Four Scores and Seven Reels Ago: The U.S. Presidency through Hollywood Films

By Dale Sherman

Since the early days of the movie industry, filmmakers have created visions of what the presidency of the United States is like. Several have been biographical studies of famous individuals who have served, such as Lincoln, Kennedy, and Nixon. Many movies have also displayed fictional presidents, in roles big and small, in dramatic tales that displayed them at their best—and sometimes even at their worst.

Four Scores and Seven Reels Ago: The U.S. Presidency through Hollywood Films examines the ways Hollywood has portrayed the presidency over the years. Pop culture expert Dale Sherman examines famous presidents and their movies, detailing historical information for each and how or if the filmmakers and artists came close to telling the real story. But let us not forget the many imagined examples of presidents that have appeared in movies and television, as well: presidents have battled aliens, fought monsters, and have even been caught on the wrong side of the law.

Lincoln, Thirteen Days, Air Force One, Independence Day, All the President's Men, The President's Analyst, Escape from New York, and several of our favorite movies about real and fictional presidents are included in Four Scores and Seven Reels Ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RowmanLittlefield
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781493063949

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INTRODUCTION

Arthur Bryon, who played the President, as we’d like to believe all our Presidents play their role—with dignity, and force, and charm of personality.

—Mayme Ober Peak, review of The President Vanishes, Boston Globe, November 16, 1934

God, we need Henry Fonda to guide us.

Maybe not the man as he was in real life. No, we need the Henry Fonda whom we saw on the silver screen. The one who stands tall against the bureaucratic captain in Mister Roberts (1955) to help those under him, who defiantly votes against the other jurors in Twelve Angry Men (1957) for the sake of justice, and who soliloquizes the common man in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Of course, as an actor, he didn’t always play that type; he is sinister in one of his few villainous roles as Frank in Once upon a Time in the West (1968), confused and lost in The Wrong Man (1956), and charmingly innocent and goofy in the 1941 comedy The Lady Eve. Nevertheless, when you saw Fonda in a role, he often played someone you want in your corner to defend your life and liberties, someone who seems to listen before speaking and then converses in a quiet, forceful manner, always thinking, with little patience for fools.

Henry Fonda’s presidential image was solidified early on with his star role as Abraham Lincoln in the 1939 John Ford film Young Mr. Lincoln. Portraying Lincoln in his lawyer days, Fonda manages to display the winning nature of the man who would eventually become the sixteenth president of the United States. In portraying those years in Lincoln’s life, Young Mr. Lincoln tells somewhat exaggerated stories about Lincoln’s life based on events that have been common parts of his biography, such as a supposed romance with a woman named Ann Rutledge in New Salem, Illinois, when Lincoln was a young man and the Farmer’s Almanac trial from his law days. There are nuggets of truth in those tales, albeit stretched by Hollywood for better storytelling, as with Young Mr. Lincoln, explained in Chapter04, and with other films dealing with other presidents described in the pages ahead.

Fonda would build on our trust in his leadership in Fail Safe (1964), where he plays a president who hopes to prevent World War III through desperate measures after Moscow is accidentally bombed by American planes. It’s an astonishing gambit supported through the guidance of strong dialogue by Walter Bernstein (based on the novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler) and direction by Sidney Lumet, but it is through the care that Fonda conveys that dialogue that convinces the viewers of his actions. Fonda’s role as president in Fail Safe is quite constrained; he spends nearly the whole movie sitting in a bare room with a Russian interpreter (played by Larry Hagman in an early role) and talking on phones. Yet, in close-up and hearing only his end of a conversation, we get a president who is personable, calm even when frustrated, and able to think on his feet. By the time Fonda commits to dropping a bomb on New York City, as insane as that resolution is, we believe him to be presidential, and we believe him to be right—at least for the two hours we’re in the darkened theater.

Fonda didn’t play many other presidents in his career, but he would have additional run-ins with them in other films. The same year as Fail Safe saw him as a candidate running for the office in the drama The Best Man, where his character deals with the ugly side of campaigning and with an unscrupulous former president who is determined to treat those running as chess pieces. Two years earlier, he had played a man under scrutiny after the president nominates him to be secretary of state in the film Advise and Consent. In both films, Fonda’s character may have skeletons in his closet, but we believe he has integrity and really does want to do what is best for the country, even if things don’t work out as planned. Both films also give us hints of presidents using their powers for their own goals—this is especially true in The Best Man, as is shown later—rather than what is best for the country, a somewhat rare theme in Hollywood movies but one that becomes more common as we move into the later twentieth century.

