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

TO JOSIAH QUINCY. - 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 JOSIAH QUINCY.

Quincy, 18 February, 1811.

I owe you thanks for your speech on place and patronage. The moral and patriotic sentiments are noble and exalted, the eloquence masterly, and the satire inimitable. There are not in Juvenal nor in Swift any images to be found more exquisitely ridiculous than the Charleston hack, and the treasury swill-trough and piggery. But are you right in supposing the rage for office more eager and craving now than it always has been, or more grasping and intriguing for executive offices than for legislative stations? Have you read many of the circular letters? Have you attended much to the course of elections, even in our New England town meetings?

General Joseph Warren was President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1775, and he often said that he never had till then any idea or suspicion of the selfishness of this people, or their impatient eagerness for commissions.

I will tell you none of my experiences during the eight years I was Vice-President, or the four following years; but there is no necessity for the same reserve when, in 1776 and 1777, I was president of the board of war, or, in less pompous phrase, chairman of the committee of war. In this capacity, all applications to Congress, to General Washington, and to the board, for commissions and promotions in the army, and for contracts, commissaryships, quartermasterships, &c., were committed to me. And I really think as much zeal appeared then as there has been seen since. Yet the military commissions were not very lucrative.

Again; are you right in imputing all this zeal to avarice? The ardor for commissions in the militia in New England, where no money is to be got, but much to be spent, is as intense as any ardor whatever. The post of clerk, sergeant, corporal, and even drummer and fifer, is coveted as earnestly as the best gift of major-general. There is no people on earth so ambitious as the people of America. The reason is, because the lowest can aspire as freely as the highest. The highest offices are as fair objects to the tradesman or farmer as to the lawyer, the priest, physician, or merchant. In other countries, none of those ranks think of commissions. Employment and profit in their private occupations and pursuits is all they wish. Ambition and all its hopes are extinct.

But I have more serious objections to Mr. Macon’s motion, as well as to your amendment. 1. Both the motion and the amendment would be ineffectual. If fathers, sons, and brothers were proscribed, there would be the same zeal and exertions for cousins first, second, third, and fourth, and for grandfathers, and grandsons, and uncles, and, what is oftener a stimulus than any of these relations, for friends who have been or will be active agents and instruments in promoting the member’s interest among his constituents, and procuring him votes. This is the great spring of all in the minds of senators and representatives, to obtain favors for favorites among their constituents, in order to attach them by gratitude and establish their own influence at home and abroad. No law, no constitution that human wit or wisdom can devise, can ever prevent senators or representatives from soliciting offices and favors for their friends.

2. Both the motion and amendment appear to me unconstitutional. The President has, or ought to have, the whole nation before him, and he ought to select the men best qualified and most meritorious for offices at his own responsibility, without being shackled by any check by law, constitution, or institution. Without this unrestrained liberty, he is not a check upon the legislative power nor either branch of it. Indeed, he must be the slave of the party that brought him in. He never can be independent or impartial.

3. Both the motion and amendment are in the pure spirit of aristocracy. Neither Mr. Macon nor yourself considered it in that light; but it is exactly in the temper and spirit of all corps of nobility, jealous of the power of the executive, since the creation. This jealousy is often actuated by the purest spirit of patriotism, and the most perfect integrity, but if it is not checked and controlled, it never has ceased to encroach, until it has made the executive a mere head of wood, and drawn all the power and resources of the nation into the insatiable gulf, the irresistible vortex, of an aristocracy or an oligarchy.