LETTERS.
I.
New York, 12 September, 1790.
Dear Sir,—
Upon my return from Philadelphia, to which beloved city I have been, for the purpose of getting a house to put my head in next winter, I had the pleasure of receiving your favor of the second of this month. The sight of our old Liberty Hall and of several of our old friends, had brought your venerable idea to my mind, and continued it there a great part of the last week; so that a letter from you, on my arrival, seemed but in continuation. I am much obliged to the “confidential friend” for writing the short letter you dictated, and shall beg a continuance of similar good offices.
Captain Nathaniel Byfield Lyde, whom I know very well, has my hearty good wishes. I shall give your letter and his to the Secretary of the Treasury, the duty of whose department it is to receive and examine all applications of the kind. Applications will probably be made in behalf of the officers who served the last war in the navy, and they will be likely to have the preference to all others. But Captain Lyde’s application shall nevertheless be presented, and have a fair chance.
My family, as well as myself, are, I thank God, in good health, and as good spirits as the prospect of a troublesome removal will admit. Mrs. Adams desires her particular regards to your lady and yourself.
What, my old friend, is this world about to become? Is the millennium commencing? Are the kingdoms of it about to be governed by reason? Your Boston town meetings and our Harvard College have set the universe in motion. Every thing will be pulled down. So much seems certain. But what will be built up? Are there any principles of political architecture? What are they? Were Voltaire and Rousseau masters of them? Are their disciples acquainted with them? Locke taught them principles of liberty. But I doubt whether they have not yet to learn the principles of government. Will the struggle in Europe be any thing more than a change of impostors and impositions?
With great esteem and sincere affection,
I am, my dear sir, your friend and servant,
John Adams.
His Honor, Samuel Adams, Esq.,
Lieut.-Governor of Mass.
II.
Boston, 4 October, 1790.
Dear Sir,—
With pleasure I received your letter of September 12th. And as our good friend, to whom I dictated our last, is yet in town, I have requested of him a second favor.
You ask,—what the world is about to become? and,—is the millennium commencing? I have not studied the prophecies, and cannot even conjecture. The golden age, so finely pictured by poets, I believe has never as yet existed but in their own imaginations. In the earliest periods, when, for the honor of human nature, one should have thought that man had not learnt to be cruel, what scenes of horror have been exhibited in families of some of the best instructors in piety and morals! Even the heart of our first father was grievously wounded at the sight of the murder of one of his sons, perpetrated by the hand of the other. Has mankind since seen the happy age? No, my friend. The same tragedies have been acted on the theatre of the world, the same arts of tormenting have been studied and practised to this day; and even religion and reason united have never succeeded to establish the permanent foundations of political freedom and happiness in the most enlightened countries on the earth.
After a compliment to Boston town meetings and our Harvard College, as having “set the universe in motion,” you tell me,—every thing will be pulled down. I think with you, “So much seems certain.” But what, say you, will be built up? Hay, wood, and stubble, may probably be the materials, till men shall be yet more enlightened and more friendly to each other. “Are there any principles of political architecture?” Undoubtedly. “What are they?” Philosophers, ancient and modern, have laid down different plans, and all have thought themselves masters of the true principles. Their disciples have followed them, probably with a blind prejudice, which is always an enemy to truth, and have thereby added fresh fuel to the fire of contention, and increased the political disorder.
Kings have been deposed by aspiring nobles, whose pride could not brook restraint. These have waged everlasting war against the common rights of men. The love of liberty is interwoven in the soul of man, and can never be totally extinguished; and there are certain periods when human patience can no longer endure indignity and oppression. The spark of liberty then kindles into a flame, when the injured people, attentive to the feelings of their just rights, magnanimously contend for their complete restoration. But such contests have too often ended in nothing more than “a change of impostors and impositions.” The patriots of Rome put an end to the life of Cæsar, and Rome submitted to a race of tyrants in his stead. Were the people of England free, after they had obliged King John to concede to them their ancient rights and liberties, and promise to govern them according to the old law of the land? Were they free after they had wantonly deposed their Henrys, Edwards, and Richards, to gratify family pride? Or, after they had brought their first Charles to the block and banished his family? They were not. The nation was then governed by king, lords, and commons; and its liberties were lost by a strife among three powers, soberly intended to check each other and keep the scales even.
But while we daily see the violence of the human passions controlling the laws of reason and religion, and stifling the very feelings of humanity, can we wonder that in such tumults, little or no regard is had to political checks and balances? And such tumults have always happened within as well as without doors. The best formed constitutions that have yet been contrived by the wit of man, have, and will come to an end; because “the kingdoms of the earth have not been governed by reason.” The pride of kings, of nobles, and leaders of the people, who have all governed in their turns, have disadjusted the delicate frame, and thrown all into confusion.
What then is to be done? Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls; of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthroby, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country; of instructing them in the art of self-government, without which they never can act a wise part in the government of societies, great or small; in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system, which will happily tend to subdue the turbulent passions of men, and introduce that golden age, beautifully described in figurative language,—when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid; the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; none shall then hurt or destroy, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. When this millennium shall commence, if there shall be any need of civil government, indulge me in the fancy, that it will be in the republican form, or something better.
I thank you for your countenance to our friend Lyde. Mrs. Adams tells me to remember her to yourself, lady, and connections; and be assured, that I am, sincerely, your friend,
Samuel Adams.
The Vice-President of the United States.
III.
New York, 18 October, 1790.
Dear Sir,—
I am thankful to our common friend, as well as to you, for your favor of the fourth, which I received last night. My fears are in unison with yours, that hay, wood, and stubble, will be the materials of the new political buildings in Europe, till men shall be more enlightened and friendly to each other.
You agree, that there are undoubtedly principles of political architecture. But, instead of particularizing any of them, you seem to place all your hopes in the universal, or at least more general, prevalence of knowledge and benevolence. I think with you, that knowledge and benevolence ought to be promoted as much as possible; but, despairing of ever seeing them sufficiently general for the security of society, I am for seeking institutions which may supply in some degree the defect. If there were no ignorance, error, or vice, there would be neither principles nor systems of civil or political government.
I am not often satisfied with the opinions of Hume; but in this he seems well founded, that all projects of government, founded in the supposition or expectation of extraordinary degrees of virtue, are evidently chimerical. Nor do I believe it possible, humanly speaking, that men should ever be greatly improved in knowledge or benevolence, without assistance from the principles and system of government.
I am very willing to agree with you in fancying, that in the greatest improvements of society, government will be in the republican form. It is a fixed principle with me, that all good government is and must be republican. But, at the same time, your candor will agree with me, that there is not in lexicography a more fraudulent word. Whenever I use the word republic with approbation, I mean a government in which the people have collectively, or by representation, an essential share in the sovereignty. The republican forms of Poland and Venice are much worse, and those of Holland and Bern very little better, than the monarchical form in France before the late revolution. By the republican form, I know you do not mean the plan of Milton, Nedham, or Turgot. For, after a fair trial of its miseries, the simple monarchical form will ever be, as it has ever been, preferred to it by mankind. Are we not, my friend, in danger of rendering the word republican unpopular in this country by an indiscreet, indeterminate, and equivocal use of it? The people of England have been obliged to wean themselves from the use of it, by making it unpopular and unfashionable, because they found it was artfully used by some, and simply understood by others, to mean the government of their interregnum parliament. They found they could not wean themselves from that destructive form of government so entirely, as that a mischievous party would not still remain in favor of it, by any other means than by making the words republic and republican unpopular. They have succeeded to such a degree, that, with a vast majority of that nation, a republican is as unamiable as a witch, a blasphemer, a rebel, or a tyrant. If, in this country, the word republic should be generally understood, as it is by some, to mean a form of government inconsistent with a mixture of three powers, forming a mutual balance, we may depend upon it that such mischievous effects will be produced by the use of it as will compel the people of America to renounce, detest, and execrate it as the English do. With these explanations, restrictions, and limitations, I agree with you in your love of republican governments, but in no other sense.
