Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO ELBRIDGE GERRY. - The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

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

TO ELBRIDGE GERRY. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799) [1853]

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. 8.

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

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO ELBRIDGE GERRY.

Philadelphia, 13 February, 1797.

My dear Sir,—

I received by this day’s post your favor of the 3d, No. 2. I had before received No. 1. I shall confine myself in this to No. 2.

You are apprehensive “that France will view the discussion of gratitude in its full extent, as trespassing the line of defence.” But Adet had laid his demands of gratitude so high, and all his partisans were in the habit of deafening our people with such rude, extravagant, and arrogant pretensions to it, that it seems to have become necessary to be explicit upon the subject. I may say to a friend of your discretion, what I believe you will agree in, that there is quite as modest a demand of gratitude due from them to us, as from us to them. I think I can demonstrate that the French nation derived more advantage from the connection than we did—that she owes her independence as much to us as we do ours to her. Whether she has thrown away her advantages by her revolution or not, is for her to consider. We had nothing to do with that by treaty or in practice. We have imprudently gone too far in our approbation of it, and adopted, by sympathy, too much of her enthusiasm in it; for we were, and still are, incapable of judging whether it was wise or not, useful or not, destructive or not. Our treaty obliged us to no approbation of it, or concern in it, and our weak ideas and sensations of gratitude have led us into the fundamental error of taking too large a share of interest and sympathy in it.

The people of this country must not lose their conscious integrity, their sense of honor, nor their sentiment of their own power and force, so far as to be upbraided in the most opprobrious and contumelious language, and be wholly silent and passive under it, and that in the face of all mankind. The profound silence with respect to my conduct, which surprises you, was all right. It was good judgment and sound policy to leave me wholly out of the question, because the consequences of that letter of Mr. Pickering’s were to be expected altogether, good or bad, under my administration. As it is, no irritation against me can arise from this letter. Mr. Pickering took his document from records or files in his own office, the despatches of Mr. Jay; and he comes not down so late as my arrival in Paris. I was detained at the Hague by the negotiation of the treaty with Holland. It is true I had asserted all Mr. Jay’s principles two years before, in a correspondence with the Count de Vergennes upon the occasion of the interposition of the two imperial courts with an offer of mediation and proposal of a congress at Vienna. I had also written to Mr. Jay, in my private letters, declaring that I never would treat until a commission arrived in Paris expressly to treat with the ministers plenipotentiary of the United States of America, and urged, exhorted, and animated Mr. Jay to stand firm in the same resolution. Whether my letters to him first suggested to him this system, or whether his reasoning and mine concurred exactly in the same point, is immaterial to me. I believe it probable we thought alike. But the miserable gloriole of settling this point is no object with me, comparable to the importance of keeping me wholly out of sight in my present situation. This was not done without consulting me, nor without my advice. I hope the controversy will never be pushed so far as to necessitate the publication of my despatches upon that occasion. Pickering and all his colleagues are as much attached to me as I desire. I have no jealousies from that quarter.1

You are mistaken in your conjectures about a northern and southern ex-secretary. Neither had any thing to do in this business. Pickering himself was the engineer, and Wolcott, McHenry, and Lee, with Washington superintending all, corrected, softened, and amended. Indeed, any one that I have mentioned is equal to the task. Phocion, the ex-secretary, and their connections, did not, I believe, meditate, by surprise to bring in Pinckney. I believe they honestly meant to bring in me;1 but they were frightened into a belief that I should fail, and they, in their agony, thought it better to bring in Pinckney than Jefferson, and some, I believe, preferred bringing in Pinckney President rather than Jefferson should be Vice-President.

I believe there were no very dishonest intrigues in this business. The zeal of some was not very ardent for me, but I believe none opposed me. They found the people more attached to me than they were, or than they expected to find them. In Pennsylvania, partly folly and partly wickedness effected a purpose not conformable to the real wishes of the state, as I am assured, and, unless my self-love and vanity deceive me, have good reason to believe. I need not hint to you the necessity of keeping me out of sight.

Who is to be Governor? I should be at no loss, if I were at Quincy and could vote, but perhaps could do nothing. I love to see 1765 and 1775 men in honor. I regret infinitely that so many of them are fickle, variable, weak, if not too feebly principled.

With strong affection,

John Adams.

[1 ]Mr. Adams has been described, by the persons here referred to, as extremely jealous and suspicious. His real error was too implicit a trust in their good faith. Even at this early moment the secretaries, who held over, were relied upon to control him. Gibbs’s Memoirs of the Federal Administrations, vol. i. pp. 476, 477, 499; vol. ii. pp. 368, 400. Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. p. 251.

[1 ]Not many days after the confident expression of this opinion, Mr. Adams received from an old friend in Albany unequivocal evidence of the secret hostility of Mr. Hamilton and his immediate friends. He had already heard of, but had not seen, the letter to Mr. Higginson. Mr. Jefferson, far more keen-sighted in stratagem, had hit the truth two months earlier. Since the publication of Mr. Hamilton’s works, not a doubt can remain that he did, in secret, endeavor to take advantage of the mode of voting indiscriminately for President and Vice-President, in order to bring in Mr. Pinckney, the candidate designed for the Vice-Presidency, by surprise, over the head of Mr. Adams, whom the great body of the party unquestionably intended to make President. The immediate consequence of this attempt was to spread distrust in the ranks of the federal party, and to insure the scattering of so many votes that Mr. Pinckney was defeated, even for the Vice-Presidency, he falling behind Mr. Jefferson, the candidate of the opposite party for President. But for Mr. Hamilton’s efforts this misfortune to the party would not, probably, have happened. Mr. Hamilton’s own opinion of the propriety of using the old clause of the Constitution to such ends, became afterwards clear enough, when he applied it to the case of Aaron Burr. Even then, however, he rested his objections quite as much upon expediency as upon the far more serious moral obstacles. See Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. pp. 186, 188, 191, 531, 537. Gibbs’s Federal Administrations, vol. i. p. 408-412. Randolph’s Jefferson, vol. iii. p. 339.