When George Washington retired in 1797, the nation wondered if the presidency would work for anyone else. Whoever came second was going to have a rough tenure. The partisan divide had broken open, foreign empires hovered on the nation’s periphery seeking weakness, and no one would enjoy the stature or respect given to Washington. The 1790s offer so many important parallels for the world today—political violence, intense partisanship, weak parties, xenophobia, immigration battles, pandemics, and debates over free speech. John Adams crafted many of the precedents that served as essential scaffolding for democratic institutions, most importantly the peaceful transfer of power. Adams’s presidency culminated in what is sometimes called the “Revolution of 1800,” which required widespread civic virtue from public officials and politicians across the political spectrum to secure the survival of the republic and continues to shape the nation to this day.
Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library. She is the author of the award-winning The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, the co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, and Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic, which will be published in September 2024. Dr. Chervinsky has been published in the Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, CNN.com, The Bulwark, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, The Daily Beast, and numerous others; she is a regular source on American history for outlets like The BBC, Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, CBC News, CBS News and CNN.