With you, I have also the honor most perfectly to harmonize in your sentiments of the humanity and wisdom of promoting education in knowledge, virtue, and benevolence. But I think that these will confirm mankind in the opinion of the necessity of preserving and strengthening the dikes against the ocean, its tides and storms. Human appetites, passions, prejudices, and self-love will never be conquered by benevolence and knowledge alone, introduced by human means. The millennium itself neither supposes nor implies it. All civil government is then to cease, and the Messiah is to reign. That happy and holy state is therefore wholly out of this question. You and I agree in the utility of universal education; but will nations agree in it as fully and extensively as we do, and be at the expense of it? We know, with as much certainty as attends any human knowledge, that they will not. We cannot, therefore, advise the people to depend for their safety, liberty, and security, upon hopes and blessings which we know will not fall to their lot. If we do our duty then to the people, we shall not deceive them, but advise them to depend upon what is in their power and will relieve them.
Philosophers, ancient and modern, do not appear to me to have studied nature, the whole of nature, and nothing but nature. Lycurgus’s principle was war and family pride; Solon’s was what the people would bear, &c. The best writings of antiquity upon government, those, I mean, of Aristotle, Zeno, and Cicero, are lost. We have human nature, society, and universal history to observe and study, and from these we may draw all the real principles which ought to be regarded. Disciples will follow their masters, and interested partisans their chieftains; let us like it or not, we cannot help it. But if the true principles can be discovered, and fairly, fully, and impartially laid before the people, the more light increases, the more the reason of them will be seen, and the more disciples they will have. Prejudice, passion, and private interest, which will always mingle in human inquiries, one would think might be enlisted on the side of truth, at least in the greatest number; for certainly the majority are interested in the truth, if they could see to the end of all its consequences. “Kings have been deposed by aspiring nobles.” True, and never by any other. “These” (the nobles, I suppose,) “have waged everlasting war against the common rights of men.” True, when they have been possessed of the summa imperii in one body, without a check. So have the plebeians; so have the people; so have kings; so has human nature, in every shape and combination, and so it ever will. But, on the other hand, the nobles have been essential parties in the preservation of liberty, whenever and wherever it has existed. In Europe, they alone have preserved it against kings and people, wherever it has been preserved; or, at least, with very little assistance from the people. One hideous despotism, as horrid as that of Turkey, would have been the lot of every nation of Europe, if the nobles had not made stands. By nobles, I mean not peculiarly an hereditary nobility, or any particular modification, but the natural and actual aristocracy among mankind. The existence of this you will not deny. You and I have seen four noble families rise up in Boston,—the Crafts, Gores, Dawes, and Austins. These are as really a nobility in our town, as the Howards, Somersets, Berties, &c., in England. Blind, undistinguishing reproaches against the aristocratical part of mankind, a division which nature has made, and we cannot abolish, are neither pious nor benevolent. They are as pernicious as they are false. They serve only to foment prejudice, jealousy, envy, animosity, and malevolence. They serve no ends but those of sophistry, fraud, and the spirit of party. It would not be true, but it would not be more egregiously false, to say that the people have waged everlasting war against the rights of men.
“The love of liberty,” you say, “is interwoven in the soul of man.” So it is, according to La Fontaine, in that of a wolf; and I doubt whether it be much more rational, generous, or social, in one than in the other, until in man it is enlightened by experience, reflection, education, and civil and political institutions, which are at first produced, and constantly supported and improved by a few; that is, by the nobility. The wolf, in the fable, who preferred running in the forest, lean and hungry, to the sleek, plump, and round sides of the dog, because he found the latter was sometimes restrained, had more love of liberty than most men. The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition. We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for its preservation. Some political institutions must be prepared, to assist this love against its enemies. Without these, the struggle will ever end only in a change of impostors. When the people, who have no property, feel the power in their own hands to determine all questions by a majority, they ever attack those who have property, till the injured men of property lose all patience, and recur to finesse, trick, and stratagem, to outwit those who have too much strength, because they have too many hands to be resisted any other way. Let us be impartial, then, and speak the whole truth. Till we do, we shall never discover all the true principles that are necessary. The multitude, therefore, as well as the nobles, must have a check. This is one principle.
“Were the people of England free, after they had obliged King John to concede to them their ancient rights?” The people never did this. There was no people who pretended to any thing. It was the nobles alone. The people pretended to nothing but to be villains, vassals, and retainers to the king or the nobles. The nobles, I agree, were not free, because all was determined by a majority of their votes, or by arms, not by law. Their feuds deposed their “Henrys, Edwards, and Richards,” to gratify lordly ambition, patrician rivalry, and “family pride.” But, if they had not been deposed, those kings would have become despots, because the people would not and could not join the nobles in any regular and constitutional opposition to them. They would have become despots, I repeat it, and that by means of the villains, vassals, and retainers aforesaid. It is not family pride, my friend, but family popularity, that does the great mischief, as well as the great good. Pride, in the heart of man, is an evil fruit and concomitant of every advantage; of riches, of knowledge, of genius, of talents, of beauty, of strength, of virtue, and even of piety. It is sometimes ridiculous, and often pernicious. But it is even sometimes, and in some degree, useful. But the pride of families would be always and only ridiculous, if it had not family popularity to work with. The attachment and devotion of the people to some families inspires them with pride. As long as gratitude or interest, ambition or avarice, love, hope, or fear, shall be human motives of action, so long will numbers attach themselves to particular families. When the people will, in spite of all that can be said or done, cry a man or a family up to the skies, exaggerate all his talents and virtues, not hear a word of his weakness or faults, follow implicitly his advice, detest every man he hates, adore every man he loves, and knock down all who will not swim down the stream with them, where is your remedy? When a man or family are thus popular, how can you prevent them from being proud? You and I know of instances in which popularity has been a wind, a tide, a whirlwind. The history of all ages and nations is full of such examples.
Popularity, that has great fortune to dazzle; splendid largesses, to excite warm gratitude; sublime, beautiful, and uncommon genius or talents, to produce deep admiration; or any thing to support high hopes and strong fears, will be proud; and its power will be employed to mortify enemies, gratify friends, procure votes, emoluments, and power. Such family popularity ever did, and ever will govern in every nation, in every climate, hot and cold, wet and dry, among civilized and savage people, Christians and Mahometans, Jews and Heathens. Declamation against family pride is a pretty, juvenile exercise, but unworthy of statesmen. They know the evil and danger is too serious to be sported with. The only way, God knows, is to put these families into a hole by themselves, and set two watches upon them; a superior to them all on one side, and the people on the other.
There are a few popular men in the Massachusetts, my friend, who have, I fear, less honor, sincerity, and virtue, than they ought to have. These, if they are not guarded against, may do another mischief. They may excite a party spirit and a mobbish spirit, instead of the spirit of liberty, and produce another Wat Tyler’s rebellion. They can do no more. But I really think their party language ought not to be countenanced, nor their shibboleths pronounced. The miserable stuff that they utter about the well-born is as despicable as themselves. The ὲυγενεῖς of the Greeks, the bien nées of the French, the welgebohren of the Germans and Dutch, the beloved families of the Creeks, are but a few samples of national expressions of the same thing, for which every nation on earth has a similar expression. One would think that our scribblers were all the sons of redemptioners or transported convicts. They think with Tarquin, “In novo populo, ubi omnis repentina atque ex virtute nobilitas fit, futurum locum forti ac strenuo viro.”
Let us be impartial. There is not more of family pride on one side, than of vulgar malignity and popular envy on the other. Popularity in one family raises envy in others. But the popularity of the least deserving will triumph over envy and malignity; while that which is acquired by real merit, will very often be overborne and oppressed by it.
Let us do justice to the people and to the nobles; for nobles there are, as I have before proved, in Boston as well as in Madrid. But to do justice to both, you must establish an arbitrator between them. This is another principle.
It is time that you and I should have some sweet communion together. I do not believe, that we, who have preserved for more than thirty years an uninterrupted friendship, and have so long thought and acted harmoniously together in the worst of times, are now so far asunder in sentiment as some people pretend; in full confidence of which, I have used this freedom, being ever your warm friend.
John Adams.
His Honor, Samuel Adams, Esq.,
Lieut.-Governor of Mass.
IV.
Boston, 20 November, 1790.
