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

TO RICHARD STOCKTON. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

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. 9.

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 RICHARD STOCKTON.

Washington, 27 January, 1801.

Dear Sir,—

I am much obliged by your favor of the 17th. If the judiciary bill should pass, as I hope and believe it will, I should be very glad of your advice relative to appointments in other States as well as your own.

The talents and literary qualifications of Mr. William Griffith, of Burlington, have been familiar to me for some time. Your account of his character in other respects is very satisfactory. I doubt, however, of his being literally at the head of his profession at the bar, while Mr. Richard Stockton is there, and am not clear that his pretensions to the circuit bench are the first. I wish to know, in confidence, your sentiments. You may have reasons for resigning to another your own pretensions, but before any nomination is made, I should be very glad to know, whether you would accept it. It is very probable to me that your prospects in your own State and at large may be better for yourself, and more for the benefit of the public, but as I am not certainly informed, I shall be somewhat embarrassed. I may have been too indifferent to the smiles of some men, and to the frowns of others,1 but neither will influence my judgment, I hope, in determining nominations of judges, characters at all times sacred in my estimation.

With great esteem, I remain, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]This is an allusion to Mr. Stockton’s letter, who said, speaking of “those who under one name or another have perpetually opposed this government and calumniated its administration;”—

“Your public conduct, Sir, has fully evinced that you never dreaded the frowns, nor courted the smiles of such men.”