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

TO GEORGE WASHINGTON. - 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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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 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Philadelphia, 7 July, 1798.

Dear Sir,—

Mr. McHenry, the Secretary at War, will have the honor to wait on you in my behalf, to impart to you a step I have ventured to take, and which I should have been happy to have communicated in person, if such a journey had been, at this time, in my power.1

As I said, in a former letter, if it had been in my power to nominate you to be President of the United States, I should have done it with less hesitation and more pleasure. My reasons for this measure will be too well known to need any explanation to the public; every friend and every enemy of America will comprehend them at first blush. To you, Sir, I owe all the apologies I can make. The urgent necessity I am in of your advice and assistance—indeed, of your conduct and direction of the war, is all I can urge, and that is a sufficient satisfaction to myself and the world. I hope it will be so considered by yourself.

Mr. McHenry will have the honor to consult you upon the organization of the army, and upon every thing relating to it.

With the highest respect, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]Mr. Adams has been censured for the sudden manner of making this nomination. He had written to General Washington on the 22d of June, intimating his intention, and no answer had been received. Congress was on the point of adjournment, and the whole army remained to be organized. General Washington himself expected it. See his letter to Mr. McHenry, 5th July, Sparks’s Washington, vol. xi. p. 255. Such was the state of the popular feeling that, had it been longer postponed, another species of censure would have arisen from many of the very persons who, as it was, blamed his precipitation. The difficulty seems to have been that he did not wait for the conditions, as it respected other nominations, which were maturing for him, through the agency of General Washington. Mr. Hamilton had been leading to this as early as the 2d of June, when he specified his own appointment. See his letter to General Washington of that date. Hamilton’s Works, vol vi. p. 294.