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

PRELIMINARY NOTE. - 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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PRELIMINARY NOTE.

As it was, the pamphlet appeared surreptitiously, whilst Mr. Adams was President, and when he could take no notice of it without materially compromising the dignity of his position. But after his term expired in March, 1801, it seems that he addressed himself to the labor of a reply, and prepared the materials which he designed to use. The reason why he did not perfect his design, is nowhere explained. Possibly it might have grown out of the condition of things consequent upon Mr. Jefferson’s accession to the Presidency, which furnished little chance for a favorable hearing in any quarter. Perhaps it may have been owing to the fall of Mr. Hamilton. A large portion of the federal party, which he had represented, was giving in its adhesion to Mr. Jefferson, whilst the rest was dwindling down to a fragment in the northern and eastern States, exclusively under the guidance of those individuals with whom he had come to a rupture, in sentiment if not in action, during his own administration. The new policy these persons were pursuing was one with which he could as little sympathize as with the old one. Yet he preserved total silence until attacks were revived upon him, and upon his son John Quincy Adams, on account of opinions expressed upon later questions. It happened that in 1809, an extract from the Baltimore Federal Republican, met his eye, in which, among other things, the old charges were repeated against him for instituting the mission of 1799 to France, the gravest article in the pamphlet of Mr. Hamilton; and this led to an extended publication of documents and reasonings in the columns of the Boston Patriot, touching a large part of his public career, but a portion of which is to be found collected in the volume, entitled “Correspondence of the late President Adams,” published in Boston the same year.

For reasons already given, it has been deemed unadvisable to reprint these materials as they appear in the Patriot. Two separate extracts, complete in themselves, are now given. The first is confined to Mr. Adams’s defence of himself against Mr. Hamilton’s attack. This step is made necessary by the republication of that pamphlet in the works of that gentleman. It is proper to state that, although written in 1809, the substantial facts were drawn from the fragments prepared in 1801. This is to be kept in mind, the more because Mr. Gibbs, in his late work, has endeavored to do, what none of the persons alluded to ever attempted in their lifetime,—dispute the accuracy of the narrative, as if composed merely from the impaired recollection of a later period.

It is true that, in a few particulars, incidental additions are made, which show haste in the preparation of the later production, as well as inattention to the exact order of the details; but these errors will not be found to affect the force of the facts, or of the argument, in any essential point. Whatever they are, it is believed they are all mentioned and corrected in the notes. Such portions of the materials prepared in 1801, as are deemed useful to compare with the text, are also appended, together with references to any passages elsewhere in this work, and in other works, that appear to furnish light upon this obscure and disputed portion of American history. An endeavor has been made to strip the consideration of the questions involved of all the acrimony that originally attached to them, and to confine the comments as much as possible to a simple elucidation of the facts.

The second extract embraces an examination of a question of a different nature, and connected with a later period of American politics.