By the time of one of his last film roles, again as the president in the disaster film Meteor (1979), Fonda appears not only because producers of disaster movies used popular stars in small roles to help bring in moviegoers but also because he’s cinematic shorthand. If you want a president we’ll believe when he says that a meteor is coming and we’re going to have to trust the Russians to destroy it with nuclear warheads, then get Fonda. He was Abe Lincoln, after all, and negotiates with the Russians in Fail Safe. The audience will accept the cornball premise from him because he conveys what we expect from a president, even a fictional one.

Though Fonda’s approach to the presidency is common in movie-making, he was certainly not the first. In nearly 250 years of American history, the country has seen a wide variety of presidents in office, from those remembered around the world as excellent leaders to those examples of what can go wrong in such a role. Further, with shifting worldviews, it isn’t unusual to find that our expectations of what a president should be or do has evolved, with some once-glorified presidents now seen as detrimental to our country’s growth and others who were once pigeonholed as not very good being given better evaluations in the years since. This change in our perspective of presidents can be seen in the movies as well as in how we expect a president to behave in office.

With the arrival of cinema in the United States, there was an immediate and natural interest in showing presidents in movies, starting with staged footage of William McKinley in September 1896 being told of his nomination for the presidency. Documentary film of presidents was soon overtaken by narrative depictions of them, particularly George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who sometimes were repeatedly played by the same actors across different films. Hollywood then branched out from Washington and Lincoln, depicting other presidents in their most colorful moments, such as Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba with

Henry Fonda, one of the Founding Fathers of Film Presidents, shown keeping the country at ease in the 1979 disaster film Meteor. Original press photo by James Globus, author’s collection, © 1979 by American International Pictures.

Henry Fonda, one of the Founding Fathers of Film Presidents, shown keeping the country at ease in the 1979 disaster film Meteor. Original press photo by James Globus, author’s collection, © 1979 by American International Pictures.

the Rough Riders and Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. The year 1942 would see the first well-known fictional depiction of a president still in office, with Captain Jack Young as President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Yankee Doodle Dandy. It was a feat some deemed vulgar for such an important role in the government. Nevertheless, it would lead to many other such interpretations in the years following, with some more flattering than others.

But Hollywood is a dream machine, and with that comes the need to create presidents out of whole cloth. One of the first fictional presidents in movie history came in 1913’s The Sons of a Soldier (covered in Chapter10), but the journey truly began in the early 1930s, with stories of fictional presidents dealing with situations that no sitting president has faced—or at least as far as we know. Since then, we’ve seen alien invasions, kidnapped presidents, presidents in action sequences, kidnapped vice presidents, conspiracy theories, kidnapped presidential families, supernatural events, and at least one kidnapped presidential analyst (see Chapter05), among the many comedies and dramas that put a president in difficult situations for our amusement and sometimes reflection. How presidents follow the better angels or their own demons, as well as society’s perceptions of the presidency and perhaps even ourselves, are built into the plots of these films.

In the following pages, my focus is on our film presidents—historical and fictional, good and bad—and the many ways Hollywood has portrayed the office over the years. Surprisingly, nearly every president has been depicted on film in some form and in many cases as a prominent character. True, we’re never going to see a marathon of Grover Cleveland pictures, but films featuring such presidents as Lincoln and Kennedy, to name two, are easily recalled by many. I delve into the biographies of real historical leaders, the various genres that have featured fictional presidents, and how and why portrayals have changed over time.

Although there are occasional glimpses into pivotal television productions that shaped our expectations for future movies—such as Eleanor and Franklin (1976) and The Missiles of October (1974)—the focus of Four Scores and Seven Reels Ago is theatrical films. While readers hoping for a discussion about Space-Lincoln from The Savage Curtain episode of Star Trek will be disappointed, this avoids long discussions about a series like The West Wing, which has already produced various books about its role in politics and television in the years since it aired and does not need to be revisited here.

I also examine fly on the wall docudramas, such as The Missiles of October and its theatrical equivalent, Thirteen Days (2000), as they are a variation on the age-old historical film. However, I do not cover conventional documentaries—those featuring a variety of experts describing actions and motives to an off-screen interviewer. This includes those documentaries that try to have it both ways by breaking up such talking head segments with reenactments by actors trying to look serious while prancing around in cheap fancy dress in old buildings or a forest in order to excite viewers with the prospect of actual drama unfolding.

