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

TO JOHN JEBB. - 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 JOHN JEBB.

London, 25 September, 1785.

I have read with pleasure your letter of the 13th, and although I cannot entirely agree with you, I find the difference between us is very small in comparison with that between me and some other of my friends. In Mr. Hume’s perfect Commonwealth, “no representative, magistrate, or Senator, as such, has any salary. The protector, secretaries, councils, and ambassadors have salaries.” Your opinion coincides with his, excepting that you think the higher magistrates, as the judges for example, should have salaries. I carry the point so far as to desire that all representatives, magistrates, and Senators, as well as judges and executive officers, should have salaries. Not merely upon the principle of justice, that every man has a right to compensation for his time and labor, but to maintain the responsibility of the person, and to raise and support, both in the minds of the people themselves, and of their representatives, senators, and magistrates, a sense of the dignity and importance of the people. These salaries, to be sure, should be in proportion to the nature and duration of the service. A project to introduce such a practice into this country, would be chimerical; but in a country where it has long obtained and still exists, I wish it to continue. In some parts of the United States it has ever prevailed, and it is to be hoped it may be extended to all other parts. It is thought by many to be one of the best securities of liberty and equality.

In the thirteenth section of the second chapter of the Constitution of Massachusetts, you may see their sense of the importance of salaries to governors and judges. My friend, de Mably, page 87, expresses great indignation against it. “Je voudrais, au contraire, qu’à mesure que les dignités sont plus importantes, on leur attribuât des appointemens moins considérables. Je voudraismême qu’elles n’en eûssent aucuns. . . . On aime bien peu la patrie quand on demande des salaires pour la servir. Que la république de Massachusetts ait le courage de détruire la loi dont je me plains.” I love the Abbé and revere his memory, but I was sorry that so crude an idea should be scattered in America, where many will be greedy to lay hold of it, and that a great writer who had spent fifty years in reading upon government, and had done honor to his age by his writings, should adopt with such facility so gross a vulgar error and popular blunder. Flattery has done more mischief to society, when addressed to the people, than when offered to kings. There is always, in every popular Assembly, a party actuated by a sordid avarice. One of two candidates for an election, by offering to serve without pay, will have all the votes of this description of electors. So will the Abbé’s doctrine, but he had not considered that an aristocracy would be the immediate and inevitable consequence of it. In the Massachusetts there would be no choice left; there are but two at most, if there is more than one, who could serve as governor. A fine bargain the people would make of it! For the sake of saving a penny a piece, which it would cost them for a salary, they must pass by a thousand wise and virtuous men, and give their votes only for two rich ones, and that, whether they have wisdom and virtues or not. The people save nothing in the end. The consequence is, there must be no strict inquiry, no exact accounts. The Governor’s family must be provided for by offices, and his son, fit or unfit, must be put in his place. The magistrates in France, instead of having salaries, buy their offices. What is the consequence? Let the Abbé himself say. He would answer from Heaven, that they find ways to levy partial taxes to support even their mistresses, at three times the expense of the whole salary of a Massachusetts Governor.

Adieu.