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

TO JOSEPH LYMAN. - 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 JOSEPH LYMAN.

Quincy, 20 April, 1809.

I have received your respectful letter of the 21st of March. It is not now necessary for me to say any thing concerning many of the topics. To explain myself fully, and enter into the histories of past occurrences alluded to, would require a volume.

I have forsaken the persons and interest of none of my friends. The leaders to whom the federal party has now blindly abandoned itself, were never my friends.

I have departed from no principle. My invariable principle for five-and-thirty years has been, to promote, preserve, and secure the integrity of the Union, and the independence of the nation, against the policy of England as well as France.

When France attempted to degrade us, I exerted all my industry to arouse, inspire, and animate my fellow-citizens to resistance, and with so much success, that the then French government were compelled to retract. If for this service I had no thanks from the republicans, I had nothing but insolence and scurrility from the federalists. Look back and read the federal newspapers in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia of that period, you will then see how I was treated. If your namesake, of Springfield, who was then a representative in Congress, one of the most amiable of men, were now alive, he could inform you, as he did me, with the kindest expressions of attachment to me, and indignation against the treachery of my pretended federal friends. He assured me that the federalists in New York, with Hamilton at their head, had in secret caucus agreed to sacrifice Adams. I had other information from other quarters, that at the meeting of the Cincinnati at New York, when they chose Hamilton their President-General, it was agreed, and the reverend doctors of divinity (and there were several of these present) concurred in the pious project and the pious language, to sacrifice Adams, and bring in Pinckney. The intrigues they practised to accomplish this were very extensive and very jesuitical; but to develop them would lead me too far. I will only add that the Boston and the Pennsylvania, if not the South Carolina federal leaders were in the same plot. They were assisted, too, by the publications in England, particularly the Anti-Jacobin, then under the direction of Mr. Canning. I know that French influence drove me into banishment; but it would not have had the power, if it had not been essentially assisted by the pharisaical, jesuitical, machiavelian intrigue and influence of the leading federalists.

I assure you, Sir, “a war with England will not meet my hearty reprobation,” if England makes it necessary. England and France have both given us just cause for war, but neither has yet made it necessary. The first of the two that shall render war necessary, shall have my vote for it.

I am surprised that you should think there is no pretext or excuse for a war with England, that you should talk of their bearing so much with the waywardness of our government, and that she has done nothing to injure us but from a principle of necessary self-defence, and a retaliation of injuries from their adversaries, which we had not the dignity to resent and repel. As you say, Mr. Adams would not have done thus. I assure you, Mr. Adams would have resisted and repelled, to the utmost of his power, the British proclamation of blockade of eleven hundred miles of sea-coast, from the Elbe to Brest, which was the first of the diabolical warfare of blockade, decrees, and orders of council. The Berlin decree is expressly grounded on a principle of retaliation. The wickedness of this first blockade cannot be set in a true light without detailing the history of Antwerp, the Scheld, Ostend, Nieuport, &c., the objects of all the Flanders wars for centuries.

In plain English, Great Britain is the first sinner, and the original guilt of our present calamities lies at her door, though France, in point of actual transgression, is not much behind her. The federal papers for the last year or two, assisted by English hirelings, have been employed in varnishing over the conduct of Great Britain, and in calumniating every impartial and disinterested man, till they appear to have obtained a temporary majority in New England. I greatly respect the public opinion of New England, when it is truly informed. In the present instance, with infinite grief I fear it is not. The press has not been free.

I am not able to see how the federalists are to get along with their new friends, the old English. If they succeed, I shall wish them joy, but I cannot expect to live to enjoy that felicity.