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

TO THE INHABITANTS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND. - 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 WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.

Gentlemen,

Your address has been presented to me by your representative in Congress, Mr. Baer.

When you say that the government of France is congenial to your own, I pray you, gentlemen, to reconsider the subject. The Constitution, the administration, the laws, and their interpretation in France, are as essentially different from ours as the ancient monarchy. If we may believe travellers returned from that country, or their own committees, the pomp and magnificence, the profusion of expense, the proud usurpation, the domineering inequality at present in that country, as well as the prostitution of morals and depravation of manners, exceed all that ever was seen under the old monarchy, and form the most perfect contrast to your own in all those respects. I shall meet with sincerity any honorable overtures of that nation, but I shall make no more overtures.

John Adams.