My dear Sir,—
I lately received your letter of the eighteenth of October. The sentiments and observations contained in it demand my attention.
A republic, you tell me, is a government in which “the people have an essential share in the sovereignty.” Is not the whole sovereignty, my friend, essentially in the people? Is not government designed for the welfare and happiness of all the people? and is it not the uncontrollable, essential right of the people to amend and alter, or annul their constitution and frame a new one, whenever they shall think it will better promote their own welfare and happiness to do it? That the sovereignty resides in the people, is a political doctrine which I have never heard an American politician seriously deny. The constitutions of the American States reserve to the people the exercise of the rights of sovereignty, by the annual or biennial elections of their governors, senators, and representatives; and by empowering their own representatives to impeach the greatest officers of the state before the senators, who are also chosen by themselves. We, the people, is the style of the federal constitution. They adopted it; and, conformably to it, they delegate the exercise of the powers of government to particular persons, who, after short intervals, resign their powers to the people, and they will reëect them, or appoint others, as they think fit.
The American legislatures are nicely balanced. They consist of two branches, each having a check upon the determinations of the other. They sit in different chambers, and probably often reason differently in their respective chambers, on the same question. If they disagree in their decisions, by a conference, their reasons and arguments are mutually communicated to each other. Candid explanations tend to bring them to agreement; and then, according to the Massachusetts constitution, the matter is laid before the first magistrate for his revision. He states objections, if he has any, with his reasons, and returns them to the legislators, who, by larger majorities, ultimately decide. Here is a mixture of three powers, founded in the nature of man; calculated to call forth the rational faculties in the great points of legislation into exertion; to cultivate mutual friendship and good humor; and, finally, to enable them to decide, not by the impulse of passion or party prejudice, but by the calm voice of reason, which is the voice of God. In this mixture you may see your “natural and actual aristocracy among mankind,” operating among the several powers in legislation, and producing the most happy effects. But the son of an excellent man may never inherit the great qualities of his father; this is a common observation, and there are many instances of its truth. Should we not, therefore, conclude that hereditary nobility is a solecism in government? Their lordships’ sons or grandsons may be destitute of the faintest feelings of honor or honesty, and yet retain an essential share in the government, by right of inheritance from ancestors, who may have been the minions of ministers, the favorites of mistresses, or men of real and distinguished merit. The same may be said of hereditary kings. Their successors may also become so degenerated and corrupt, as to have neither inclination nor capacity to know the extent and limits of their own powers, nor, consequently, those of others. Such kind of political beings, nobles or kings, possessing hereditary right to essential shares in an equipoised government, are very unfit persons to hold the scales. Having no just conception of the principles of the government, nor of the part which they and their copartners bear in the administration, they run a wild career, destroy the checks and balances, by interfering in each other’s departments, till the nation is involved in confusion, and reduced to the danger at least of bloodshed, to remove a tyranny which may ensue. Much safer is it, and much more does it tend to promote the welfare and happiness of society, to fill up the offices of government after the mode prescribed in the American constitutions, by frequent elections of the people. They may, indeed, be deceived in their choice. They sometimes are. But the evil is not incurable; the remedy is always near; they will feel their mistakes and correct them.
I am very willing to agree with you, in thinking that improvements in knowledge and benevolence receive much assistance from the principles and systems of good government. But is it not as true that, without knowledge and benevolence, men would neither have been capable nor disposed to search for the principles or form the system? Should we not, my friend, bear a grateful remembrance of our pious and benevolent ancestors, who early laid plans of education? by which means, wisdom, knowledge, and virtue have been generally diffused among the body of the people, and they have been enabled to form and establish a civil constitution, calculated for the preservation of their rights and liberties. This constitution was evidently founded in the expectation of the further progress and extraordinary degrees of virtue. It enjoins the encouragement of all seminaries of literature, which are the nurseries of virtue, depending upon these for the support of government, rather than titles, splendor, or force. Mr. Hume may call this a “chimerical project.” I am far from thinking the people can be deceived, by urging upon them a dependence on the more general prevalence of knowledge and virtue. It is one of the most essential means of further, and still further improvements in society, and of correcting and amending moral sentiments and habits and political institutions; till, “by human means,” directed by Divine influence, men shall be prepared for that “happy and holy state,” when “the Messiah is to reign.”
“It is a fixed principle that all good government is, and must be republican.” You have my hearty concurrence; and I believe we are well enough acquainted with each other’s ideas to understand what we respectively mean when we “use the word with approbation.” The body of the people in this country are not so ignorant as those in England were in the time of the interregnum parliament. They are better educated; they will not easily be prevailed upon to believe that “a republican is as unamiable as a witch, a blasphemer, a rebel, or a tyrant.” They are charmed with their own forms of government, in which are admitted a mixture of powers to check the human passions and control them from rushing into exorbitances. So well assured are they that their liberties are best secured by their own frequent and free election of fit persons to be the essential sharers in the administration of their government, and that this form of government is truly republican; that the body of the people will not be persuaded nor compelled to “renounce, detest, and execrate” the very word republican “as the English do.” Their education has “confirmed them in the opinion of the necessity of preserving and strengthening the dikes against the ocean, its tides and storms;” and I think they have made more safe and more durable dikes than the English have done.
We agree in the utility of universal education, but “will nations agree in it as fully and extensively as we do?” Why should they not? It would not be fair to conclude that, because they have not yet been disposed to agree in it, they never will. It is allowed that the present age is more enlightened than former ones. Freedom of inquiry is certainly more encouraged; the feelings of humanity have softened the heart; the true principles of civil and religious liberty are better understood; tyranny in all its shapes is more detested; and bigotry, if not still blind, must be mortified to see that she is despised. Such an age may afford at least a flattering expectation that nations, as well as individuals, will view the utility of universal education in so strong a light, as to induce sufficient national patronage and support. Future ages will probably be more enlightened than this.
The love of liberty is interwoven in the soul of man. “So it is in that of a wolf.” However irrational, ungenerous, and unsocial the love of liberty may be in a rude savage, he is capable of being enlightened by experience, reflection, education, and civil and political institutions. But the nature of the wolf is, and ever will be, confined to running in the forest to satisfy his hunger and his brutal appetites; the dog is inclined, in a very easy way, to seek his living, and fattens his sides from what comes from his master’s kitchen. The comparison of La Fontaine is, in my opinion, ungenerous, unnatural, and unjust.
Among the numbers of men, my friend, are to be found not only those who have “preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer, to liberty;” but others, who have eagerly sought after thrones and sceptres, hereditary shares in sovereignty, riches and splendor, titles, stars, garters, crosses, eagles, and many other childish playthings, at the expense of real nobility, without one thought or care for the liberty and happiness of the rest of mankind.
“The people, who have no property, feel the power of governing by a majority, and ever attack those who have property.” “The injured men of property recur to finesse, trick, and stratagem to outwit them.” True. These may proceed from a lust of domination in some of both parties. Be this as it may, it has been known that such deceitful tricks have been practised by some of the rich upon their unsuspecting fellow-citizens, to turn the determination of questions so as to answer their own selfish purposes. To plunder or filch the rights of men, are crimes equally immoral and nefarious, though committed in different manners. Neither of them is confined to the rich or the poor; they are too common among both. The lords, as well as the commons, of Great Britain, by continued large majorities, endeavored by finesse, tricks, and stratagems, as well as threats, to prevail on the American colonies to surrender their liberty and property to their disposal. These failing, they attempted to plunder our rights by force of arms. We feared their arts more than their arms. Did the members of that hereditary house of lords, who constituted those repeated majorities, then possess the spirit of nobility? Not so, I think. That spirit resided in the illustrious minorities in both houses.
