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

TO WILLIAM GORDON. - 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 WILLIAM GORDON.

Philadelphia, 8 April, 1777.

I had your favor of 27th March by this day’s post. That this country will go safely through this revolution, I am well convinced; but we have severe conflicts to endure yet, and, I hope, shall be prepared for them. Indeed, there is one enemy, who to me is more formidable than famine, pestilence, and the sword; I mean the corruption which is prevalent in so many American hearts, a depravity that is more inconsistent with our republican governments than light is with darkness. If we can once give energy enough to our governments, and discipline enough to our armies, to overcome this base principle of selfishness, to make citizens and soldiers feel themselves the children of the commonwealth, and love and revere their mother so much as to make their happiness consist in her service, I shall think we have a prospect of triumph indeed.

Your design, Sir, of collecting materials for a history of the rise, progress, and issue of the American Revolution, is liberal and generous; and, as you will find it a laborious undertaking, you ought to be encouraged and assisted in it. I should be very willing to contribute any thing towards so useful a work. But, I must frankly tell you, there is very little in my power. So far from making collections myself, I have very often destroyed the papers in my power, and my own minutes of events and their causes. We are hurried away in such a kind of delirium, arising from the multiplicity of affairs, and the disorder in which they rise in review before us, that I confess myself unable even to recollect the circumstances of any transaction with sufficient precision to assist an historian. There are materials, however, in possession of the Secretary of State, and others in the War-Office, which will be preserved. The Massachusetts Bay, however, was the first theatre, and your history should begin at least from the year 1761. Your correspondent, whoever he is, has a talent at panegyric, enough to turn a head that has much less vanity in it than mine. Sometimes, however, the extravagance of flattery is an antidote to its poison. I shall not, however, be made to tremble to think of the expectations that will be formed from me by such wild praises. No such attributes belong to me; and I am under no concern about answering to what may be justly expected of me. Alas! who is equal to these things?