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

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE BOROUGH OF HARRISBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA. - 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 INHABITANTS OF THE BOROUGH OF HARRISBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

12 May, 1798.

Gentlemen,

Your address has been presented to me by Mr. Hartley, Mr. Sitgreaves, and Mr. Hanna, three of your representatives in Congress.

I know not which to admire most, the conciseness, the energy, the elegance, or profound wisdom of this excellent address.

Ideas of reformation and schemes for meliorating the condition of humanity should not be discouraged, when proposed with reason and pursued with moderation; but the rage for innovation, which destroys every thing because it is established, and introduces absurdities the most monstrous, merely because they are new, was never carried to such a pitch of madness in any age of the world as in this latter end of the boasted eighteenth century, and never produced effects so horrible upon suffering humanity.

Among all the appearances portentous of evil, there is none more incomprehensible than the professions of republicanism among those who place not a sense of justice, morality, or piety, among the ornaments of their nature and the blessings of society. As nothing is more certain and demonstrable than that free republicanism cannot exist without these ornaments and blessings, the tendency of the times is rapid towards a restoration of the petty military despotisms of the feudal anarchy, and by their means a return to the savage state of barbarons life.

How can the press prevent this, when all the presses of a nation, and indeed of many nations at once, are subject to an imprimatur, by a veto upon pain of conflagration, banishment, or confiscation?

That America may have the glory of arresting this torrent of error, vice, and imposture, is my fervent wish; and if sentiments as great as those from Harrisburgh, should be found universally to prevail, as I doubt not they will, my hopes will be as sanguine as my wishes.

John Adams.