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

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON TO JOHN ADAMS. - 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.

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PRESIDENT WASHINGTON TO JOHN ADAMS.

Monday, 20 February, 1797.

Dear Sir,—

I thank you for giving me the perusal of the inclosed.1 The sentiments do honor to the head and heart of the writer; and if my wishes would be of any avail, they should go to you in a strong hope, that you will not withhold merited promotion from Mr. John Adams because he is your son. For without intending to compliment the father or the mother, or to censure any others, I give it as my decided opinion that Mr. Adams is the most valuable public character we have abroad, and that there remains no doubt in my mind that he will prove himself to be the ablest of all our diplomatic corps.

If he was now to be brought into that line, or into any other public walk, I could not, upon the principle which has regulated my own conduct, disapprove of the caution which is hinted at in the letter. But he is already entered; the public more and more, as he is known, are appreciating his talents and worth; and his country would sustain a loss, if these were to be checked by over delicacy on your part.

With sincere esteem and affectionate regard, I am, ever yours,

George Washington.

[1 ]This was a letter of John Quincy Adams to his mother, containing the following passage, relating to the new appointment he had received from General Washington: “The appointment to the mission to Portugal I find, from your letter, was, as I had before concluded, unknown to my father. I have already written you upon the subject, and I hope, my ever dear and honored mother, that you are fully convinced from my letters, which you have before this received, that upon the contingency of my father’s being placed in the first magistracy, I shall never give him any trouble by solicitation for office of any kind. Your late letters have repeated so many times that I shall in that case have nothing to expect, that I am afraid you have imagined it possible that I might form expectations from such an event. I had hoped that my mother knew me better; that she did me the justice to believe, that I have not been so totally regardless or forgetful of the principles which my education had instilled, nor so totally destitute of a personal sense of delicacy, as to be susceptible of a wish tending in that direction. I have, indeed, long known that my father is far more ambitious of my advancement, far more solicitous for the extension of my fame, than I ever have been, or ever shall be myself; but I have hitherto had the satisfaction to observe that the notice with which my country and the government have honored me, and the confidence which they have been pleased repeatedly to repose in me, have been without the smallest agency of my father, other than the recommendation which his services carried with them.”