Favorite memories...it's all I have these
days, hmm?
Well this I suppose is a memory.
We're creating history now.
But, uh, don't tell the people who are publishing
my papers.
They're making a record of it so now they're
going to have to add this to a new volume.
Nevermind, that would be confusing if they
tried that.
(Offscreen: Well we are working on the Revolutionary
War Series here in this room.
So, maybe some of your most poignant memories
are from the American Revolution.)
TJ: Ah, so very different from favorite memories.
I have very few positive memories from the
American Revolution.
You know, speaking of memories of the American Revolution I have heard that there is yet again a
theatrical musical production depicting events of my
lifetime of the Revolution that has made itself
famous, much to my chagrin, in the name of
a gentleman who I would rather not mention.
But it seems to depict me as having missed,
how did he put it, the late 80s.
And many of those who, who, enjoy this production
seem to gain an impression--it is allowed
to be a lacunae, I suppose--that I was an
absent through the Revolution.
When I did not leave for France until after
the Revolution.
It is, I, I, suppose it is implying that I
was simply gone for the entire creation of the nation,
showed up as a Johnny-Come-Lately, and then decided I wanted to put my two-shillings worth in.
I am not surprised though that such a rumor
is being spread about me by Hamilton.
So, well, favorite memories and Revolutionary
War memories.
Uh, let's see here.
Of the Revolution, I....
When I was tasked with writing the Declaration
of Independence--this is another circumstance
I found rather (unintelligble), if it were
not for my own memory and my having written
it down, and having the faithful individuals
such as you also laboring in order to record
that for anyone who had the patience
enough to actually read it, which seems to be rarer
and rarer these days--I worked alone when
writing the Declaration for about two and
a half weeks.
I have just been reading a publication that
I will leave the individual's name a blank here,
who, this particular individual, and others,
of his ilk, seems to be attempting to tell
a story that I did not write it alone at first
and then had it ruined by Congress, but rather
I was working...that John Adams took much of the lead,
because it was a committee, but many of you
have perhaps had to write for committees in
which you have been saddled with the bulk
of the task, and yet everyone gains the credit
for it or others gain the credit for it.
Well I am not disparaging Mr. Adams, and certainly
not Dr. Franklin, and not Mr. Sherman or Livingston,
but I did work alone on it, and one of my
most distinct memories seems to have been
altered by--I noted a number of my likenesses
about [the University of Virginia] Grounds;
they're very noble, stoic as stone often is,
by extension--and perhaps one might assume
from that that my writing of this document--and
I find this when I discuss it with individuals
throughout the United States in my travels
who would believe that from these visages,
from these depictions of my life that my writing
may have been something akin to the climbing
of Mount Sinai and the reception of stone
tablets from the enflamed bush or rather something
I was eager to do because of the fame of the
matter--though Adams did lament by the fame
that I gained from it later on, but he lamented
a lot of things, volubly.
But I didn't want to do it.
This is perhaps not of the favorite memories
but a distinct memory, I remember very distinctly
how much I did not want to write it.
How much I wanted to go home.
My wife was very ill at the time and I didn't
even know what it was she had come down with.
No one was writing to me.
I had been gone for weeks by that point.
All the important work was happening in Virginia,
because that's the point where the Revolution
launched, was to have the states create their
own constitutions to be free and independent.
And I was stuck in Philadelphia and I distinctly
remember viewing the document as being yet
another one of the frustrating, diplomatic
formalities that I had been called to write.
The drudgery, I'm certain none of you can
relate with this in your particular profession,
but the drudgery of day to day writing, feeling
as though you are in the morning beginning
to push the stone up the hill and in the evening
having watch it roll down in front of you
and wondering at all why you plod along in
such a way you seem to be making such little
progress.
And each day it seems like the same stone
even though it is a different page, it is
a different letter, and yet it seems like
the same stone.
That is what this was.
I did not want to do it, it was just a formality,
it wasn't the important thing.
I remember getting into an argument with John
Adams about it as a matter of fact.
Have you ever met John Adams?
I know you have met Mr. Adams, yes, he's traveled
south, the Ladies met him.
If you can avoid at all arguing with him:
he enjoys it so.
It seems to be his estrum, his means of breathing,
partaking of sustenance.
I have been in one can be in a conversation
with John Adams for a half an hour in which
one agrees with him, thoroughly, and yet at
the end of the half an hour it feels as if
you've had a half an hour argument.
But you actually agree with him.
It's just how he communicates.
I know not, or whether or not he and Mrs.
Adams communicate this way, but she can hold
her own, when she has an opinion she would
let it be known.
I learned that in France.
So I lost the argument.
This was what all that was for; he made me
do it.
It's John Adams' fault I wrote the Declaration
of Independence.
He should take some credit for that, take
some pride for that, instead he laments that
monuments will be built to me and none to
him, but of course I tell him, "Don't you
worry, eventually someday you will have a
monument, yes."
He does, right?
Oh dear, don't tell him that.
Well then he has, he's on some currency.
He would enjoy that.
No?
Perhaps they'll have a musical theatrical
production about him instead.
Someday.
(Offscreen: There's a TV miniseries.)
TJ: Oh there's one about him?
Good.
I'm certain he gets short shrift in Mr. Hamilton's
production, if he appears at all.
Yes.
