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

TO PHILIP MAZZEI. - 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 PHILIP MAZZEI.

London, 12 June, 1787.

Your favor of the 24th of May is before me. To defend the separation of the legislative, executive, judicial powers from each other, and the division of the legislative into three branches, from the attacks of county committees, riotous assemblies, and uninformed philosophers and statesmen, will be the burden of my song, and I am very glad to find that the attempt has met with your approbation. Such a distribution of power appears to me the unum necessarium of liberty, safety, and good order, and, therefore, no pains taken to preserve it will be thrown away. An application has been made to me here in behalf of a French writer, who is very capable of translating such a book, and who wishes to publish an edition in French, in London. His name is De la Tour. I have discouraged his project hitherto, because Mr. Jefferson informed me that some one had undertaken it in Paris. You inform me that several have applied to government for permission. But will they obtain it? I am just returned from an excursion to Amsterdam, where I was told by a bookseller that he was about getting it translated into Dutch. But I doubt whether any of these undertakers will proceed; for American affairs are not now so interesting in Europe as they were in the time of the war, and such a work will not sell now as it would then. I should be glad to know with certainty whether your bookseller has obtained permission, and whether he will proceed, for the regulation of my own conduct. Has he published his advertisement? I should think he had better proceed with the first volume, without waiting for the second, that he may form a better judgment, whether it is worth his while to translate the second at all.

If the separate States preserve inviolable the divisions and separations and independence of these several authorities, their liberties, their security, their good order, prosperity, grandeur, and glory will be the certain consequence, whatever imperfections may remain incurable in the confederation. But, if these precautions are not taken, we shall have a capricious and a turbulent, if not a bloody scene, in America for a hundred years to come. So it appears to me, and no endeavors of mine shall be wanting to secure the good and prevent the evil, however unpopular I may make myself by the attempt.