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

TO OLIVER WOLCOTT. - 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 OLIVER WOLCOTT.

Quincy, 6 April, 1801.

Sir,—

I have received your favor of the 28th of March, and I read it with much pleasure. The information you have received from your friends, concerning the circumstances of your nomination to be a judge of the second circuit of the United States, is very correct.

I have never allowed myself to speak much of the gratitude due from the public to individuals for past services, but I have always wished that more should be said of justice. Justice is due from the public to itself, and justice is also due to individuals. When the public discards or neglects talents and integrity, united with meritorious past services, it commits iniquity against itself, by depriving itself of the benefit of future services; and it does wrong to the individual, by depriving him of the reward, which long and faithful services have merited. Twenty years of able and faithful services on the part of Mr. Wolcott, remunerated only by a simple subsistence, it appeared to me, constituted a claim upon the public, which ought to be attended to. As it was of importance that no appointment should be made that would be refused, I took measures to ascertain from your friends the probability of your acceptance, and then made the nomination, happy to have so fair an opportunity to place you beyond the reach of will and pleasure. I wish you much pleasure, and more honor, in your law studies and pursuits, and I doubt not you will contribute your full share to make justice run down our streets as a stream. My family joins in friendly regards to you and yours. With much esteem, I have the honor to be, Sir,1 &c.

John Adams.

SPEECHES AND MESSAGES TO CONGRESS, PROCLAMATIONS, and ADDRESSES.

SPEECHES TO CONGRESS.

[1 ]Mr. Adams was charged by his enemies, and among others by Mr. Wolcott, with being unreasonably jealous and suspicious. To the day of his death he never suspected that the individual to whom he addressed this letter, overflowing with kindness, was the person who had secretly furnished the confidential information, obtained as a cabinet officer and adviser of the President, upon which Mr. Hamilton rested his attack upon his reputation, and had revised, corrected, amended, and approved all of that paper, whilst in manuscript. The evidence of this has now been voluntarily placed before the public by his own grandson, and by the son of Mr. Hamilton. See his letter to Mr. Hamilton, 3d September, 1800, in Gibbs’s Memoirs of the Federal Administrations, vol. ii. pp. 416-418, and that of 2d October, 1800, in Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. pp. 471-475. After a perusal of these letters, the conclusions lately drawn by a perfectly impartial witness, may be deemed not entirely unworthy of consideration. Referring to Mr. Gibbs’s own statement, this writer says,—

“Even from this ex parte case, it is clear that the secretaries, during the whole period of their official service, were cognizant of a plot for the overthrow of their chief; that they not only did not disclose this, but did their best to promote it; and that they both directed the public counsels to its furtherance, and without stint disclosed the confidential proceedings of the President himself to supply it with fuel. A parallel to this, it is true, is found in the treatment of James II., by Churchill and Sunderland, and of Napoleon by Talleyrand and Fouché; but even to these extreme and revolutionary cases no term short of ill-faith can be applied. It is argued that the cabinet saw that the President’s cause was inimical to good government, and that, therefore, they had a right to oppose him. Certainly they had, if they had first resigned, and then, when in opposition, respected the sanctity of official communications.” Wharton’s State Trials. Preliminary Notes, p. 13.

The reason given, why these officers did not resign, is that they were determined to remain, in order “to control the actions of the President.” Gibbs’s Memoirs, &c., vol. ii. p. 214. It is worthy of remark, in this connection, that in all the subsequent vicissitudes of party conflict in the United States, no similar violation of confidence in cabinet officers has ever taken place.