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

TO THE YOUNG MEN OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. - 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 YOUNG MEN OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.

Gentlemen,

An address so respectful to me, so faithful to the nation, and true to its government, from so honorable a portion of the young men of Richmond, cannot fail to be very acceptable to me.

You will not take offence, I hope, at my freedom, however, if I say, that if you had been taught to cherish in your hearts an esteem and friendship for France, it would have been enough; more than these, toward any foreign power, had better be reserved.

It might have been as well for us in America, whose distance is so great, and whose knowledge of France and her government was so imperfect, to have suspended our veneration for the mighty effort which overturned royalty, until we should have seen all degrading despotism at an end in the country, and something more consistent with virtue, equality, liberty, and humanity, substituted in its place. Hitherto the progress has been from bad to worse.

The conduct of the French government towards us is of a piece with their behaviour to their own citizens and a great part of Europe. Your sensibility to their insults and injuries to your country, is very becoming, and your resolution to resist them do you honor.

A fresh insult is now offered to all America, and especially to her government, in the arbitrary dismission of two of their envoys, with scornful intimations of capricious prejudices against them. But I am weary of enumerating insults and injuries.

John Adams.