Carl Szanton
Explanation Paper for “John Adams: A Patriotic American?”
This campaign ad is an attack on John Adams for the election of 1796. In an election in which Adams was accused of being excessively pro-British, I condemn him for, in essence, being an Anglophile. I exploit Adams’ defense of Captain Thomas Preston and the British soldiers of the Boston Massacre in court in 1770 as evidence that his true loyalties lie with Great Britain. I also use Adams’ desire to model the United States after Great Britain as further reason to accuse him of being irrationally pro-British. The ad may be unfair in its portrait of Adams, however it does attack a weakness for which he was vulnerable.
Tying John Adams to Great Britain would have been especially damaging to Adams’ political prospects in this period because the level of American animosity towards Great Britain was as great as ever. The period of grossly unfair taxation without representation was still a recent memory. The Revolutionary War in which of thousands of colonists were killed at the hands of the more powerful British army was certainly not lost on the Americans. At the time that the attack ad would have aired, the British Navy’s merciless tactic of impressment was in full swing, further angering the Americans. Demonstrating such a close relationship between Adams and Great Britain would have given many voters second thoughts about throwing their support behind him.
The ad starts with a quote from Thomas Jefferson in which he paints Adams as aloof and an overconfident leader. I put this quote at the beginning of the ad to make clear that I am attacking Adams for being out of touch with the American people. Next, I use a newspaper clipping from Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser that associates John Adams with Great Britain. Using Photoshop, I highlight the part of the article that emphasizes his deep admiration and respect for the British government.
Following that newspaper clipping, I get more specific in my attack on Adams, drawing attention to a particular time that Adams sided with the British over the Americans. Showing the former British flag (used from 1606-1801), I introduce a quote from Adams expressing satisfaction for his 1770 defense of the British in court following the Boston Massacre. The quote emphasizes Adams’ ties to the British government and his lack of connection to the common man. After the quote, I display an image of British troops firing on unarmed citizens in Boston. This portrayal serves as a reminder of the brutality of the British soldiers and the loss of American life that Adams enthusiastically defended.
My next line of attack calls into question Adams’ desire to model the United States government after the British government. I use a newspaper clipping from The New Hampshire Gazette that compares and contrasts Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in anticipation of the 1796 presidential election. After commending Jefferson for nine of his greatest successes, the paper reminds us that Adams proposed an American government featuring a King. With so much American resentment remaining towards King George III, this attack on Adams would have cost him a tremendous amount of political points. The ad concludes with Adams’ face changing to a British flag, cementing the connection between the two.
My music choice is the de facto British national anthem, “God Save the King,” which was composed in 1745 and given its current lyrics in 1790. The song shares its melody with the American patriotic song “My Country tis of Thee.” For my ad, I select a rendition of “God Save the King” with lyrics so that I am clearly coupling Adams with loyalty to Great Britain.
Sources (in order of appearance)
The opening quote comes from: http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/john-adams
The opening image of Adams comes from:
http://www.nps.gov/adam/john-adams-biography.htm
The first newspaper clipping comes from: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=K60Y4FNFMTM0ODcxMTY1OC45MjIzMzg6MToxMzoxMzcuMTY1LjI3Ljg4&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=5&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=5&p_docnum=1&p_docref=v2:10D3F95EF7746170@EANX-10D3083033668DD8@2377337-10D3083071A3DED8@1-10D30831545E0510@From+the+Aurora
The image of the former British flag (used from 1606-1801) comes from: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb-hist.html
The John Adams quote about defending the British following the Boston Massacre comes from: http://www.bostonmassacre.net/trial/trial-summary4.htm
The image of the Boston Massacre comes from:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004670035/
The second newspaper clipping comes from: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=X5CD4BABMTM0ODcxMjIxNC45ODQ3MjI6MToxMzoxMzcuMTY1LjI3Ljg4&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=15&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=15&p_docnum=7&p_docref=v2:103709D225B248A8@EANX-104202A5911A0E6D@2377380-104202A5D9FCEA77@1-104202A6C8090BC8@Easton%2C+%28Penn.%29+Nov.+8
The second image of Adams comes from: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001696977/
The second British Flag image (used originally in a political cartoon) comes from:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/92510333/