Democracy: An American Novel

Henry Adams was a scion of the famous Adams family which produced two American Preisdents in John and his son John Quincy. Henry Adams (1838-1918) is best known as the author of "Mont Saint Michel", "Chartes" and his influential autobiography, "The Education of Henry Adams.' Adams wrote "Democracy" in 1880 publishing it anonymously. It is his only novel charming us with its wit, elegance and backstage look at corruption in high places in the national capital. The plot concerns Madeline Lee a wealthy New York socialite. Madeline has lost her husband and her son to diptheria. As a widow she is engrossed in good and philanthropic charities. She is approaching thirty thirsting for a sip from the cup of political power. She and her younger sister the lovely Sybil journey to DC. Madeline is soon being courted by the corrupt Senator (and later Secretary of the Treasury) the corruptible Silas P. Ratcliff from Illinois. He has presidential aspirations but after his past dirty dealinig is revealed to Madeline she dumps him for a jaunt to Europe. Another man Mr. Carrington a Virginian and Civil War veteran also is in love with her. Their romance is not resolved as the short novel reaches its final page. One who reads this work will realize that corruption, nepotism and stupidity are not new to American politics! Minor characters such as the humorous Victoria Dare and the British diplomat Lord Skye add humor to the social swirl. Adams charms us with his discussion of the characters visits to the homes of George Washington at Mount Vernon and Robert Edward Lee in Arlington House. This is one of the best novels ever written dealing with national politics. Henry Adams wrote it with years of experience and knowledge of poltics. It is well worth a close read and is a little gem of a book!

Excellent. Simply excellent!

"Democracy" is what "Primary Colors" would have been if the latter had been well-written. Like Joe Klein, Adams published his book anonymously and skewered a number of contemporary politicians (including President Rutherford B. Hayes). But Adams goes two steps further: his novel is a scathing commentary more on the American political system in general than on one administration in particular, and his characters are iconic and recognizable in any era.In "Democracy," the nation's capital "swarms with simple-minded exhibitions of human nature; men and women curiously out of place, whom it would be cruel to ridicule and ridiculous to weep over." But Adams is not hesitant about being cruel in his portrayal of Washington's residents, and he saves his weeping for the true victims in his novel: the American people. The typical American senator combines "the utmost pragmatical self-assurance and overbearing temper with the narrowest education and meanest personal experience that ever existed in any considerable government." (Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!)The story concerns Madeleine Lee, an intelligent and well-meaning (if somewhat naive) New York widow, who, bored with her cosmopolitan lifestyle, travels to Washington to learn what makes the nation tick. She and her sister are quickly surrounded by a diverse group of politicians, lobbyists, and foreign diplomats, and she finds herself courted by Silas Ratcliffe, a senator with presidential aspirations whose talent "consisted in the skill with which he evaded questions of principle." During one heated (and humorous) argument about George Washington's merits, Ratcliffe sums up his view of politics: "If virtue won't answer our purpose, then we must use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office." Adams's prose is almost Jamesian in its measured pacing (and this may simply bore some readers); the initial chapters are unhurried as he weaves the web of the plot and sketches his all-too-believable characters. Along the way he tosses barbed zingers at every target. The climactic passages are among the most comically riveting, emotionally intense, and morally satisfying finales I've read in a satire: as you might expect, nobody gets exactly what they want, but everyone gets what they deserve.

To act with entire honesty and self-respect, one should always live in a pure atmosphere, and the atmosphere of politics is impure. -Senator Silas Ratcliffe, DemocracyIn his own lifetime, Henry Adams was famous first for being the grandson of John Quincy Adams, thus the great grandson of John Adams; second for his epic History of the United States During the Jefferson and Madison Administrations. It was only upon his death, in 1918, that his third person autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, was published and that his publisher revealed that Adams had written the previously anonymous novel Democracy. It is The Education which has sustained his reputation, having been named the number one book on the Modern Library list of the Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century, but Democracy is still considered one of the better novels of American politics, though surprisingly it is currently out of print.The novel is both a fairly typical 19th Century comedy of manners--with the widow Madeleine Lee decamping from New York to Washington DC, where she instantly becomes one of the Capital's most desirable catches--and a more serious meditation on the nature and pursuit of power in the American democracy. The widow Lee is specifically interested in Washington because it is the seat of power : ...she was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government. . . . What she wished to see, she thought, was the clash of interests, the interests of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mould; the tremendous forces of government, and the machinery of society at work. What she wanted was POWER.Mrs. Lee's most likely pursuer is Senator Silas Ratcliffe of Illinois, widely considered a likely future President : he sees her as a perfect First Lady and she sees him as her path to power. Through an elaborate courtship ritual and several set piece scenes (in the Senate, at the White House, at Mount Vernon, at Arlington Cemetery and at a dress ball) Adams puts his characters through their paces and affords the reader an intimate look at the rather tawdry political milieu of the 1870's. The theme that runs throughout the story is that access to power comes only through compromising one's principles, but Adams is sufficiently ambivalent about the point that we're uncertain whether he's more contemptuous of those who make the necessary deals or those who, by staying "pure," sacrifice the opportunity to influence affairs of state. Suffice it to say that the novel ends with Mrs. Lee, assumed by most critics to represent Adams himself, fleeing to Egypt, telling her sister : "Democracy has shaken my nerves to pieces."Like his presidential forebears, Henry Adams had a realistic and therefore jaundiced view of politics, even as practiced in a democrac

This book read very well 118 years after it was published. I suppose there are "guides" which would tie the characters to actual people--maybe I should check Ernest Samuels' 3-volume bio, which I read in March of 1985, and see what he says. Apparently the president was Hayes--it certainly fits him in some ways, tho it is rather hard on him. The problems the book does not solve--campaign finance and its relation to political action--are not yet solved.