John and Abigail Adams remained fully engaged in American political life after they left Washington, DC, for retirement in Quincy. A highlight of Volume 15 of Adams Family Correspondence is a series of letters between Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson that debated fundamental questions of the nation’s tumultuous early years. A new generation rose in prominence in the period covered in the volume, with John Quincy Adams returning from abroad to take a seat in the United States Senate just in time to break with the Federalists and support the Louisiana Purchase. The family commented on other events of the era—Jefferson’s dismantling of John Adams’s judicial reforms, the mobilization of the US Navy for the Barbary wars, the growing bane of British impressment, and the duel that killed Alexander Hamilton.

Equally compelling family stories emerge in the volume’s 251 letters. The failure of a British banking firm proved calamitous to the family’s finances, compelling John Quincy to quietly finance his parents’ retirement. Thomas Boylston Adams, acting as an occasional editor of the Port Folio, carved out his public persona as a man of letters. Louisa Catherine Adams wrote of motherhood and adjusting to a new country of residence while providing a spirited perspective on Washington society. As always, the heart of Adams Family Correspondence is Abigail Adams, who survived a near-fatal fall to continue providing letters of insight and wit that once again show why the correspondence of the Adams family is a national treasure.

John and Abigail Adams’ reflections on an emerging nation as they move into the new President’s House in Washington, D.C., are a highlight of the nearly 280 letters written over seventeen months printed in volume 14 of Adams Family Correspondence. The volume opens with the Adamses’ public and private expressions on the death of George Washington and concludes with John’s defeat in the contentious presidential election of 1800. Electoral College maneuvering, charges of sedition, and state-by-state strategizing are debated by the Adamses and their correspondents as the election advances toward deadlock and finally victory for Thomas Jefferson in the House of Representatives. John’s retirement from public life had some sweet mixed with the bitter. The U.S. mission to France resulted in the Convention of 1800 that ended the Quasi-War and the so-called midnight appointments at the close of his presidency ushered in the transformative U.S. Supreme Court era of John Marshall, a coda anticipated in Abigail’s request to John in the final days of his administration—“I want to see the list of judges.”

The domestic life of the Adamses was equally dynamic. Abigail and John endured the crushing loss of their son Charles, whose struggle with alcohol ended in repudiation and death in New York. Son Thomas Boylston and daughter Nabby spent the period in relative stability, while John Quincy chronicled a tour of Silesia in letters home from Europe. At the volume’s close, the correspondence between John and Abigail comes to an end. As they retired to Quincy, their rich observations on the formation of the American republic would continue in letters to others if not to each other.

Vice President John Adams and the US government faced a turbulent world of rebellion in this volume of the Papers of John Adams, which chronicles the period from March 1791 to January 1797. The grim shadow of the French Revolution and the whirlwind of a massive European war left political leaders like Adams struggling to uphold the young nation’s neutrality. “I Suffer inexpressible Pains, from the bloody feats of War and Still more from those of Party Passions,” he observed. With the federal system newly in place, fresh challenges crept in on all sides. Adams and his colleagues sought to bolster the government against the effects of the Whiskey Rebellion, a seething partisan press, a brutal yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, and violent clashes with Native peoples on the Ohio frontier. Working with George Washington and an increasingly fractious cabinet, Adams approached a set of issues that defined US foreign policy for decades to come, including the negotiation, ratification, and funding of the controversial Jay Treaty, as well as the awkward cultivation of ties with France. Revealing exchanges to Adams from son John Quincy, a junior statesman who sent rich reports from war-torn Europe, underline the family’s enduring commitment to public service. Pausing on the cusp of his presidency, John Adams amplified his lifelong dedication to sustaining democracy, amid bouts of internal and external crisis: “I am happy that it has fallen to my share to do some thing towards setting the Machine in motion,” he wrote.

John Adams’s shaping of the vice presidency dominates this volume of the Papers of John Adams, which chronicles a formative era in American government spanning June 1789 to February 1791. As the first federal Congress struggled to interpret the US Constitution and implement a new economic framework, Adams held fast to federalist principles and staked out boundaries for his executive powers. Meeting in New York City, Adams and his colleagues warred over how to collect revenue and where to locate the federal seat. They established and staffed the departments of state, treasury, and war. Adams focused on presiding over the Senate, where he broke several ties. Enduring the daily grind of politics, he lauded the “National Spirit” of his fellow citizens and pledged to continue laboring for the needs of the American people. “If I did not love them now, I would not Serve them another hour—for I very well know that Vexation and Chagrine, must be my Portion, every moment I shall continue in public Life,” Adams wrote. He plunged back into writing, using his Discourses on Davila to synthesize national progress with republican history. Whether or not the union would hold, as regional interests impeded congressional action, remained Adams’s chief concern. “There is every Evidence of good Intentions on all sides but there are too many Symptoms of old Colonial Habits: and too few, of great national Views,” he observed. Once again, John Adams’s frank letters reveal firsthand the labor of nation-building in an age of constitutions.

Entering the presidency in full service to the American people, John Adams vowed: “Their Confidence, which has been the Chief Consolation of my Life, is too prescious and Sacred a deposit ever to be considered lightly.” This volume of the Papers of John Adams charts the period from February 1797 to February 1798, exploring the United States’ diplomatic rupture with France and the Adams administration’s pivot toward the Quasi-War. Adams spent his first year in office struggling to uphold a form of neutrality that would shield American shipping and commerce from France’s mounting attacks. The US government labored to shift money and resources for military preparedness. “I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of Duty, if I forebore to recommend that We Should make every exertion to protect our Commerce, and to place our Country in a Suitable posture of defence,” he wrote. Adams kept careful watch over imperial tensions on the western frontiers, where Spain, France, Great Britain, Native nations, and the United States wrestled for local control. The second president faced a resurgence of yellow fever in Philadelphia, public debates in the press about his abilities, and an ambitious cabinet. From the opening moments of his inauguration to his headlong rush to heal the United States’ relations with France, this volume reveals how John Adams evolved the American presidency.