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

TO THOMAS MIFFLIN. - 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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TO THOMAS MIFFLIN.

Philadelphia, 22 May, 1797.

Sir,—

I have received the letter you did me the honor to write me, on the 12th of this month, and have maturely considered the subject of it.

The substance of your Excellency’s first request is, that I would instruct the American ministers in Europe to use their influence to obtain permission from the respective governments for exporting from Great Britain, Holland, or Hamburg, ten thousand stands of arms, for the use of the militia of Pennsylvania. As this request appears to me to be reasonable and proper, I shall readily and cheerfully comply with it, whenever your Excellency shall be pleased to indicate to me, or to the Secretary of State, the names of the agents proposed to be employed.

Your Excellency’s second request is, that, as the proposed importation is an object of national utility, I would submit to the consideration of Congress the expediency of a remission of the duties payable on such importation.

On this point, permit me respectfully to observe, that the recommendations of the President to Congress have commonly related to measures of general policy, and a deviation from this rule may be attended with inconvenience; that an exemption on arms imported for a particular State would operate as a grant to that State, and ought, of course, to be provided for by a special law.

Of the policy of recommending a general repeal of the duties on arms imported into the United States, doubts are entertained, as a manufacture would thereby be discouraged, which it is the public interest to support and encourage.1

I have the honor to be, &c.,

John Adams.

[1 ]This letter to Governor Mifflin had been submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, and his report, dated on the 19th of May, concurred in by the Secretary of State, is incorporated almost entire in this reply.