But, “by nobles,” who have prevented “one hideous despotism, as horrid as that of Turkey, from falling to the lot of every nation of Europe,” you mean, “not peculiarly an hereditary nobility, or any particular modification, but the natural and actual aristocracy among mankind;” the existence of which I am not disposed to deny. Where is this aristocracy found? Among men of all ranks and conditions. The cottager may beget a wise son; the noble, a fool. The one is capable of great improvement; the other, not. Education is within the power of men and societies of men. Wise and judicious modes of education, patronized and supported by communities, will draw together the sons of the rich and the poor, among whom it makes no distinction; it will cultivate the natural genius, elevate the soul, excite laudable emulation to excel in knowledge, piety, and benevolence; and, finally, it will reward its patrons and benefactors, by shedding its benign influence on the public mind. Education inures men to thinking and reflection, to reasoning and demonstration. It discovers to them the moral and religious duties they owe to God, their country, and to all mankind. Even savages might, by the means of education, be instructed to frame the best civil and political institutions, with as much skill and ingenuity as they now shape their arrows. Education leads youth to “the study of human nature, society, and universal history,” from whence they may “draw all the principles” of political architecture which ought to be regarded. All men are “interested in the truth.” Education, by showing them “the end of all its consequences,” would induce at least the greatest numbers to enlist on its side. The man of good understanding, who has been well-educated, and improves these advantages, as far as his circumstances will allow, in promoting the happiness of mankind, in my opinion, and I am inclined to think in yours, is indeed “well-born.”
It may be “puerile and unworthy of statesmen” to declaim against family pride; but there is, and always has been, such a ridiculous kind of vanity among men. “Statesmen know the evil and danger is too serious to be sported with.” I am content they should be put into one hole, as you propose; but I have some fears that your watchmen on each side will not well agree. When a man can recollect the virtues of his ancestors, he certainly has abundantly more solid satisfaction than another who boasts that he sprang from those who were rich or noble, but never discovers the least degree of virtue or true worth of any kind. “Family popularity,” if I mistake not, has its source in family pride. It is, by all means, sought after, that homage may be paid to the name of the title or estate, to supply the want in the possessor of any great or good quality whatsoever. There are individuals among men, who study the art of making themselves popular, for the purpose of getting into places of honor and emoluments, and, by these means, of gratifying hereafter the noble passion, “family pride.” Others are so enchanted with the music of the sound, that they conceive it to be supreme felicity. This is, indeed, vanity of vanities! and if such deluded men ever come to their senses, they will find it to be vexation of spirit. When they reflect on their own folly and injustice, in having swallowed the breath of applause with avidity and great delight, for merit which they are conscious they never had; and that many, who have been the loudest in sounding their praises, had nothing in view but their own private and selfish interests, it will excite in them the feelings of shame, remorse, and self-contempt. The truly virtuous man and real patriot is satisfied with the approbation of the wise and discerning; he rejoices in the contemplation of the purity of his own intentions, and waits in humble hope for the plaudit of his final judge.
I shall not venture again to trespass on the benevolence of our confidential friend. You will not be sorry. It will afford you relief; for, in common civility, you must be at the trouble of reading one’s epistles. I hope there will be a time when we may have “sweet communion together.” In the interim, let me not lose the benefit of your valuable letters. Adieu.
Believe me, your sincere friend,
Samuel Adams.
The Vice-President of the United States.
THREE LETTERS TO ROGER SHERMAN, ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
I.
Richmond Hill, (New York), 17 July, 1789.
Dear Sir,—
I read over, with pleasure, your observations on the new federal constitution, and am glad to find an opportunity to communicate to you my opinion of some parts of them. It is by a free and amicable intercourse of sentiments, that the friends of our country may hope for such a unanimity of opinion and such a concert of exertions, as may sooner or later produce the blessings of good government.
You say, “it is by some objected that the executive is blended with the legislature, and that those powers ought to be entirely distinct and unconnected. But is not that a gross error in politics? The united wisdom and various interests of a nation should be combined in framing the laws by which all are to be governed and protected, though it should not be convenient to have them executed by the whole legislature. The supreme executive in Great Britain is one branch of the legislature, and has a negative on all the laws; perhaps that is an extreme not to be imitated by a republic; but the negative vested in the president by the new constitution on the acts of congress, and the consequent revision, may be very useful to prevent laws being passed without mature deliberation, and to preserve stability in the administration of government; and the concurrence of the senate in the appointment to office will strengthen the hands of the executive, and secure the confidence of the people much better than a select council, and will be less expensive.”
Is it, then, “an extreme not to be imitated by a republic,” to make the supreme executive a branch of the legislature, and give it a negative on all the laws? If you please, we will examine this position, and see whether it is well founded. In the first place, what is your definition of a republic? Mine is this: A government whose sovereignty is vested in more than one person. Governments are divided into despotisms, monarchies, and republics. A despotism is a government in which the three divisions of power, the legislative, executive and judicial, are all vested in one man. A monarchy is a government where the legislative and executive are vested in one man, but the judicial in other men. In all governments the sovereignty is vested in that man or body of men who have the legislative power. In despotisms and monarchies, therefore, the legislative authority being in one man, the sovereignty is in one man. In republics, as the sovereignty, that is, the legislative, is always vested in more than one, it may be vested in as many more as you please. In the United States it might be vested in two persons, or in three millions, or in any other intermediate number; and in every such supposable case the government would be a republic. In conformity to these ideas, republics have been divided into three species, monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical republics. England is a republic, a monarchical republic it is true, but a republic still; because the sovereignty, which is the legislative power, is vested in more than one man; it is equally divided, indeed, between the one, the few, and the many, or in other words, between the natural division of mankind in society,—the monarchical, the aristocratical, and democratical. It is essential to a monarchical republic, that the supreme executive should be a branch of the legislature, and have a negative on all the laws. I say essential, because if monarchy were not an essential part of the sovereignty, the government would not be a monarchical republic. Your position is therefore clearly and certainly an error, because the practice of Great Britain in making the supreme executive a branch of the legislature, and giving it a negative on all the laws, must be imitated by every monarchical republic.
I will pause here, if you please; but if you will give me leave, I will write another letter or two upon this subject. Meantime I am, with unalterable friendship, yours.
II.
Dear Sir,—
In my letter of yesterday I think it was demonstrated that the English government is a republic, and that the regal negative upon the laws is essential to that republic. Because, without it, that government would not be what it is, a monarchical republic; and, consequently, could not preserve the balance of power between the executive and legislative powers, nor that other balance which is in the legislature,—between the one, the few, and the many; in which two balances the excellence of that form of government must consist.
Let us now inquire, whether the new constitution of the United States is or is not a monarchical republic, like that of Great Britain. The monarchical and the aristocratical power in our constitution, it is true, are not hereditary; but this makes no difference in the nature of the power, in the nature of the balance, or in the name of the species of government. It would make no difference in the power of a judge or justice, or general or admiral, whether his commission were for life or years. His authority during the time it lasted, would be the same whether it were for one year or twenty, or for life, or descendible to his eldest son. The people, the nation, in whom all power resides originally, may delegate their power for one year or for ten years; for years, or for life; or may delegate it in fee simple or fee tail, if I may so express myself; or during good behavior, or at will, or till further orders.
A nation might unanimously create a dictator or a despot, for one year or more, or for life, or for perpetuity with hereditary descent. In such a case, the dictator for one year would as really be a dictator for the time his power lasted, as the other would be whose power was perpetual and descendible. A nation in the same manner might create a simple monarchy for years, life, or perpetuity, and in either case the creature would be equally a simple monarch during the continuance of his power. So the people of England might create king, lords, and commons, for a year, or for several years, or for life, and in any of these cases, their government would be a monarchical republic, or, if you will, a limited monarchy, during its continuance, as much as it is now, when the king and nobles are hereditary. They might make their house of commons hereditary too. What the consequence of this would be it is easy to foresee; but it would not in the first moment make any change in the legal power, nor in the name of the government.
Let us now consider what our constitution is, and see whether any other name can with propriety be given it, than that of a monarchical republic, or if you will, a limited monarchy. The duration of our president is neither perpetual nor for life; it is only for four years; but his power during those four years is much greater than that of an avoyer, a consul, a podestà, a doge, a stadtholder; nay, than a king of Poland; nay, than a king of Sparta. I know of no first magistrate in any republican government, excepting England and Neuchatel, who possesses a constitutional dignity, authority, and power comparable to his. The power of sending and receiving ambassadors, of raising and commanding armies and navies, of nominating and appointing and commissioning all officers, of managing the treasures, the internal and external affairs of the nation; nay, the whole executive power, coextensive with the legislative power, is vested in him, and he has the right, and his is the duty, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. These rights and duties, these prerogatives and dignities, are so transcendent that they must naturally and necessarily excite in the nation all the jealousy, envy, fears, apprehensions, and opposition, that are so constantly observed in England against the crown.
