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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

WORKS ON GOVERNMENT. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 5 (Defence of the Constitutions Vols. II and III) [1851]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 5.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

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BOSTON

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES C LITTLE & JAMES BROWN

WORKS ON GOVERNMENT.

A

DEFENCE

of the

CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT

of the

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

AGAINST THE ATTACK OF M. TURGOT, IN HIS LETTER TO DR. PRICE, DATED THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY OF MARCH, 1778.

by

JOHN ADAMS.

“As for us Englishmen, thank Heaven, we have a better sense of government, delivered to us from our ancestors. We have the notion of a public, and a constitution; how a legislative, and how an executive is moulded. We understand weight and measure in this kind, and can reason justly on the balance of power and property. The maxims we draw from hence are as evident as those in mathematics. Our increasing knowledge shows us every day more and more what common sense is in politics.”

Shaftesbury’s Charact., vol. i. p. 108.

“ ’T is scarce a quarter of an agessince such a happy balance of power was settled between our prince and people, as has firmly secured our hitherto precarious liberties, and removed from us the fear of civil commotions, wars, and violence, either on account of the property of the subject, or the contending titles of the crown.”

in three volumes.

VOL. II.