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

TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. - 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.

About Liberty Fund:

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 THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

Dear Sir,

Inclosed is a Newburyport Herald, in which is quoted “a letter from John Adams, dated Amsterdam, 15th December, 1780, to Thomas Cushing, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts.” This letter has been, for some years past, reprinted and quoted in many American pamphlets and newspapers as genuine, and imposes on many people by supposing and imputing to me sentiments inconsistent with the whole tenor of my life and all the feelings of my nature.1 I remember to have read the letter in English newspapers soon after it was published, at a time when the same English papers teemed with forged letters, long, tedious, flat, and dull, in the name of Dr. Franklin, the most concise, sprightly, and entertaining writer of his time. The Doctor declared them all to be forgeries, which he was not under a necessity of doing, because every reader of common sense and taste knew them to be such from their style and nonsense. The letter in my name, I also declare to be a forgery. I never wrote a letter in the least degree resembling it to Lieutenant-Governor Cushing, nor to any other person. This declaration I pray you to file in your office, and you have my consent to publish it, if you think fit.

I am, Sir, &c.

John Adams.

[1 ]This letter has been, very lately, quoted as genuine.