Jane Alexander as Eleanor and Edward Herr-mann as Franklin in the TV mini-series Eleanor and Franklin (1976). It would be the start of many appearances by Herrmann as FDR over the years. Official press still, author’s collection, © 1976 by American Broadcasting Company.

Jane Alexander as Eleanor and Edward Herr-mann as Franklin in the TV mini-series Eleanor and Franklin (1976). It would be the start of many appearances by Herrmann as FDR over the years. Official press still, author’s collection, © 1976 by American Broadcasting Company.

Where do we draw the line on including presidential appearances? Should movies be considered where a president appears only briefly, or should the list be limited to those where the president propels the plot in some fashion? For example, lists of filmic depictions of Franklin Delano Roosevelt sometimes include This Is the Army, a 1943 movie that features future president Ronald Reagan but in which Jack Young as FDR appears for only a few seconds, about fifty feet away from the camera, waving high up on a balcony. While it may be of interest for completists, Young’s appearance has no ramifications for the plot and therefore warrants only a brief mention in the chapter on FDR. Conversely, John Carradine’s one scene as Abe Lincoln in the 1938 film Of Human Heart, with Henry Fonda’s old roommate Jimmy Stewart, may be brief, but his performance as Lincoln is pivotal to the plot. Thus, I discuss it in more detail in Chapter04.

At the beginning of this introduction is a quote from Mayme Ober Peak’s review of Arthur Bryon’s performance as one of the first fictional American presidents in movie history, in The President Vanishes (1934). Peak speaks of Bryon handling the role perfectly, with [d]ignity, and force, and charm of personality, and it seems a natural description of the president of the United States or any country’s leader. We want someone who can calm us through the bad times and convince us of our path toward the future—like how Henry Fonda does so many times in the movies.

Yet before the journey to fictional accounts of presidents, we must first turn our attention to where it all began: in 1788 with the election of George Washington as the first president of the United States. His legacy would set up all the presidencies to follow, including, oddly enough, our perception that such a role requires dignity, and force, and charm of personality.

1

THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE MACGUFFIN PRESIDENT

And when you’re gone, who remembers your name? Who keeps your flame? Who tells your story?

—Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story from the musical Hamilton

One of the most recent and popular depictions of the first president of the United States, George Washington, came not in the movie theaters but from the stage in the Broadway musical Hamilton, created by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Premiering in 2015, Hamilton depicts the life of Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father of America who helped form the US government and create the economic structure of the country, on which it still relies. In revisualizing the history through the lens of modern music, alongside more traditional musical numbers, and using people of color for the roles to convey the complex diversity of America, Hamilton rekindled interest in the Founding Fathers of the country for another generation.

The musical was professionally filmed in 2016, and while a theatrical release of that footage was planned for October 2021, the movie was released through the streaming channel Disney+ on July 3, 2020, after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that year. Christopher Jackson originated the role of George Washington in Hamilton on Broadway and appears as such in the film, while two other Founding Fathers are also represented: Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and James Madison (Okieriete Onaodowan). In keeping with the reinterpretation, all three are played by people of color rather than the traditional White faces we commonly see. Miranda and company go a step further with the interpretation of Jefferson and Madison: Jefferson is portrayed as flashy in both clothing and personality as well as flippant with others to the point of rudeness; Madison, who rarely speaks on his own, is portrayed as a manservant to Jefferson. At the time, it was noted that Jefferson and Madison are based on the personas established for Morris Day and Jerome Benton in Purple Rain (1984), who spend that film being antagonistic to The Kid (Prince) until the end, when they realize he is the better man, which also is reflected in Hamilton.

Christopher Jackson as fatherly figure and first US president George Washington, with Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton looking on, from the filmed version of the Broadway musical Hamilton (2016). Courtesy of PhotoFest.

Christopher Jackson as fatherly figure and first US president George Washington, with Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton looking on, from the filmed version of the Broadway musical Hamilton (2016). Courtesy of PhotoFest.

Even with these changes, we are never far from our preconceived notions of these men. Jefferson really was considered a man of style and certainly an extraordinary speaker and writer—maybe not to the point of being able to spout rapid-fire dialogue like in Hamilton, but you believe he could be the one to write the Declaration of Independence and become president. Madison is referenced in act 1 for his work on the Federalist Papers, writing a third of the essays supporting the Constitution, and even his eventual repositioning as a minion for Jefferson has its roots in historical popular opinion. Most importantly is Washington, whom Miranda writes as how he will be eternally depicted: tall and wise. He listens, guides, and tempers all those around him, especially our hero. He appears as a father figure to Hamilton, even calling him son, and as Hamilton is the audience surrogate, we are Washington’s family, as well. Once Washington disappears from the story, Hamilton and the others are set adrift, with scandal and political pressure pulling Hamilton toward his ultimate demise. Further, most of the historical facts about the agreements and disagreements between these men presented in the musical are accurate for two reasons: because one cannot stray too far from the history and because their majestic story is intertwined with the birth of a nation.

