadelphia all summer long, affixing their names to Mr. Jefferson's hallowed parchment whenever they happened to be in town.

John Trumbull: You would not deny the artist a certain license?

John Adams: Do not let our posterity be deluded with fictions under the guise of poetical or graphical license. It is a very common observation in Europe, Mr. Trumbull, that nothing is so false as modern history. Well, I would hasten to add that nothing is so false as modern European history except modern American history. In plain English, sir, I consider the true history of the American Revolution as lost. Forever.

Cast

External links

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has an article about:

John Adams (miniseries)

John Adams quotes at the Internet Movie Database
The official site