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

TO CHRISTOPHER GADSDEN. - 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 CHRISTOPHER GADSDEN.

Quincy, 16 April, 1801.

I have received your favor of the 11th of March, and, with a pleasure far exceeding all my powers of expression, perceive that your friendly sentiments for me are as kind and indulgent as they were six-and-twenty years ago. I read with the same satisfaction your publication last fall, and with a tenderness which was almost too much for my sensibility. While Wythe and Pendleton, and McKean, and Clinton, and Gates, and Osgood, and many others I could name, were arrayed in political hostility against their old friend, Gadsden was almost the only stanch old companion, who was faithful found. What is the reason that so many of our “old standbys” are infected with Jacobinism? The principles of this infernal tribe were surely no part of our ancient political creed.

“Foreign meddlers,” as you properly denominate them, have a strange, a mysterious influence in this country. Is there no pride in American bosoms? Can their hearts endure that Callender, Duane, Cooper, and Lyon, should be the most influential men in the country, all foreigners and all degraded characters? It is astonishing to me that the “tribes of law-followers” should adopt principles subversive of all law, should unite with the ignorant and illiberal against men of understanding and property. The plan of our worthy friend, John Rutledge, relative to the admission of strangers to the privileges of citizens, as you explain it, was certainly prudent. Americans will find that their own experience will coincide with the experience of all other nations, and foreigners must be received with caution, or they will destroy all confidence in government.

I have been well informed of the frank, candid, and honorable conduct of General Pinckney at your State election, which was conformable to the whole tenor of his conduct through life, as far as it has come to my knowledge.

The only consolation I shall want will be that of employment. Ennui, when it rains on a man in large drops, is worse than one of our north-east storms; but the labors of agriculture and amusement of letters will shelter me. My greatest grief is that I cannot return to the bar. There I should forget in a moment that I was ever a member of Congress, a foreign minister, or President of the United States. But I cannot speak.

I concur with you so fully in sentiment, that I very much doubt whether in any period of the world so much ever happened in a dozen years to mortify the vanity of human nature, and to render existence odious to man. I know of no philosophy or religion but yours, which can reconcile man to life. I should envy you the felicity of your prospect, if I had not the same in substance in my own view. I am approaching sixty-five, and what are ten or eleven years after that age? I shall arrive soon after you, and it is my sincere, devout wish, that we may be better acquainted, and never separated, in our new country.

To Mr. Jefferson’s administration I wish prosperity and felicity; but the commencement of it is too strongly infected with the spirit of party, to give much encouragement to men who are merely national.

Accept, my dear Sir, a repetition of assurances of a warm affection, a sincere friendship, and a high esteem.

TO SAMUEL A. OTIS.

Quincy, 26 January, 1802.

I received your favor of December 16th, and presented the inclosed letter from Mrs. Otis to Mrs. Adams. I congratulate you on your continuance in office.1 It would not have raised the reputation of any set of men to have made unnecessary changes in such kinds of offices. Even in England, where party and self have at least as much energy as they have here, removals are uncommon in the army, navy, revenue, as well as in the subordinate offices in the great departments. The Marquis of Carmarthen introduced to me Mr. Fraser, an under secretary of State, and afterwards said to me that Mr. Fraser was the cleverest man in England; that in all the changes of administration he had remained in office since the duke of Newcastle’s time, above thirty years. I do not mean by this to say that you are the cleverest man in the United States, but I will say you are so clever that it would have been ungenerous, indiscreet, in the present majority to have removed you.

[1 ]Mr. Otis was Clerk of the Senate of the United States.