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

TO MARSTON WATSON. - 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 MARSTON WATSON.

Braintree, 7 November, 1789.

The letter you did me the honor to write me on the 30th of September has been to New York, and from thence transmitted to this place; but it never reached my hand till the night before last. The sentiments of esteem for my private character, expressed by gentlemen who are probably strangers to me, are very obliging, and the approbation of my public conduct abroad lays me under still greater obligations.

The fisheries are so essential to the commerce and naval power of this nation, that it is astonishing that any one citizen should ever have been found indifferent about them. But it is certain that at a time when there were reasons to expect that more than one foreign nation would endeavor to deprive us of them, there were many Americans indifferent, and not a few even disposed to give them away. A knowledge of this was the first and strongest motive with me to embark for Europe a first and a second time. After all, however, the final preservation of the fisheries was owing to causes so providential, that I can never look back upon them without reverence and emotion. Your approbation, Sir, and that of your friends, of the part I acted in that negotiation, give me great pleasure.

The present of four boxes of fish has been received in my absence by my family; and is in every point of view very acceptable to me. As an amateur, I shall regale myself and my friends; as a wellwisher to the trade, I shall endeavor to make the dish fashionable at New York. I pray you and your companions to accept of my sincere thanks for the favor, and my best wishes for their pleasure, profit, and prosperity in the prosecution of the fisheries. May you and they live to see a commerce and a naval power growing out of your occupations, which shall render this the first and most respectable of maritime nations!

TO RICHARD PRICE.

New York, 19 April, 1790.

My dear Friend,—

Accept of my best thanks for your favor of February 1st, and the excellent discourse1 that came with it. I love the zeal and the spirit which dictated this discourse, and admire the general sentiments of it. From the year 1760 to this hour, the whole scope of my life has been to support such principles and propagate such sentiments. No sacrifices of myself or my family, no dangers, no labors, have been too much for me in this great cause. The revolution in France could not therefore be indifferent to me; but I have learned by awful experience to rejoice with trembling. I know that encyclopedists and economists, Diderot and D’Alembert, Voltaire and Rousseau, have contributed to this great event more than Sidney, Locke, or Hoadley, perhaps more than the American revolution; and I own to you, I know not what to make of a republic of thirty million atheists. The Constitution is but an experiment, and must and will be altered. I know it to be impossible that France should be long governed by it. If the sovereignty is to reside in one assembly, the king, princes of the blood, and principal quality, will govern it at their pleasure as long as they can agree; when they differ, they will go to war, and act over again all the tragedies of Valois, Bourbons, Lorraines, Guises, and Colignis, two hundred years ago. The Greeks sung the praises of Harmodius and Aristogiton for restoring equal laws. Too many Frenchmen, after the example of too many Americans, pant for equality of persons and property. The impracticability of this, God Almighty has decreed, and the advocates for liberty, who attempt it, will surely suffer for it.

I thank you, Sir, for your kind compliment. As it has been the great aim of my life to be useful, if I had any reason to think I was so, as you seem to suppose, it would make me happy. For “eminence” I care nothing; for though I pretend not to be exempt from ambition, or any other human passion, I have been convinced from my infancy and have been confirmed every year and day of my life, that the mechanic and peasant are happier than any nobleman, or magistrate, or king, and that the higher a man rises, if he has any sense of duty, the more anxious he must be. Our new government is an attempt to divide a sovereignty; a fresh essay at imperium in imperio. It cannot, therefore, be expected to be very stable or very firm. It will prevent us for a time from drawing our swords upon each other, and when it will do that no longer, we must call a new Convention to reform it. The difficulty of bringing millions to agree in any measures, to act by any rule, can never be conceived by him who has not tried it. It is incredible how small is the number, in any nation, of those who comprehend any system of constitution or administration, and those few it is wholly impossible to unite. I am a sincere inquirer after truth, but I find very few who discover the same truths. The king of Prussia has found one which has also fallen in my way. “That it is the peculiar quality of the human understanding, that example should correct no man. The blunders of the father are lost to his children, and every generation must commit its own.” I have never sacrificed my judgment to kings, ministers, nor people, and I never will. When either shall see as I do, I shall rejoice in their protection, aid, and honor; but I see no prospect that either will ever think as I do, and therefore I shall never be a favorite with either. I do not desire to be; but I sincerely wish and devoutly pray, that a hundred years of civil wars may not be the portion of all Europe for want of a little attention to the true elements of the science of government. With sentiments, moral sentiments, which are and must be eternal, I am your friend, &c.

[1 ]On the Love of Country. This sermon was the occasion of Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution.