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

TO SAMUEL H. PARSONS. - 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 SAMUEL H. PARSONS.

Philadelphia, 22 June, 1776.

Your obliging favor of the 3d of June has been too long unanswered. I acknowledge the difficulty in ascertaining the comparative merit of officers, and the danger of advancing friends, where there is no uncommon merit. This danger cannot be avoided by any other means than making it an invariable rule to promote officers in succession. For if you make a King the judge of uncommon merit, he will advance favorites without merit, under color or pretence of merit. If you make a Minister of State the judge, he will naturally promote his relations, connections, and friends. If you place the power of judging of extraordinary merit in an Assembly, you do not mend the matter much. For, by all the experience I have had, I find that assemblies have favorites, as well as kings and ministers. The favorites of assemblies or the leading members, are not always the most worthy; I do not know whether they ever are. These leading members have sons, brothers, and cousins, acquaintances, friends, and connections of one sort or another, near or remote; and I have ever found these leading members of assemblies as much under the influence of nature, and her passions and prejudices, as kings and ministers. The principal advantage and difference lies in this, that in an assembly there are more guards and checks upon the infirmities of leading members, than there are upon kings and ministers.

What, then, shall we say? Shall we leave it to the General and the army? Is there not as much favoritism, as much of nature, passion, prejudice, and partiality in the army, as in an assembly? As much in a General, as a King or Minister?

Upon the whole, I believe it wisest to depart from the line of succession as seldom as possible. But I cannot but think that the power of departing from it at all, though liable to abuses everywhere, yet safest in the hands of an Assembly.

But, in our American army, as that is circumstanced, it is as difficult to settle a rule of succession as a criterion of merit. We have troops in every province, from Georgia to New Hampshire. A Colonel is killed in New Hampshire. The next Colonel in the American Army to him is in Georgia. Must we send the Colonel from Georgia to command the regiment in New Hampshire? Upon his journey he is seized with a fever and dies. The next Colonel is in Canada. We must then send to Canada for a Colonel to go to Portsmouth; and, as the next Colonel to him is in South Carolina, we must send a Colonel from South Carolina to Canada to command that regiment. These marches and counter-marches must run through all the corps of officers, and will occasion such inextricable perplexities, delays, and uncertainties, that we need not hesitate to pronounce it impracticable and ruinous. Shall we say, then, that succession shall take place among the officers of every distinct army, or in every distinct department?

My own private opinion is, that we shall never be quite right until every colony is permitted to raise its own troops, and the rule of succession is established among the officers of the colony. This, where there are troops of several colonies, serving in the same camp, may be liable to some inconveniences. But these will be fewer than upon any other plan you can adopt.

It is right, I believe, to make the rule of promotion among captains and subalterns regimental only; and that among field-officers more general. But the question is, how general it shall be. Shall it extend to the whole American army? or only to the whole district or department? or only to the army serving at a particular place?

That it is necessary to enlist an army to serve during the war, or at least for a longer period than one year, and to offer some handsome encouragement for that end, I have been convinced a long time.1 I would make this temptation to consist partly in money and partly in land, and considerable in both. It has been too long delayed, but I think it will now be soon done.

What is the reason that New York must continue to embarrass the continent? Must it be so forever? What is the cause of it? Have they no politicians capable of instructing and forming the sentiments of their people? Or are their people incapable of seeing and feeling like other men? One would think that their proximity to New England would assimilate their opinions and principles. One would think, too, that the army would have some influence upon them. But it seems to have none. New York is likely to have the honor of being the very last of all in imbibing the genuine principles and the true system of American policy. Perhaps she will never entertain them at all.

[1 ]Compare with this sentiment the statement made by Mr. Hamilton. Hamilton’s Works, vol. vii. p. 689.