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

TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF BRAINTREE, 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 INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF BRAINTREE, MASSACHUSETTS.

Gentlemen,

This kind address from the inhabitants of a division of the ancient and venerable town of Braintree, which has always been my home, is very obliging to me.

The tongues and pens of slander, instruments with which our enemies expect to subdue our country, I flatter myself have never made impressions on you, my ancient townsmen, to whom I have been so familiarly known from my infancy. A signal interposition of Providence has for once detected frauds and calumnies, which, from the inexecution of the laws and the indifference of the people were too long permitted to prevail.1

I am happy to see that your minds are deeply impressed with the danger of the present situation of our country, and that your resolutions to assert and defend your rights, are as judicious and determined as I have always known them to be upon former occasions.

I wish you every prosperity and felicity which you can wisely wish for yourselves.

John Adams.

[1 ]“At the return of harmony in Congress, the heart of every true friend to America exults; the people, who in great numbers before, alarmingly separated in affection and confidence from their own government, and rendered jealous of the first characters of their own election, convinced of the snares spread for their country by foreign intrigue, are now crowding to its standard, and consecrating their fortunes and lives for its defence. So signal a providence for the detection of fraud, and the coalition of a people divided and consequently sinking into inevitable destruction, is perhaps a novelty in the annals of nations.”—Extract from the Braintree Address.