That these powers are necessary, I readily admit. That the laws cannot be executed without them; that the lives, liberties, properties and characters of the citizens cannot be secure without their protection, is most clear. But it is equally certain, I think, that they ought to have been still greater, or much less. The limitations upon them in the cases of war, treaties, and appointments to office, and especially the limitation on the president’s independence as a branch of the legislative, will be the destruction of this constitution, and involve us in anarchy, if not amended. I shall pass over all particulars for the present, except the last; because that is now the point in dispute between you and me. Longitude, and the philosopher’s stone, have not been sought with more earnestness by philosophers than a guardian of the laws has been studied by legislators from Plato to Montesquieu; but every project has been found to be no better than committing the lamb to the custody of the wolf, except that one which is called a balance of power. A simple sovereignty in one, a few, or many, has no balance, and therefore no laws. A divided sovereignty without a balance, or in other words, where the division is unequal, is always at war, and consequently has no laws. In our constitution the sovereignty,—that is, the legislative power,—is divided into three branches. The house and senate are equal, but the third branch, though essential, is not equal. The president must pass judgment upon every law; but in some cases his judgment may be overruled. These cases will be such as attack his constitutional power; it is, therefore, certain he has not equal power to defend himself, or the constitution, or the judicial power, as the senate and house have.
Power naturally grows. Why? Because human passions are insatiable. But that power alone can grow which already is too great; that which is unchecked; that which has no equal power to control it. The legislative power, in our constitution, is greater than the executive; it will, therefore, encroach, because both aristocratical and democratical passions are insatiable. The legislative power will increase, the executive will diminish. In the legislature, the monarchical power is not equal either to the aristocratical or democratical; it will, therefore, decrease, while the other will increase. Indeed, I think the aristocratical power is greater than either the monarchical or democratical. That will, therefore, swallow up the other two.
In my letter of yesterday, I think it was proved, that a republic might make the supreme executive an integral part of the legislature. In this, it is equally demonstrated, as I think, that our constitution ought to be amended by a decisive adoption of that expedient. If you do not forbid me, I shall write to you again.
III.
Dear Sir,—
There is a sense and degree in which the executive, in our constitution, is blended with the legislature. The president has the power of suspending a law; of giving the two houses an opportunity to pause, to think, to collect themselves, to reconsider a rash step of a majority. He has a right to urge all his reasons against it, by speech or message; which, becoming public, is an appeal to the nation. But the rational objection here is, not that the executive is blended with the legislature, but that it is not enough blended; that it is not incorporated with it, and made an essential part of it. If it were an integral part of it, it might negative a law without much noise, speculation, or confusion among the people. But as it now stands, I beg you to consider it is almost impossible, that a president should ever have the courage to make use of his partial negative. What a situation would a president be in to maintain a controversy against a majority of both houses before a tribunal of the public? To put a stop to a law that more than half the senate and house, and consequently, we may suppose more than half the nation, have set their hearts upon? It is, moreover, possible, that more than two thirds of the nation, the senate, and house, may, in times of calamity, distress, misfortune, and ill success of the measures of government, from the momentary passion and enthusiasm, demand a law which will wholly subvert the constitution. The constitution of Athens was overturned in such a manner by Aristides himself. The constitution should guard against a possibility of its subversion; but we may take stronger ground, and assert that it is probable such cases will happen, and that the constitution will, in fact, be subverted in this way. Nay, I go further, and say, that from the constitution of human nature, and the constant course of human affairs, it is certain that our constitution will be subverted, if not amended, and that in a very short time, merely for want of a decisive negative in the executive.
There is another sense and another degree in which the executive is blended with the legislature, which is liable to great and just objection; which excites alarms, jealousies, and apprehensions, in a very great degree. I mean, 1st, the negative of the senate upon appointments to office; 2d. the negative of the senate upon treaties; and 3d. the negative of the two houses upon war. I shall confine myself, at present, to the first. The negative of the senate upon appointments is liable to the following objections:—
1. It takes away, or, at least, it lessens the responsibility of the executive. Our constitution obliges me to say, that it lessens the responsibility of the president. The blame of an injudicious, weak, or wicked appointment, is shared so much between him and the senate, that his part of it will be too small. Who can censure him, without censuring the senate, and the legislatures who appoint them? All their friends will be interested to vindicate the president, in order to screen them from censure. Besides, if an impeachment against an officer is brought before them, are they not interested to acquit him, lest some part of the odium of his guilt should fall upon them, who advised to his appointment?
2. It turns the minds and attention of the people to the senate, a branch of the legislature, in executive matters. It interests another branch of the legislature in the management of the executive. It divides the people between the executive and the senate; whereas, all the people ought to be united to watch the executive, to oppose its encroachments, and resist its ambition. Senators and representatives, and their constituents, in short, the aristocratical and democratical divisions of society ought to be united on all occasions to oppose the executive or the monarchical branch, when it attempts to overleap its limits. But how can this union be effected, when the aristocratical branch has pledged its reputation to the executive, by consenting to an appointment?
3. It has a natural tendency to excite ambition in the senate. An active, ardent spirit, who is rich and able, and has a great reputation and influence, will be solicited by candidates for office. Not to introduce the idea of bribery, because, though it certainly would force itself in, in other countries, and will probably here, when we grow populous and rich, it is not yet to be dreaded, I hope, ambition must come in already. A senator of great influence will be naturally ambitious and desirous of increasing his influence. Will he not be under a temptation to use his influence with the president as well as his brother senators, to appoint persons to office in the several states, who will exert themselves in elections, to get out his enemies or opposers, both in senate and house of representatives, and to get in his friends, perhaps his instruments? Suppose a senator to aim at the treasury office for himself, his brother, father, or son. Suppose him to aim at the president’s chair, or vice-president’s, at the next election, or at the office of war, foreign, or domestic affairs. Will he not naturally be tempted to make use of his whole patronage, his whole influence, in advising to appointments, both with president and senators, to get such persons nominated as will exert themselves in elections of president, vice-president, senators, and house of representatives, to increase his interest and promote his views? In this point of view, I am very apprehensive that this defect in our constitution will have an unhappy tendency to introduce corruption of the grossest kinds, both of ambition and avarice, into all our elections, and this will be the worst of poisons to our constitution. It will not only destroy the present form of government, but render it almost impossible to substitute in its place any free government, even a better limited-monarchy, or any other than a despotism or a simple monarchy.
4. To avoid the evil under the last head, it will be in danger of dividing the continent into two or three nations, a case that presents no prospect but of perpetual war.
5. This negative on appointments is in danger of involving the senate in reproach, censure, obloquy, and suspicion, without doing any good. Will the senate use their negative or not? If not, why should they have it? Many will censure them for not using it; many will ridicule them, and call them servile, &c. If they do use it, the very first instance of it will expose the senators to the resentment of not only the disappointed candidate and all his friends, but of the president and all his friends, and these will be most of the officers of government, through the nation.
6. We shall very soon have parties formed; a court and country party, and these parties will have names given them. One party in the house of representatives will support the president and his measures and ministers; the other will oppose them. A similar party will be in the senate; these parties will study with all their arts, perhaps with intrigue, perhaps with corruption, at every election to increase their own friends and diminish their opposers. Suppose such parties formed in the senate, and then consider what factious divisions we shall have there upon every nomination.
7. The senate have not time. The convention and Indian treaties.
You are of opinion “that the concurrence of the senate in the appointments to office, will strengthen the hands of the executive, and secure the confidence of the people, much better than a select council, and will be less expensive.”
But in every one of these ideas, I have the misfortune to differ from you.
