Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow TO JONATHAN JACKSON. - 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 JONATHAN JACKSON. - 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 JONATHAN JACKSON.

Amsterdam, 2 October, 1780.

I have long had it in contemplation to pay my respects to you, but a wandering life and various avocations have hitherto prevented.

I am very happy to find that our labors in convention were not in vain. The Constitution, as finished by the convention and accepted by the people, is publishing in all the public papers of Europe, the report of the committee having been published before. Both have been treated with much respect both in Europe and in the other States of America. The noble simplicity of your address to the people is much admired. The substitute for the Governor’s negative is generally thought an amelioration, and I must confess it is so widely guarded that it has quite reconciled me.

I want to hear of the elections. If these are made with as much gravity, sobriety, wisdom, and integrity as were discovered in the convention and among the people, in the whole course of this great work, posterity will be happy and prosperous. The first citizen will be one of two whom we know. Whichever it may be, I wish him support and success. It is no light trust. However ambitious any may be of it, whoever obtains this distinction, if he does his duty, will find it a heavy burden. There are, however, other great trusts. The Governor’s office will be rendered more or less useful, according to the characters that compose the Senate and the Council. If the people are as prudent in the choice of these as they were in the choice of the convention, let the Governor be almost what he will, he will not be able to do much harm; he will be necessitated to do right.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. We cannot have a bad Governor at present. We may not possibly have the best that might be found, but we shall have a good one; one who means to do no evil to his country, but as much good as he can.

The convention I shall ever recollect with veneration. Among other things, for bringing me acquainted with several characters that I knew little of before, of which number Mr. Jackson is one. I shall be much honored, Sir, if you would be so good as to write me the state of things. There are more opportunities from your port to Spain and Holland, I think, than from any other.

TO JAMES WARREN.

The Hague, 17 June, 1782.

Broken to pieces and worn out with the diseases engendered by the tainted atmosphere of Amsterdam operating upon the effects of fatiguing journeys, dangerous voyages, a variety of climates, and eternal anxiety of mind, I have not been able to write you so often as I wished; but now I hope the fine season and the pure air of the Hague will restore me. Perhaps you will say that the air of a Court is as putrid as that of Amsterdam. In a moral and political sense, perhaps; but I am determined that the bad morals and false politics of other people shall no longer affect my repose of mind nor disturb my physical constitution. What is it to me, after having done all I can to set them right, whether other people go to heaven or to the devil? I may howl and weep, but this will have no effect. I may then just as well sing and laugh.

Pray, how do you like your new allies the Dutch? Does your imagination rove into futurity, and speculate and combine as it used to do? It is a pretty amusement to play a game with nations as if they were fox and geese, or coins upon a checker-board, or the personages at chess, is it not? It is, however, the real employment of a statesman to play such a game sometimes; a sublime one, truly; enough to make a man serious, however addicted to sport. Politics are the divine science, after all. How is it possible that any man should ever think of making it subservient to his own little passions and mean private interests? Ye baseborn sons of fallen Adam, is the end of politics a fortune, a family, a gilded coach, a train of horses, and a troop of livery servants, balls at Court, splendid dinners and suppers? Yet the divine science of politics is at length in Europe reduced to a mechanical system composed of these materials. What says the muse, Mrs. Warren?

What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you; he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country. The liberties of Corsica, Sweden, and Geneva may be overturned, but neither his character can be hurt, nor his exertions rendered ineffectual. Oh peace! when wilt thou permit me to visit Penns-hill, Miltonhill, and all the blue hills? I love every tree and every rock upon all those mountains. Roving among these, and the quails, partridges, squirrels, &c., that inhabit them, shall be the amusement of my declining years. God willing, I will not go to Vermont.1 I must be within the scent of the sea.

I hope to send along a treaty in two or three months. I love the Dutchmen with all their faults. There is a strong spirit of liberty among them, and many excellent qualities. Next year their navy will be so strong as to be able to do a great deal. They may do something this.

I am going to Court to sup with princes, princesses, and ambassadors. I had rather sup with you at one of our hills, though I have no objection to supping at Court. Adieu!

[1 ]Mrs. Adams during his absence had purchased wild lands in Vermont, and had suggested a removal at some future time.