It is that very topic that sets these individuals apart. There were many founding fathers, but the prime founders remembered today are those who not only appear on our money but also who became presidents. Beyond Hamilton, on the ten-dollar bill, and Benjamin Franklin, on the one-hundred-dollar bill, our first five presidents, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, are all named as the Founding Fathers of the United States. Their placement isn’t simply because they happened to be in the room where it happened (to paraphrase from the musical) but because they created work that guided the country during its birth and for several years after. Because of this, we tend to know more about these presidents than many who came after, except for those who were in office in the last few years or at times of great conflict, such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon; most likely because that’s what is emphasized in school: the founding, the Civil War, World War II, and then whatever is happening in our current culture. It’s what resonates with us as a nation and people.

Thus, we know George Washington as the first commander in chief, the first president of the United States, and the man who helped steer us toward the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Beyond these tidbits, there are the famous images of the man: cloaked in his uniform, leading his men as he stands in the boat while crossing the Delaware River, striding by on horseback in full uniform with his men in the cold at Valley Forge, and patiently sitting for the unfinished portrait by Gilbert Stuart (which would become the image used on the one-dollar bill—again, money leads to history). He’s not alone; it is the same with all the Founding Fathers. And when we tell your stories, as Hamilton would put it, Hollywood is going to concentrate on what we already know. But sometimes to understand their stories, there is more that can be told.

George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on February 22, 1732. He had a limited education, and by the age of fifteen, he began a career as a surveyor, scouting out land in the wilderness of western Virginia. Wishing to follow the path of his stepbrother Lawrence and because he wanted to see more of the frontier along the Ohio Valley, he joined the Virginia militia and was soon fighting alongside the British against the French in the French and Indian War (1754–1763). His early military career was not completely prosperous; he tended to dismiss his soldiers as inept and lazy (emphasized in the correspondences heard in the musical 1776) and to blame them for mistakes that he should have acknowledged as of his own making. His early campaigns were known for either weak victories or retreats, such as a 1754 campaign at Fort Necessity, a small fort Washington had built, that ended in surrender and with Washington signing a document in French (which he couldn’t read) acknowledging the assassination of a French officer. However, experience guided his hand, and by the time of the Battle of Monongahela in 1755, he was commended for his composure even while suffering from dysentery in staging a retreat that saved many lives after the commanding officer, General Edward Braddock, was killed trying to reach and capture Fort Duquesne. Washington had two horses shot out from under him in the battle, with multiple bullet holes in his clothing, but managed to escape without injury.

Soon after, Washington returned to Virginia, married widow Martha Dandridge Custis, and became a planter and a purchaser of land as well as a delegate in the First Continental Congress. He quickly gained a reputation as a man who didn’t say much (it’s been hinted in more than one biography that this tendency came more out of growing issues with his dentures than with wishing to stay silent), but when he did speak, he demonstrated his knowledge, experience, and cooperative spirit. Joining the consensus that the colonists needed to break away from Britain over their trampling of rights, Washington found himself elected commander in chief of the newborn country’s defenses in 1775. He was a perfect fit: a southerner who held northern political values and a politician with military experience.

Building the military was not easy, and the first couple years of the Revolutionary War were depressing for the struggling new country. Contrary to most recollections and rarely mentioned in the movies, Washington was seen by some as an inept leader, and there were talks and schemes to replace him in the early years of the war. Yet time was of importance, and Washington’s attitude with his men slowly evolved after months of being in the fields with them; he gained their confidence, and they, his. Support within and outside the army continued to grow, and many saw (and still see) the tides of war turning with Washington’s capture of Hessian troops (German soldiers hired by the British to fight the Americans) during Christmas 1776 and additional wins the following week in New Jersey. After the French agreed to join in the fight on the side of the Americans, the war increasingly weighed in the colonists’ favor, and in October 1781, the British surrendered, with Washington a national hero.