It will weaken the hands of the executive, by lessening the obligation, gratitude, and attachment of the candidate to the president, by dividing his attachment between the executive and legislative, which are natural enemies. Officers of government, instead of having a single eye and undivided attachment to the executive branch, as they ought to have, consistent with law and the constitution, will be constantly tempted to be factious with their factious patrons in the senate. The president’s own officers, in a thousand instances, will oppose his just and constitutional exertions, and screen themselves under the wings of their patrons and party in the legislature. Nor will it secure the confidence of the people. The people will have more confidence in the executive, in executive matters, than in the senate. The people will be constantly jealous of factious schemes in the senators to unduly influence the executive, to serve each other’s private views. The people will also be jealous that the influence of the senate will be employed to conceal, connive at, and defend guilt in executive officers, instead of being a guard and watch upon them, and a terror to them. A council, selected by the president himself, at his pleasure, from among the senators, representatives, and nation at large, would be purely responsible. In that case, the senate would be a terror to privy counsellors; its honor would never be pledged to support any measure or instrument of the executive beyond justice, law, and the constitution. Nor would a privy council be more expensive. The whole senate must now deliberate on every appointment, and if they ever find time for it, you will find that a great deal of time will be required and consumed in this service. Then, the president might have a constant executive council; now, he has none.
I said, under the seventh head, that the senate would not have time. You will find that the whole business of this government will be infinitely delayed by this negative of the senate on treaties and appointments. Indian treaties and consular conventions have been already waiting for months, and the senate have not been able to find a moment of time to attend to them; and this evil must constantly increase. So that the senate must be constantly sitting, and must be paid as long as they sit. . .
But I have tired your patience. Is there any truth in these broken hints and crude surmises, or not? To me they appear well founded and very important.
I am, with usual affection, yours,
John Adams.
ROGER SHERMAN TO JOHN ADAMS.
The first letter of Roger Sherman, which occasioned this correspondence, has not been found. But his replies, giving the views entertained on his side, of the disputed provisions of the constitution, are sufficiently interesting to merit insertion.
I.
New York, 20 July, 1789.
Sir,—
I was honored with your letters of the seventeenth and eighteenth instant, and am much obliged to you for the observations they contain.
The subject of government is an important one, and necessary to be well understood by the citizens, and especially by the legislators of these states. I shall be happy to receive further light on the subject, and to have any errors that I may have entertained corrected.
I find that writers on government differ in their definition of a republic. Entick’s Dictionary defines it,—“A commonwealth without a king.” I find you do not agree to the negative part of his definition. What I meant by it was, a government under the authority of the people, consisting of legislative, executive, and judiciary powers; the legislative powers vested in an assembly, consisting of one or more branches, who, together with the executive, are appointed by the people, and dependent on them for continuance, by periodical elections, agreeably to an established constitution; and that what especially denominates it a republic is its dependence on the public or people at large, without any hereditary powers. But it is not of so much importance by what appellation the government is distinguished, as to have it well constituted to secure the rights, and advance the happiness of the community.
I fully agree with you, sir, that it is optional with the people of a state to establish any form of government they please; to vest the powers in one, a few, or many, and for a limited or unlimited time; and the individuals of the state will be bound to yield obedience to such government while it continues; but I am also of opinion, that they may alter their frame of government when they please, any former act of theirs, however explicit, to the contrary notwithstanding.
But what I principally have in view, is to submit to your consideration the reasons that have inclined me to think that the qualified negative given to the executive by our constitution is better than an absolute negative. In Great Britain, where there are the rights of the nobility as well as the rights of the common people to support, it may be necessary that the crown should have a complete negative to preserve the balance; but in a republic like ours, wherein is no higher rank than that of common citizens, unless distinguished by appointments to office, what occasion can there be for such a balance? It is true that some men in every society have natural and acquired abilities superior to others, and greater wealth. Yet these give them no legal claim to offices in preference to others, but will doubtless give them some degree of influence, and justly, when they are men of integrity; and may procure them appointments to places of trust in the government. Yet, they having only the same common rights with the other citizens, what competition of interests can there be to require a balance? Besides, while the real estates are divisible among all the children, or other kindred in equal degree, and entails are not admitted, it will operate as an agrarian law, and the influence arising from great estates in a few hands or families will not exist to such a degree of extent or duration as to form a system, or have any great effect.
In order to trace moral effects to their causes, and vice versa, it is necessary to attend to principles as they operate on men’s minds. Can it be expected that a chief magistrate of a free and enlightened people, on whom he depends for his election and continuance in office, would give his negative to a law passed by the other two branches of the legislature, if he had power? But the qualified negative given to the executive by our constitution, which is only to produce a revision, will probably be exercised on proper occasions; and the legislature have the benefit of the president’s reasons in their further deliberations on the subject, and if a sufficient number of the members of either house should be convinced by them to put a negative upon the bill, it would add weight to the president’s opinion, and render it more satisfactory to the people. But if two thirds of the members of each house, after considering the reasons offered by the President, should adhere to their former opinion, will not that be the most safe foundation to rest the decision upon? On the whole, it appears to me that the power of a complete negative, if given, would be a dormant and useless one, and that the provision in the constitution is calculated to operate with proper weight, and will produce beneficial effects.
The negative vested in the crown of Great Britain has never been exercised since the Revolution, and the great influence of the crown in the legislature of that nation is derived from another source, that of appointment to all offices of honor and profit, which has rendered the power of the crown nearly absolute; so that the nation is in fact governed by the cabinet council, who are the creatures of the crown. The consent of parliament is necessary to give sanction to their measures, and this they easily obtain by the influence aforesaid. If they should carry their points so far as directly to affect personal liberty or private property, the people would be alarmed and oppose their progress; but this forms no part of their system, the principal object of which is revenue, which they have carried to an enormous height. Wherever the chief magistrate may appoint to offices without control, his government may become absolute, or at least aggressive; therefore the concurrence of the senate is made requisite by our constitution.
I have not time or room to add or apologize.
II.
I received your letter of the twentieth instant. I had in mine, of the same date, communicated to you my ideas on that part of the constitution, limiting the president’s power of negativing the acts of the legislature; and just hinted some thoughts on the propriety of the provision made for the appointment to offices, which I esteem to be a power nearly as important as legislation.
If that was vested in the president alone, he might, were it not for his periodical election by the people, render himself despotic. It was a saying of one of the kings of England, that while the king could appoint the bishops and judges, he might have what religion and law he pleased.
It appears to me the senate is the most important branch in the government, for aiding and supporting the executive, securing the rights of the individual states, the government of the United States, and the liberties of the people. The executive magistrate is to execute the laws. The senate, being a branch of the legislature, will naturally incline to have them duly executed, and, therefore, will advise to such appointments as will best attain that end. From the knowledge of the people in the several states, they can give the best information as to who are qualified for office; and though they will, as you justly observe, in some degree lessen his responsibility, yet their advice may enable him to make such judicious appointments, as to render responsibility less necessary. The senators being eligible by the legislatures of the several states, and dependent on them for reëlection, will be vigilant in supporting their rights against infringement by the legislature or executive of the United States; and the government of the Union being federal, and instituted by the several states for the advancement of their interests, they may be considered as so many pillars to support it, and, by the exercise of the state governments, peace and good order may be preserved in places most remote from the seat of the federal government, as well as at the centre. And the municipal and federal rights of the people at large will be regarded by the senate, they being elected by the immediate representatives of the people, and their rights will be best secured by a due execution of the laws. What temptation can the senate be under to partiality in the trial of officers of whom they had a voice in the appointment? Can they be disposed to favor a person who has violated his trust and their confidence?
The other evils you mention, that may result from this power, appear to me but barely possible. The senators will doubtless be in general some of the most respectable citizens in the states for wisdom and probity, superior to mean and unworthy conduct, and instead of undue influence, to procure appointments for themselves or their friends, they will consider that a fair and upright conduct will have the best tendency to preserve the confidence of the people and of the states. They will be disposed to be diffident in recommending their friends and kindred, lest they should be suspected of partiality; and the other members will feel the same kind of reluctance, lest they should be thought unduly to favor a person, because related to a member of their body; so that their friends and relations would not stand so good a chance for appointment to offices, according to their merit, as others.
