Free Republic REALLY NEEDS Your Support!!!
Please Consider Donating Monthly!
Very Generous FReeper Sponsors are donating $10 for every New Monthly Donor & $1-A-DAY DONOR!
Posted on 07/28/2013 3:56:13 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
A man whose wit was matched only by the looseness of his tongue, the combative John Adams quickly acquired a hefty reputation for articulate jabs and razor-sharp put-downs...
“His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency.”
“That bastard brat of a Scottish peddler! His ambition, his restlessness and all his grandiose schemes come, I'm convinced, from a superabundance of secretions, which he couldn't find enough whores to absorb!”
(Hamilton certainly wasn't above returning the fire.)
“What a poor, ignorant, malicious, crapulous mass.”
(For more on their relationship, head here.)
“That Washington is not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station is equally beyond dispute.”
“Phyladelphia [sic], with all its trade and wealth and regularity, is not Boston. The morals of our people are much better; their manners are more polite and agreeable... Our language is better, our taste is better, our persons are handsomer; our spirit is greater, our laws are wiser, our religion is better, our education is better. We exceed them in every thing, but in a market.”
“His soul is poisoned with ambition.”
While working as a member of the American revolution's continental congress, Adams referred to one of his less-radical colleagues as “a piddling genius” in one of his letters—an insult which caused a good deal of uproar when the British intercepted and published the candid document. For a fictionalized account of the pair's tense relationship, check out this clip from HBO's 2008 John Adams miniseries:
(Excerpt) Read more at mentalfloss.com ...
Maybe the original Don Rickles.
John Adams was a sick man and also our first liberal President, although an argument can be made that Washington was. His son, John Quincy, was a victim of both he and his wife, Abigail. John Quincy was a good man whose life was a living hell due to the ridiculous demands that his parents put upon him. Coincidentally, John and John Quincy were the only Presidents out of the first seven who only served one term.
I wonder how long he would last on FR?
I bet his first post would be a zot thread.
"Living proof that in these several states,*anyone* can grow up to be President"
Adams is one of my favorite presidents, along with Coolidge.
Adams was infinitely more than a mouth (no insult intended to Rush). Adams raised the money (from the Dutch) and arranged the French Naval support needed for victory at Yorktown.
He was disliked by many and dismissed by many others...but in hindsight...he is a towering little man.
A Boston Yankee from the Original Yankee cloth!
Good husband, good father...great American!
You sure he wasn’t covered under “crapulous mass”?
So he really would have loved Obama.
Dude!! The man actually used the word “crapulous”?! Nice!
His cousin Sam Adams was the Rush Limbaugh of that revolutionary era. I mean this in a good way for both Sam and Rush.
BWA HAHAHAHA
I heard this somewhere, but the author escapes me:
“Measure your mind, by the shadow it creates.”
I was raised in the nation’s “pahk yor cah” neck-of-the-woods.
I have traveled this land, seen a lot, and somehow, doing a little ‘substitution of Adams’ Phyladelphya formula’, have made the same basic remarks!
I love this!
Thanks so much!
Saving!
Crapulous mass! LOL! I’ll remember this one!
Good point. That’s why Tom hanks and Spielberg produced John Adams in the first place. Not because they’re patriotic but they are libs first. The only good part about the series is that they made Jefferson look better than Adams, IMO.
Crapulous is a great word, but it doesn’t mean what I thought it did.
Perhaps it needs a new definition more appropriate to it’s first four letters.
That is actually fairly true and Washington was well aware of it and very self conscious about it too. Though it's also true that Washington did quite a bit of studying on his own.
Don’t get me wrong, John Adams was great in the lead up to the Revolution. But after getting power he was what the founders warned us against.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.