On a recent road trip to Arkansas and Texas I visited the presidential libraries of four contemporary presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
In thinking about the two Bush presidents, I began to wonder how their backgrounds and experiences as father and son compared to the first father and son presidents: John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
Despite over 200 years of separation, you may be surprised to learn about all the things these families have in common.
Let’s begin with the obvious. In both cases, the fathers and sons had the same first name. John for the Adams and George for the Bushes, indicating that the sons were the first born in their immediate family.
All 4 were born in New England: 3 in Massachusetts (John Adams, John Q. Adams, and George H. W. Bush), while George W. Bush was born in Connecticut. The Adams’s and Bushes came from wealthy, powerful New England families. After college, George H. W. Bush decided to move his family to West Texas to start an oil company, Zapata, from scratch.
John Adams and George H. W. Bush had immediate family members who were active in senior political roles. Bush’s father, Prescott, was a two term Senator from Connecticut while John Adams’s father-in-law, William Smith, was Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly for 40 years.
Both John Adams and George H. W. Bush graduated from Ivy League schools: Harvard for Adams, Yale for Bush. Both of their sons also graduated from Harvard. George W. Bush is the only president to date to earn an MBA.
The fathers each succeeded very popular presidents, with Adams following George Washington and Bush following Ronald Reagan. Both fathers were also diplomats in their formative years, with Adams posted to Great Britain and Bush serving in China. They were both best known for their expertise in foreign affairs as president.
John Adams and George H. W. Bush were directly elected to the presidency from the office of Vice President, a very rare event in our history. They represent 2 of the 4 times this has occurred, with Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren the other two to do it.
Both John Adams and George H. W. Bush were one term presidents, losing their bids for a second term to very popular men. Adams lost to Thomas Jefferson and Bush lost to Bill Clinton. Son John Q. Adams was also a one-term president, losing to Andrew Jackson in 1828. Among these four men, only George W. Bush served 2 terms.
Another commonality among these men is that both sons, John Q. Adams, and George W. Bush, were elected in very controversial decisions.
John Q. Adams was elected president in 1824, as the result of the referral of the vote to the House of Representatives. His primary opponent was Andrew Jackson, along with Henry Clay and William Crawford. Although Jackson earned the most popular votes as well as the most electoral college votes, he did not win a majority. Therefore, the election was decided by the House of Representatives who selected John Q. Adams, a decision derided by Jackson as a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay. While history is a bit murky on this topic, it’s clear that Clay was the dealmaker. The tainted reality came when Adams selected Clay as his Secretary of State, then considered a steppingstone to the presidency. One tipoff: Adams was a compulsive diarist, yet the date he met with Clay is blank in his journal.
Many readers will recall the election of 2000 where George W. Bush defeated Al Gore. This result came about after lengthy, contested reviews of votes cast in Florida, with the Supreme Court ultimately deciding in Bush’s favor. That election put the words ‘hanging chads’ into our lexicon forever.
Both John Adams and George H. W. Bush lived to see their sons as president, a gratifying and rare occasion for them.
History shows their 4 presidencies as consistently ranked “average”. In the latest C-Span rankings of 45 completed presidencies in 2021, they rank as follows: 15th (John Adams), 17th (John Q. Adams), 21st (George H. W. Bush), and 29th (George W. Bush). They are valued as dedicated and patriotic public servants but the first 3 of them found themselves unable to compete with clever politicians like Jefferson, Jackson, and Clinton.
I was surprised by all the ways the Adams and Bush fathers and sons have backgrounds and experiences in common. I found it worth sharing.
Interested in learning more about the presidents? Visit the Carolyn & James Millar Presidential Gallery on the upper level of the Booth Western Art Museum. The gallery features original letters and photographs of every U.S. president. Learn more at www.boothmuseum.org.
