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

2 Dec. 1788: TO BENJAMIN RUSH. - 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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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 BENJAMIN RUSH.

Braintree, 2 December, 1788.

A multiplicity of avocations have prevented me from answering your friendly letter of the 2d of July, till I am almost ashamed to answer it at all. Your congratulations on my arrival and kind reception are very agreeable, because I know them to be sincere. Your compliments upon my poor volumes are consolatory, because they give me grounds to hope that they may have done some good. It is an opinion here, that they contributed somewhat to restore a permanent tranquillity to this commonwealth, as well as to suppress the pestilent county conventions, insurrections, and rebellion. And if I could be flattered into the belief that they contributed to the formation or ratification of a balanced national government for the United States, I should sing my nunc dimittis with much pleasure. If any one will show me a single example where the laws were respected, and liberty, property, life or character secure, without a balance in the Constitution, I might venture to give up the controversy. And if any one will show that there ever was a balance, or ever can be a balance for three days together, without three branches, and no more, I might also give up the point.

I have heard nothing of the second and third volumes in the southern and middle States, and know not whether they have been read or how received. For the third volume I was most anxious, as it was the boldest and freest, and most likely to be unpopular.

Whether your expectation, that I shall be in the new government, proceeds from your partiality to your old friend, or from your knowledge of the sentiments of the nation, I know not. The choice will be in the breasts of freemen, and if it falls upon me, it will most certainly be a free election.

You tell me my labors are only beginning. Seven-and-twenty years have I labored in this rugged vineyard, and am now arrived at an age when man sighs for repose.

My dear Mrs. Adams is with her only daughter at Long Island. We have three sons, two at college, and one with an eminent lawyer. They are regular in their manners and studies, and give me so much satisfaction as to increase the regret I feel at the remembrance of how much of their interests I have been obliged to sacrifice to the public service.

TO THOMAS BRAND-HOLLIS.

Braintree, 3 December, 1788.

If I had been told at my first arrival, that five months would pass before I should write a line to Mr. Brand-Hollis, I should not have believed it. I found my estate, in consequence of a total neglect and inattention on my part for fourteen years, was falling to decay, and in so much disorder as to require my whole attention to repair it. I have a great mind to essay a description of it. It is not large, in the first place. It is but the farm of a patriot. But there are in it two or three spots, from whence are to be seen some of the most beautiful prospects in the world. I wish the Hyde was within ten miles, or that Mr. Brand-Hollis would come and build a Hyde near us. I have a fine meadow that I would christen by the name of Hollis Mead, if it were not too small. The hill where I now live is worthy to be called Hollis Hill; but as only a small part of the top of it belongs to me, it is doubtful whether it would succeed. There is a fine brook, through a meadow, by my house; shall I call it Hollis Brook?

What shall I say to you of our public affairs? The increase of population is wonderful. The plenty of provisions of all kinds amazing, and cheap in proportion to their abundance and the scarcity of money, which is certainly very great. The agriculture, fisheries, manufactures, and commerce of the country are very well, much better than I expected to find them. I cannot say so much of our politics. The constancy of the people in a course of annual elections has discarded from their confidence almost all the old, stanch, firm patriots, who conducted the revolution in all the civil departments, and has called to the helm pilots much more selfish and much less skilful. I cannot, however, lay all the blame of this upon the people. Many of my brother patriots have flattered the people, by telling them they had virtue, wisdom, and talents, which the people themselves have found out by experience they had not, and this has disgusted them with their flatterers. The elections for the new government have been determined very well, hitherto, in general. You may have the curiosity to ask what share your friend is to have. I really am at a loss to guess. The probability at present seems to be, that I shall have no lot in it. I am in the habit of balancing every thing. In one scale is vanity, in the other comfort. Can you doubt which will preponderate? In public life I have found nothing but the former, in private life I have enjoyed much of the latter.

I regret the loss of the book-shops, and the society of the few men of letters that I knew in London; in all other respects I am much better accommodated here. Shall I hope to hear from you as you have leisure? A letter left at the New England Coffee House will be brought me by some of our Boston captains.