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

TO THE INHABITANTS OF CONCORD, 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.

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TO THE INHABITANTS OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS.

Gentlemen,

I thank you for this address. Your encomium on the executive authority of the national government, is in a degree highly flattering.

As I have ever wished to avoid, as far as prudence and necessity would permit, every concealment from my fellow-citizens of my real sentiments in matters of importance, I will venture to ask you whether it is consistent with the peace we have made, the friendship we have stipulated, or even with civility, to express a marked resentment to a foreign power who is at war with another, whose ill will we experience every day, and who will, very probably, in a few weeks be acknowledged an enemy in the sense of the law of nations. A power, too, which invariably acknowledged us to be a nation for fifteen years; a power that has never had the insolence to reject your ambassadors; a power that at present convoys your trade and their own at the same time. Immortal hatred, inextinguishable animosity, is neither philosophy, true religion, nor good policy. Our ancient maxim was, “Enemies in war, in peace friends.”

If Concord drank the first blood of martyred freemen, Concord should be the first to forget the injury, when it is no longer useful to remember it. Some of you, as well as myself, remember the war of 1755 as well as that of 1775. War always has its horrors, and civil wars the worst.

If the contest you allude to was dubious, it was from extrinsic causes; it was from partial, enthusiastic, and habitual attachment to a foreign country—not from any question of a party of strength. It is highly useful to reflect—fifty thousand men upon paper, and thirty thousand men in fact, was the highest number Britain ever had in arms in this country—compute the tonnage of ships necessary and actually employed to transport these troops across the Atlantic. What were thirty thousand men to the United States of America in 1775? What would sixty thousand be now in 1798?

Let not fond attachments, enthusiastic devotion to another power, paralyze the nerves of our citizens a second time, and all the ships in Europe that can be spared, officered, and manned, will not be sufficient to bring to this country an army capable of any long contest.

Your compliments to me are far beyond my merits. Your confidence in the government, and determination to support it, are greatly to your honor.

John Adams.