As it took time for the British to leave, it would be another two years before Washington would attempt to return to his planter life. That didn’t last long; the newfound government was quickly divided by two factions: those who wanted an indivisible nation under a strong central government, supported by such men as Alexander Hamilton and John Adams of the Federalist Party, and those who saw it as a confederacy of states held together by a common-cause government, like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two prominent creators of the Democratic-Republican Party. (As one can see, we hardly have moved far from the argument over state and federal rights 250 years later.) The one thread that held those two separate viewpoints together, and perhaps still to this day, was the president’s ability to unite people from the various sides of politics. No doubt, Washington’s experience in leading the country in the war transcended his military ability to one of political wisdom, at least in the eyes of the public (and hence Congress). His reluctance for the role of president further endeared him as a safe choice, as fears of setting up a monarchy were very real and eventually, if briefly, touched upon in a few feature films listed here, such as Alexander Hamilton (1931). He was elected on February 4, 1789, and served two terms until March 1797, when John Adams, Washington’s vice president, was elected the second president of the United States.

George Washington died two years after leaving office, on December 14, 1799. There have been dozens of presidents since then, but Washington defined our core concepts of the role. His stance as the commander in chief of the military has been carried over to the presidents who have come after him. His definition of the three branches of the government, with set walls between them, may at times face shaky moments, but they continue to be a political bedrock for the United States. Having suffered from smallpox while younger (in his only trip overseas), Washington also promoted smallpox inoculations in 1777, going against the concerns of the Continental Congress and some of the public who feared the spread of the disease and creating the first mass military inoculation in American history. Of course, not all his hopes for the nation have come true: For example, in his farewell speech, he urged the country to avoid a two-party system, as it tends to turn politics into an us versus them dynamic that harms the people’s progress. He also felt that the role of president was one that may be needed only for a time but eventually could be dismissed when the people as a collective begin ruling, which certainly hasn’t been the case. His freeing of those enslaved on his plantation after his death to entice others to do the same was also dismissed as the quirks of an old man.

Yet if we want to learn these things about Washington or more, we won’t find it at the movie theater. The closest we’ve ever come to a full filmic narrative that concentrates solely on Washington is in television, most notably the two CBS miniseries about the first president done between 1984 and 1986 and starring Barry Bostwick (who would go on to play a parody of Franklin D. Roosevelt in a movie covered in Chapter 7) as Washington and Patty Duke Astin as Martha Washington. The original three-part miniseries, simply titled George Washington and based on a book by James Thomas Flexner, covers Washington’s life, from his beginnings as a surveyor up through the end of the Revolutionary War and his return to Mount Vernon. The second miniseries, George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation, ran for two episodes and covers his presidential life. With those episodes came the narratives listed previously as well as depictions of his personal life that typically get glossed over, including his illnesses that set him back, such as a recurring tumor on his left thigh that had to be excised twice while he was in office. Of course, some scenes were obviously done to add Washington to the narrative of some events—there is no doubt Washington did not get Jefferson and Hamilton into a boat to convince them to agree to the location of the new capital, for example. Even so, the two series cover his life and career with a good amount of accuracy.

The same can nearly be said for the second president of the United States, John Adams (1735–1826). While there is very little in theatrical films about Adams, there are two television miniseries with plenty of personal history about the man: the 1976 PBS thirteen-part miniseries The Adams Chronicles, with George Grizzard as John Adams and Mark Winkworth as John Quincy Adams, and the HBO seven-part miniseries John Adams, with Paul Giamatti (who won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie) as John Adams, Laura Linney (who later appears in the FDR film Hyde Park on Hudson; see Chapter 7 for details) as Abigail Adams, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as John Quincy Adams. But besides the film 1776, when Adams does appear, it’s to stand around looking a bit cross.

Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1735. He began Harvard at the age of sixteen and was a practicing attorney by the age of twenty-three. In 1764, he married Abigail Smith, and they had five children. Their oldest, John Quincy Adams, would become the sixth president of the United States (covered more in Chapter 3). John and his older cousin Samuel Adams opposed the oppressive British taxation acts at the time. Of the two, Samuel Adams had the more exciting history—and thus more films, such as Johnny Tremain (1957) and the three-part miniseries Sons of Liberty that aired in 2015 on the History Channel. Meanwhile, John Adams opposed the tyranny of the king through the political process, which makes for solid government but less-than-thrilling cinema.

