Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO THE YOUNG MEN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. - 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 YOUNG MEN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. - 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 YOUNG MEN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

Gentlemen,

I received this becoming, amiable, and judicious address from the young men of the city of New York with great pleasure.

The situation in which nature has placed your State, its numerous advantages, and its population so rapidly increasing, render it of great importance to the union of the nation, that its youth should be possessed of good principles and faithful dispositions. The specimen you have given in this address could not be more satisfactory.

I assure you, my young friends, that the satisfaction with my conduct, which has been expressed by the rising generation, has been one of the highest gratifications I ever received, because, if I have not been deceived in my own motives, I can sincerely say, that their happiness and that of their posterity, more than my own or that of my contemporaries, has been the object of the studies and labors of my life.

Your attachment to France was in common with Americans in general. The enthusiasm for liberty, which contributed to excite it, was in sympathy with great part of the people of Europe. The causes which produced that great event, were so extensive through the European world, and so long established, that it must appear a vast scheme of Providence, progressing to its end, incomprehensible to the views, designs, hopes, and fears of individuals or nations, kings or princes, philosophers or statesmen. It would be weak to ascribe the glory of it, or impute the blame to any individual or any nation; it would be equally absurd for any individual or nation to pretend to wisdom or power equal to the mighty task of arresting its progress or diverting its course. May the human race in general and the French nation in particular derive ultimately from it an amelioration of their condition, in the extension of liberty, civil and religious, in increased virtue, wisdom, and humanity! For myself, however, I confess, I see not how, nor when, nor where. In the mean time, these incomprehensible speculations ought not to influence our conduct in any degree. It is our duty to judge, by the standard of truth, integrity, and conscience, of what is right and wrong, to contend for our own rights, and to fight for our own altars and firesides, as much as at any former period of our lives. In your own beautiful and pathetic language, the same enthusiasm ought now to unite us more closely in the defence of our country, and inspire us with a spirit of resistance against the efforts of that republic to destroy our independence. If my enthusiasm is not more extravagant than yours has ever been, our independence will be one essential instrument for reclaiming the fermented world, and bringing good out of the mass of evil.

The respect you acknowledge to your parents, is one of the best of symptoms. The ties of father, son, and brother, the sacred bands of marriage, without which those connections would be no longer dear and venerable, call on you and all your youth to beware of contaminating your country with the foul abominations of the French revolution.

John Adams.