Trump Should Take After John Adams, The First President to Concede
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Politics, Society, History, Nonfiction, Election 2020

Trump Should Take After John Adams, The First President to Concede

But that doesn’t mean he will

Image adapted by author in Canva Pro, original photo of John Adams by Gilbert Stuart in Wikipedia Commons, Donald Trump by Shealah Craighead on Public Domain

As Presidents, Trump and John Adams have more in common than we think. Both presided over very bitter, partisan times. Both were very divisive figures. Both vilified the press, with Trump calling the press the “enemy of the American people,” and John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it illegal to “write, print, utter, or publish . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings” against him. Arguably, Adams was worse in suppressing civil liberties, but what the two have in common is that they are both one-term presidents who lost re-election.

The difference, however, is that Adams conceded, and Trump has not. And according to Daniel Shea at CNN, Trump not conceding defeat has led Trump loyalists to face off in D.C. and several state capitals to fight for an election they believe to be stolen. With Congress voting to approve and certify the 2020 election results on January 6, 2020, many fear unrest and violence since Donald Trump tweeted that there would be “very big” and “wild” protests.

Trump not conceding is clearly dangerous, and breaking away from a precedent set by John Adams in 1800. In the late 18th century, peaceful transitions of power were simply not a thing, and many elections often spilled into violence on a local and state level. Ted Widmer in the Wall Street Journal says the 1800 Election was particularly bitter — Federalists called the Democratic-Republicans “Anarchists,” while Jefferson called the Adams administration “a reign of witches.” At the time, the Adams administration made a controversial move to welcome the new Haitian republic, which was founded by ex-slaves and just fought a very bloody revolution against the French. Slaveholders in the South became alarmed.

According to Shea, many worried about mob violence, especially since the election brought the nation to a constitutional crisis. The Election of 1800 spilled into early 1801 since Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr got the same amount of electoral votes, and votes were much slower to count in 1800 than in 2020.

The drama between Jefferson and Burr is a different story — many, according to Andrew Prokop at Vox, wondered whether Adams would step down in the first place. What united the country early on was the unifying force of George Washington, who seemed to transcend partisan politics. But in 1800, Geroge Washington was dead, and the country seemed to be going towards civil war. Adams even moved into the newly constructed White House only weeks before the Election of 1800.

In his loss, Adams was bitter. He, as well as the lame duck Federalists in the Senate, made a session to stock circuit courts with “midnight judges” two days before leaving office, and instituted John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States.

But Adams stepped down, even though there was no instructions from the Constitution on how to fail. And the Election of 1800 is dubbed the Revolution of 1800 because peaceful transitions of power were unprecedented. Adams left Jefferson seven horses, the whole property of the United States, and a note for Jefferson. As Christopher Dolan and Matthew Gramly write in SFWeekly:

“Up until that point in Western history such a democratic, peaceful transfer of power had simply never happened before, it had almost never even been contemplated. Power had been gained and lost by kings and conquerors through wars.”

Adams left the new White House and headed for his home in Massachusetts on the day of his inauguration, not attending Jefferson’s entry into the office. Adams wasn’t invited by Jefferson, but he also wanted to avoid provoking any violence between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.

It would be the first peaceful transition of power in American history, in an election cycle as much, if not more partisan and divided than today. Adams returned to Massachusetts a regular citizen and lived a quiet life. According to historian William Nisbet Chambers:

“It was the first such grand, democratic, peaceful transfer of power in modern politics. It was an example of a procedure which many old as well as many new nations have yet to experience, which many defeated factions or parties have found it difficult or intolerable to accept, but one which 1801 did much to ‘fix’ on the American scene.”

Takeaways

It was not easy for Adams to concede defeat, and as we can see from Trump’s actions since the 2020 election, it isn’t easy for him to concede defeat either. Even the New York Post published a headline titled “The Post Says: Give It Up, Mr. President — for Your Sake and the Nation’s,” as Republicans face two Senate races in Georgia. Other conservative outlets that endorsed Trump are also calling for Trump to concede.

I know Trump probably doesn’t care about dignity and decorum much, but taking after John Adams, the president who set a precedent, goes a long way. Trump has suffered several court losses, including at the hands of the Supreme Court (with three judges whom he nominated). He has said he will leave the White House, but clearly he isn’t doing so quietly.

Regardless, the 20th Amendment of the Constitution makes it so the candidate with the most electoral votes by noon on January 20th becomes president. Regardless of whether Trump concedes or not, he will be forced out. One Trump aide told NBC:

“Do not expect him to concede…he’ll say something like, ‘We can’t trust the results, but I’m not contesting them.’”

By breaking custom and precedent set by John Adams and every other president after him, Trump is playing a dangerous game. I don’t know if anyone is necessarily surprised given his actions the past four years. Like Adams, Trump might not attend Biden’s inauguration. And just because Trump should take after John Adams doesn’t mean he will.

But perhaps we can take some consolation in the fact that this presidential transition is not the most bitter and tumultuous in American history. Adams’s son, John Quincy Adams, also did not attend his successor’s inauguration. Our country has been through worse, and American institutions will also survive Trump’s dangerous challenge.