Adams believed strongly in a sense of justice that sometimes put him at odds with his fellow colonists, including defending a British captain and eight of his men who shot and killed five civilians during the Boston Massacre of 1770. His defense would acquit the officer and six soldiers, while the other two were convicted of the lower charge of manslaughter. The results would also rub some of his fellow Americans the wrong way, including Samuel Adams, who would campaign against his cousin when John was nominated for the presidency. Many others, however, respected his ability to fight for the soldiers’ rights, and he was eventually selected as a delegate for Massachusetts to the Continental Congress in 1774. That would lead directly to his involvement in breaking away from Britain and helping to create the Declaration of Independence as part of the Committee of Five, which included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.

Adams was well known for being forthright and sincere in his quest to better what became the United States, although historians are quick to point out that he was not as disliked at the time as he would reflect on later in life and as is commonly portrayed in the media. He could be impatient watching the slow wheels of Congress move and was vocal about it, which didn’t help his push for certain aspirations. The bigger problem, reported in all biographies about Adams, was that he appeared to be one step behind those around him, and he knew it. His frustration we see in the John Adams miniseries and 1776 are very much spot on; certainly, he knew that for the better of the country he loved, others had to be pushed in front of him. It was Adams who nominated Washington to be commander in chief of the Colonial Army because he knew Washington would be the perfect choice. He recommended Jefferson to be the writer of the Declaration of Independence because he knew Jefferson was a better writer and had a calmer relationship with his fellow delegates than he did. He went to France to set up a treaty for support of America in the battle against Britain and later to Britain for a peace treaty after the war but was seen as secondary to Benjamin Franklin’s success there.

This tendency to let these men have the glory worked against him, as others felt he could be pushed aside or ignored. When the time came to select the first president, there were no concerns of anyone winning but Washington; yet when it came to vice president, Adams barely squeaked by with less than half the votes cast. Washington rarely spoke with Adams while he was vice president, and when President Adams tried to entice Washington back into commanding the military in preparation against a possible war with France, Washington demanded Hamilton be his second, even though Adams saw Hamilton as thirsty for war for personal glory.

Adams served only one term, from 1797 through 1801, noting in a letter to his wife, Abigail, that Washington handed the office to him with the thought, I am fairly out, and you fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest! Forced to keep Washington’s cabinet, Adams found himself at odds with their desires and treachery. The risk of France going to war against the country split Congress, with Jefferson seeing Adams as looking for war against the country he loved and Hamilton seeing Adams willing to weaken the country to avoid conflict. Adams also signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which introduced the ability to screen immigrants from entering the country, and targeted the press if they wrote something malicious or false about the government. Jefferson saw this as sidestepping the Bill of Rights, even though Adams was not enthusiastic to sign the Alien and Sedition Acts but eventually agreed to. Adams, always the second in line, would find himself frequently tested and undermined by Hamilton, Jefferson, and members of the cabinet in private and in public while president. It had been enough. After being voted out by eight votes in the next election, Adams retired to his farm life and seldom spoke about political events occurring after his time in office. A disruption of his friendship with Jefferson was eventually healed several years later (the one-time friendship between Abigail and Jefferson never truly rekindled, however), and the two communicated by mail until their mutual passing on the same day, July 4, 1826.

Adams found himself stuck between two powerhouses when it came to the presidency: Washington and Jefferson. Oddly perhaps, Adams may have ended up being more fairly represented in the movies, even if Jefferson had the more well-documented life. Jefferson is remembered for writing the Declaration of Independence, being vice president to John Adams, his famed plantation Monticello, working to establish a separation between religion and state, founding the University of Virginia, and helping to establish a new national library when the Library of Congress was burned down during the War of 1812. Jefferson is also remembered for his ties to slavery and in particular Sally Hemings, but more on her in a bit.

Born April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson quickly embraced learning. He knew Latin and Greek by the age of fourteen and was an attorney at the age of twenty-four. In 1769, he was elected to the Virginia legislature, and in 1772, he married Martha Wayles Skelton, who would die ten years later. Known for his writing skills and (much like Washington) as a southerner who tended to side with northerners on certain political aspects, he was a natural to write the Declaration of Independence. However, soon after, he returned to Virginia to be closer to his ill wife and help stabilize the state legislature, feeling much more affiliation to Virginia than to the new country’s government. He served as governor of Virginia between 1779 and 1781, before returning to Congress in 1783, and traveled to Europe in 1784 to help with trade treaties and later as a minister (ambassador) for the country in France. He returned to America in 1789 to become the secretary of state to Washington just as the French Revolution began.

Back in the United States, Jefferson soon butted heads with Alexander Hamilton, fearing Hamilton’s methods would lead to a people dependent on a chosen few