The senate is a convenient body to advise the president, from the smallness of its numbers. And I think the laws would be better framed and more duly administered, if the executive and judiciary officers were in general members of the legislature, in case there should be no interference as to the time of attending to their several duties. This I have learned by experience in the government in which I live, and by observation of others differently constituted. I see no principles in our constitution that have any tendency to aristocracy, which, if I understand the term, is a government by nobles, independent of the people, which cannot take place, in either respect, without a total subversion of the constitution. As both branches of Congress are eligible from the citizens at large, and wealth is not a requisite qualification, both will commonly be composed of members of similar circumstances in life. And I see no reason why the several branches of the government should not maintain the most perfect harmony, their powers being all directed to one end, the advancement of the public good.
If the president alone was vested with the power of appointing all officers, and was left to select a council for himself, he would be liable to be deceived by flatterers and pretenders to patriotism, who would have no motive but their own emolument. They would wish to extend the powers of the executive to increase their own importance; and, however upright he might be in his intentions, there would be great danger of his being misled, even to the subversion of the constitution, or, at least, to introduce such evils as to interrupt the harmony of the government, and deprive him of the confidence of the people.
But I have said enough upon these speculative points, which nothing but experience can reduce to a certainty.
I am, with great respect,
Your obliged humble servant,
Roger Sherman.
LETTERS TO JOHN TAYLOR, OF CAROLINE, VIRGINIA, IN REPLY TO HIS STRICTURES ON SOME PARTS OF THE DEFENCE OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS.
J. A.
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
The treatises on the principles of Government, written by Mr. Adams, appeared at a time of great popular agitation in Europe and the United States, and furnished ready materials for use in the political contentions of the day. They were immediately attacked in the American newspapers and in pamphlets, as intended to subvert, instead of sustaining the republican forms already established, and to introduce the English system of hereditary orders,—a monarch and a house of lords. Although there is no just foundation for this charge, yet there can be no doubt that the tendency of the reasoning was all of it calculated to resist the current setting at the moment with great force towards unlimited democracy. The French revolution first roused this power, nor did it seriously decline, until the popular excesses to which it led awakened the minds of men to a sense of the dangers of the one, not less than of the other extreme. The writings of Mr. Adams, which had been directed to the same end, were then tacitly admitted to have force in them, even by many whose feelings and sympathies led them to regret that it was not otherwise. The popular impression had been made, from his opposition to the new theory of liberty, that he favored the old one of absolutism, and it became fixed by the circumstances attending the struggle at the close of the century, in which Mr. Adams’s position identified him with the success or failure of that party in the country supposed to hold the only conservative opinions.
It was perfectly natural, that, in violent party times, the sentiments and the language of the author, seldom guardedly expressed, should be subjected to all sorts of perversion and misrepresentation. Though fully sensible of this, and keenly alive to it, it does not appear that he ever took any steps to correct the impressions sought to be produced in the public mind. It was not until the publication, in 1814, by John Taylor of Caroline, Virginia, of an elaborate volume of six hundred and fifty pages, entitled “An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States,” and containing a running Commentary upon the Defence, that he was roused to make any reply. Mr. Taylor had been in the senate at the time he presided over that body; had subsequently led the opposition in the Virginia House of Delegates to his administration, by moving the celebrated resolutions of 1798, drawn up by Mr. Madison; and had always shown himself a conscientious and manly, though an earnest opponent of his theories of government and system of policy. It was Mr. Taylor’s book, then, though he frankly admitted his own disbelief that anybody ever would read it through, that Mr. Adams selected as the medium of a general reply to the strictures which had been made upon his own. Mr. Taylor’s work, the result of the reflections of twenty years, is marked with the characteristics of the Virginia school to which he belonged; the tendency to metaphysical niceties of speculation, the absence of a broad, logical grasp of statesmanship, and the love for technical distinctions without the corrective of extensive generalization. Occasionally he deals forcibly with a single proposition; but his conclusions are seldom the logical sequence of his premises. Especially does he fail as a controversialist, from his loose manner of performing an obligation of the first necessity to an adversary, the full and fair exposition of each doctrine which he means to contest. That this error proceeds from no evil intention, is clear enough from the perfectly unexceptionable temper in which he conducts his cause. It seems rather to be attributed to a want of early moral and intellectual discipline, the only broad foundation of accuracy of reasoning in later life. This defect makes itself frequently apparent in his ascription to Mr. Adams of propositions which are rather the result of violent inference than of his language. The object of the reply seems to be to expose this, which it does with success.
These letters appear to have been sent to Mr. Taylor, as they were written. They were copied, not into the general letter-book, but upon separate sheets of paper and stitched together as one work. Either they terminated abruptly, or the copy was not completed. The former is the most probable, as the writer shows signs of fatigue towards the end. Evidently intended as his last explanations of his meaning in the most disputed portions of his system, they seem necessary to the completeness of the present collection, and are therefore inserted. At first blush, it would not seem difficult for any one to comprehend the distinction between the equality of mankind in natural and moral rights at the moment of birth, and the inequality of condition, apart from the agency of positive law, always developed, wherever any advanced form of civilization is attained, and in some regular proportion to the degree of advancement. There can be little doubt that this inequality of external condition is much more marked in the old states now than it was at the beginning of the Revolution, notwithstanding the general acknowledgment of the equality of natural rights which was procured through that struggle. Yet the reluctance to admit this distinction as sound seems to have been the cause of much of the misconception of the author’s meaning. It must be conceded that he shares, perhaps, too little, in that hopefulness in the rapid improvement of the human race which makes so striking and so agreeable a feature in the speculations of writers of the present age. He deals with the realities of life as he finds them depicted in history and in his own experience. Yet, it is to be observed, that the latest advocates of speculative democracy, assuming them to be what he describes them, seek refuge from them in the doctrines of socialism, the only resource which would seem to be left open. And it yet remains to be seen, how far these doctrines will recommend themselves to the judgment of the nations in the nineteenth century.
The relations between Mr. Taylor and the author seem rather to have become more intimate than to have relaxed by reason of this correspondence, until they terminated in the remarkable letter of the eighth of April, 1824, which will be found in its place in the general correspondence.
LETTERS.
TO JOHN TAYLOR.
I.
Quincy, 15 April, 1814.
Sir,—
I have received your Inquiry in a large volume neatly bound. Though I have not read it in course, yet, upon an application to it of the Sortes Virgiliancæ, scarce a page has been found in which my name is not mentioned, and some public sentiment or expression of mine examined. Revived as these subjects are, in this manner, in the recollection of the public, after an oblivion of so many years, by a gentleman of your high rank, ample fortune, learned education, and powerful connections, I flatter myself it will not be thought improper in me to solicit your attention to a few explanations and justifications of a book that has been misunderstood, misrepresented, and abused, more than any other, except the Bible, that I have ever read.
In the first words of the first section, you say, “Mr. Adams’s political system deduces government from a natural fate; the policy of the United States deduces it from moral liberty.”
This sentence, I must acknowledge, passes all my understanding. I know not what is meant by fate, nor what distinction there is, or may be made or conceived, between a natural and artificial, or unnatural fate. Nor do I well know what “moral liberty” signifies. I have read a great deal about the words fate and chance; but though I close my eyes to abstract my meditations, I never could conceive any idea of either. When an action or event happens or occurs without a cause, some say it happens by chance. This is equivalent to saying that chance is no cause at all; it is nothing. Fate, too, is no cause, no agent, no power; it has neither understanding, will, affections, liberty, nor choice; it has no existence; it is not even a figment of imagination; it is a mere invention of a word without a meaning; it is a nonentity; it is nothing. Mr. Adams most certainly never deduced any system from chance or fate, natural, artificial, or unnatural.
Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality; an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. If the substance in which this quality, attribute, adjective, call it what you will, exists, has a moral sense, a conscience, a moral faculty; if it can distinguish between moral good and moral evil, and has power to choose the former and refuse the latter, it can, if it will, choose the evil and reject the good, as we see in experience it very often does.
“Mr. Adams’s system,” and “the policy of the United States,” are drawn from the same sources, deduced from the same principles, wrought into the same frame; indeed, they are the same, and ought never to have been divided or separated; much less set in opposition to each other, as they have been.
