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

TO A. ST. CLAIR, GOVERNOR OF THE N. W. TERRITORY. - 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 A. ST. CLAIR, GOVERNOR OF THE N. W. TERRITORY.

Sir,

I thank you for your favor of April 8th, and especially for the pamphlet inclosed with it. I have read it with great pleasure, as a masterly refutation of its antagonist, in the style and manner of a gentleman, and seasoned with no more than was useful and agreeable of Attic salt. Happy am I to find such just sentiments countenanced, encouraged, and prevailing in the North-Western Territory. Although your wish, that my writings were more generally read, is very flattering to me, I am nevertheless not very confident that they will do much good. Mankind will not learn wisdom by experience in matters of government. They get rid of all such systems by slight sarcasms, and say that theory is in favor of democracy. I say that theory is altogether in favor of mixed governments, as well as experience. But I am not about to write a lecture.