Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO THE GRAND JURORS OF THE COUNTY OF HAMPSHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS. - 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 GRAND JURORS OF THE COUNTY OF HAMPSHIRE, 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 GRAND JURORS OF THE COUNTY OF HAMPSHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS.

Gentlemen,

I have received with much pleasure your address of the 28th of September from Northampton.

The manifestations of your respect, approbation, and confidence are very flattering to me, and your determination to support the Constitution and laws of your country is honorable to yourselves. If a new order of things has commenced, it behoves us to be cautious, that it may not be for the worse. If the abuse of Christianity can be annihilated or diminished, and a more equitable enjoyment of the right of conscience introduced, it will be well; but this will not be accomplished by the abolition of Christianity and the introduction of Grecian mythology, or the worship of modern heroes or heroines, by erecting statues of idolatry to reason or virtue, to beauty or to taste. It is a serious problem to resolve, whether all the abuses of Christianity, even in the darkest ages, when the Pope deposed princes and laid nations under his interdict, were ever so bloody and cruel, ever bore down the independence of the human mind with such terror and intolerance, or taught doctrines which required such implicit credulity to believe, as the present reign of pretended philosophy in France.

John Adams.