John Adams’s – Why isn’t his face on the side of Mount Rushmore?

John Adams

Why Isn’t John Adams’s face on the side of Mount Rushmore along with Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, and Roosevelt? This question probably does not cross the mind of the average American. In truth, many American’s don’t know why these four presidents are enshrined on this mountain in the first place; but that’s another story for another time.

Why does John Adams’s seem to be an afterthought in comparison to his contemporaries of the American Revolution era? Today, the best-known Adams in America is Sam Adams. In fact, when the First Continental Congress sent John Adams to France as a special ambassador, he was mistaken for Sam Adams by the French government. Sam is John’s cousin and, like John, was a revolutionary. However, he did not possess John Adams’s political genius or oratory skills. Sadly, today Sam Adams’s name is remembered more because of the beer brand named after him and not because of his contributions to the American Revolution.

Washington is enshrined in American history because he carried the revolution on his strong, broad shoulders for eight years. He embodied the “Spirit of 76”. He was also our country’s first and most famous president. His virtues and heroic exploits are well-documented. He was a man of few words and did not possess great oratory skills. As a delegate from Virginia to the First Continental Congress, he didn’t play an active role in the debate concerning our country’s future.

Jefferson, on the other hand, is best known for the writing of the Declaration of Independence. These words “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” propelled him into the center of human history and inspired revolutions and the destruction of despotic governments worldwide.

As our third president, he was also responsible for the largest land purchase in our history, known today as the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was an elegant writer and supreme idealist. However, like Washington, he was also not much of a talker. He preferred the written word to the spoken word. He, too, was a delegate to the First Continental Congress representing Virginia. Although he possessed a great mind and the capacity to express his ideals in writing, he did not play a large role during the secession debates.

John Adams was our second president. Unlike Washington and Jefferson, he was vocal. In fact, he could not keep from expressing himself on any subject. Trained as a Harvard Lawyer and gifted with intellectual capacity and oratory skills, he was the most vocal advocate for secession from the onset of the debate. His Puritan upbringing and legal training equipped Adams with a keen sense of the law and justice. Combined with his oratory talent, he was ready-made to lead the debate on secession from England, which thrust him into the center of American Revolution history.

Most likely, John Adams is not enshrined on Mount Rushmore because he did not lead an army to victory or pen the greatest document in human history. Therefore, he did not capture the imagination of the American public and historians of his era. His contributions to revolutionary history, though many and significant, don’t shine as brightly as the contributions of the revered Washington and beloved Jefferson.

John Adams’s contribution to American history is not in his exploits as delegate to the First Continental Congress or his service as an American Ambassador. His is not considered one of our greatest presidents. His legacy is in the thousands of letters to his wife, Abigail, family members and to friends that were preserved and passed through the halls of time like a bountiful inheritance to posterity. His correspondence provides the greatest source of knowledge about the revolutionary period of American history.

These letters give us not only insight into the soul of John Adams’s but to his relationship with his wife, family, friends and country. They give us a sense of history as it was happening and allows us to share in the “Spirit of 76”. Because of these letters, we know more about the humanness of John Adams, and since we can examine him more closely, we can see the cracks in his character more vividly than those of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.