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Its good to see someone standing up for John Adams. I'm a direct decendent of his. I didn't know about this book but I will go out and buy it today. One of the stories my father told me was of a bet that John Adams had with Thomas Jefferson. They made a bet on who would live longer. When John Adams uttered his last words, "Thomas Jefferson survives" he did not know that Jefferson had died a few hours earlier in Virginia. Both of them died on Independence Day in 1826. John Adams had won the bet but never knew it.

You're a direct descendant of John Adams?! That's wonderful.Do you have any of his features? I used to work with a lady who was a descendant of his on her mother's side.The picture of him on the cover is a famous painting.And boy,when I first saw it,I couldn't believe the similiarity in all of the features,even the color of the eyes,shape of the brow and the facial bone structure.You're very fortunate to be a descendant of such a great man.If you have a mind to,please contact your congressman and senators and ask them to start the process for a national monument.Thanks.

I guess I should have searched first before I went on my crusade for a monument to John Adams.I just did and this is what I came up with:

Statement on Adams Memorial


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 12, 2001	CONTACT: Jim Zoia (202) 225-6065

Remarks of Rep. Nick Rahall *Ranking Democrat* Committee on Resources June 12, 2001

As this bill’s language points out, somewhere along the way, we lost sight of the extraordinary national contributions of John Adams and those of his wife Abigail and their offspring. Among the gleaming marble facades of our presidential constellation along our national mall, among the many sites where we pay homage to individuals throughout America’s history here in our Nation’s Capital, there is a void, an Adams void, that should be filled. I want to thank historians Joseph J. Ellis and David McCullough for being here today to make the case for an Adams Memorial, and also for reigniting interest in the life and legacy of John Adams and his family. I am pleased to take this opportunity to reinforce their message with some other voices from our history. Though we as a Nation are reacquainting ourselves with the Adams family, primarily thanks to the two gentlemen testifying today, near and at the end of John Adams’ life, Adams was remembered along side the other founders as part and parcel to their ultimate success. Former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin has highlighted for me a passage in a letter Thomas Jefferson sent Adams recalling the joint efforts of the two old revolutionaries, “We were fellow-laborers in the same cause... Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead, threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port... and so we have gone on, and shall go on puzzled and prospering beyond example in the history of man.” In 1826, Daniel Webster commemorating the lives of Adams and Jefferson on their demise, placed them side by side. Webster proclaimed, “They live in their example: and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country but throughout the civilized world.” “A truly great man,” Webster continued, “is no temporary flame.” Rather he concluded it is “a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to rekindle the common mass of human kind; so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire from the potent contact of its own spirit.” It is time we reignited the flame of Adams genius and work. Our flint and steel will be an interpretive memorial for generations to visit, perpetually sparking their curiosities of this great American, John Adams, and his family. Joseph Ellis has called Adams, “the supreme political realist of the revolutionary generation” and cautions, “Adams tells us what we need to know. Perhaps now, and only now, are we prepared to listen.” David McCullough reminds us of Adams’ clarity and vision for America’s tomorrow, when upon the fiftieth anniversary of our independence Adams chose precisely two words: Independence forever! As an American, and as the Ranking Democrat of the House Resources Committee, I can only humbly add to the efforts to create an Adams Memorial two words: Build it.

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