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

TO SILVANUS BOURN. - 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 SILVANUS BOURN.

I have received your letter of the 18th of this month, and have communicated that to the President which was inclosed in it. The particular office you solicit by that letter will be sought by numbers, and among them probably will be men advanced in life, encumbered with large families, in necessitous circumstances perhaps occasioned by public services, by depreciated public promises, &c. The President will, as he ought, weigh all these particulars, and give the preference upon the whole as justice, humanity, and wisdom shall dictate. There is another gentleman who has applied for it, whose pretensions, perhaps, will have great weight, and will be supported by recommendations of the first sort.

I must caution you, my dear Sir, against having any dependence on my influence or that of any other person. No man, I believe, has influence with the President. He seeks information from all quarters, and judges more independently than any man I ever knew. It is of so much importance to the public that he should preserve this superiority, that I hope I shall never see the time that any man will have influence with him beyond the powers of reason and argument.

Who is it, pray, that has been honoring Vice in poetry?