Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO THE GRAND JURY FOR THE COUNTY OF PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS. - The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

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

TO THE GRAND JURY FOR THE COUNTY OF PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS. - 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 GRAND JURY FOR THE COUNTY OF PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS.

28 May, 1798.

Gentlemen,

I thank you for your address, which has been transmitted to me according to your request by the Chief Justice of the State.

Difficult as it is to believe that a nation, struggling or pretending to struggle for liberty and independence, should attempt to invade or impair those blessings, where they are quietly and fully enjoyed; yet thus it is that the United States of America are not the only example of it.

While occupied in your peaceful employments, you have seen the fruits of your industry plundered by professed friends, your tranquillity has been disturbed by incessant appeals to the passions and prejudices of the people by designing men, and by audacious attempts to separate the people from the government; and there is not a village in the United States, perhaps, which cannot testify to similar abuses.

Liberty, independence, national honor, social order, and public safety, appear to you to be in danger; your acknowledgments to me, therefore, are the more obliging and encouraging.

Your prayers for my preservation, and your pledge that in any arduous issue to which the arts or arms of successful violence may compel us, you will, as becomes faithful citizens of this happy country, come forward as one man, in defence of all that is dear to us, are to me as affecting, as to the public they ought to be satisfactory sentiments—the more affecting to me, as they come from the most ancient settlement in the northern part of the continent, held in peculiar veneration by me at all times.

John Adams.