That we may more clearly see how these hints apply, certain technical terms must be defined.
1. Despotism. A sovereignty unlimited, that is,—the suprema lex, the summa potestatis in one. This has rarely, if ever, existed but in theory.
2. Monarchy. Sovereignty in one, variously limited.
3. Aristocracy. Sovereignty in a few.
4. Democracy. Sovereignty in the many, that is, in the whole nation, the whole body, assemblage, congregation, or if you are an Episcopalian, you may call it, if you please, church, of the whole people. This sovereignty must, in all cases, be exerted or exercised by the whole people assembled together. This form of government has seldom, if ever, existed but in theory; as rarely, at least, as an unlimited despotism in one individual.
5. The infinite variety of mixed governments are all so many different combinations, modifications, and intermixtures of the second, third, and fourth species or divisions.
Now, every one of these sovereigns possesses intellectual liberty to act for the public good or not. Being men, they have all what Dr. Rush calls a moral faculty; Dr. Hutcheson, a moral sense; and the Bible and the generality of the world, a conscience. They are all, therefore, under moral obligations to do to others as they would have others do to them; to consider themselves born, authorized, empowered for the good of society as well as their own good. Despots, monarchs, aristocrats, democrats, holding such high trusts, are under the most solemn and the most sacred moral obligations, to consider their trusts and their power to be instituted for the benefit and happiness of their nations, not their nations as servants to them or their friends or parties. In other words, to exert all their intellectual liberty to employ all their faculties, talents, and power for the public, general, universal good of their nations, not for their own separate good, or the interest of any party.
In this point of view, there is no difference in forms of government. All of them, and all men concerned in them,—all are under equal moral obligations. The intellectual liberty of aristocracies and democracies can be exerted only by votes, and ascertained only by ayes and noes. The sovereign judgment and will can be determined, known, and declared, only by majorities. This will, this decision, is sometimes determined by a single vote; often by two or three; very rarely by a large majority; scarcely ever by a unanimous suffrage. And from the impossibility of keeping together at all times the same number of voters, the majorities are apt to waver from day to day, and swing like a pendulum from side to side.
Nevertheless, the minorities have, in all cases, the same intellectual liberty, and are under the same moral obligations as the majorities.
In what manner these theoretical, intellectual liberties have been exercised, and these moral obligations fulfilled, by despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats, is obvious enough in history and in experience. They have all in general conducted themselves alike.
But this investigation is not at present before us.
II.
It is unnecessary to discuss the nice distinctions, which follow in the first page of your respectable volume, between mind, body, and morals. The essence and substance of mind and body, of soul and body, of spirit and matter, are wholly withheld as yet from our knowledge; from the penetration of our sharpest faculties; from the keenest of our incision knives, the most amplifying of our microscopes. With some of the attributes or qualities of each and of both we are well acquainted. We cannot pretend to improve the essence of either, till we know it. Mr. Adams has never thought “of limiting the improvements or amelioration” of the properties or qualities of either. The definition of matter is,—a dead, inactive, inert substance. That of spirit is,—a living, active substance, sometimes, if not always, intelligent. Morals are no qualities of matter; nor, as far as we know, of simple spirit or simple intelligence. Morals are attributes of spirits only when those spirits are free as well as intelligent agents, and have consciences or a moral sense, a faculty of discrimination not only between right and wrong, but between good and evil, happiness and misery, pleasure and pain. This freedom of choice and action, united with conscience, necessarily implies a responsibility to a lawgiver and to a law, and has a necessary relation to right and wrong, to happiness and misery.
It is unnecessary for Mr. Adams to allow or disallow the distinctions in this first page to be applicable to his theory. But if he speaks of natural political systems, he certainly comprehends not only all the intellectual and physical powers and qualities of man, but all his moral powers and faculties, all his duties and obligations as a man and a citizen of this world, as well as of the state in which he lives, and every interest, thing, or concern that belongs to him, from his cradle to his grave. This comprehension of all the perfections and imperfections, all the powers and wants of man, is certainly not for the purpose of “circumscribing the powers of mind.” But it is to enlarge them, to give them free scope to run, expand, and be glorified.
If you should speak of a natural system of geography, would you not comprehend the whole globe, and even its relations to the sun, moon, and stars? of astronomy, all that the telescope has discovered? of chemistry or natural history, all that the microscope has found? of architecture, every thing that can make a building commodious, useful, elegant, graceful, and ornamental?
In the second page, Mr. Adams is totally misunderstood or misrepresented. He has never said, written, or thought, “that the human mind is able to circumscribe its own powers.” Nor has he ever asserted or believed that, “man can ascertain his own moral capacity.” Nor has he ever “deduced any consequences from such postulata, or erected any scheme of government” upon them or either of them.
If mankind have not “agreed upon any form of government,” does it follow that there is no natural form of government? and that all forms are equally natural? It might as well be contended that all are equally good, and that the constitution of the Ottoman Empire is as natural, as free, and as good, as that of the United States. If men have not agreed in any system of architecture, will you infer that there are no natural principles of that noble art? If some prefer the Gothic, and others the Grecian models, will you say that both are equally natural, convenient, and elegant? If some prefer the Doric, and others the Corinthian pillars, are the five orders equally beautiful? If “human nature has been perpetually escaping from all forms,” will it be inferred that all forms are equally natural? equal for the preservation of liberty?
There is no necessity of “confronting Mr. Adams’s opinion, that aristocracy is natural, and therefore unavoidable, with the other, that it is artificial or factitious, and therefore avoidable,” because the opinions are both true and perfectly consistent with each other.
By natural aristocracy, in general, may be understood those superiorities of influence in society which grow out of the constitution of human nature. By artificial aristocracy, those inequalities of weight and superiorities of influence which are created and established by civil laws. Terms must be defined before we can reason. By aristocracy, I understand all those men who can command, influence, or procure more than an average of votes; by an aristocrat, every man who can and will influence one man to vote besides himself. Few men will deny that there is a natural aristocracy of virtues and talents in every nation and in every party, in every city and village. Inequalities are a part of the natural history of man.
III.
I believe that none but Helvetius will affirm, that all children are born with equal genius.
None will pretend, that all are born of dispositions exactly alike,—of equal weight; equal strength; equal length; equal delicacy of nerves; equal elasticity of muscles; equal complexions; equal figure, grace, or beauty.
I have seen, in the Hospital of Foundlings, the “Enfans Trouvés,” at Paris, fifty babes in one room;—all under four days old; all in cradles alike; all nursed and attended alike; all dressed alike; all equally neat. I went from one end to the other of the whole row, and attentively observed all their countenances. And I never saw a greater variety, or more striking inequalities, in the streets of Paris or London. Some had every sign of grief, sorrow, and despair; others had joy and gayety in their faces. Some were sinking in the arms of death; others looked as if they might live to fourscore. Some were as ugly and others as beautiful, as children or adults ever are; these were stupid; those sensible. These were all born to equal rights, but to very different fortunes; to very different success and influence in life.
The world would not contain the books, if one should produce all the examples that reading and experience would furnish. One or two permit me to hint.
Will any man say, would Helvetius say, that all men are born equal in strength? Was Hercules no stronger than his neighbors? How many nations, for how many ages, have been governed by his strength, and by the reputation and renown of it by his posterity? If you have lately read Hume, Robertson or the Scottish Chiefs, let me ask you, if Sir William Wallace was no more than equal in strength to the average of Scotchmen? and whether Wallace could have done what he did without that extraordinary strength?
Will Helvetius or Rousseau say that all men and women are born equal in beauty? Will any philosopher say, that beauty has no influence in human society? If he does, let him read the histories of Eve, Judith, Helen, the fair Gabrielle, Diana of Poitiers, Pompadour, Du Barry, Susanna, Abigail, Lady Hamilton, Mrs. Clark, and a million others. Are not despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats, equally liable to be seduced by beauty to confer favors and influence suffrages?
Socrates calls beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, the privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a mute eloquence; Diogenes, the best letter of recommendation; Carneades, a queen without soldiers; Theocritus, a serpent covered with flowers; Bion, a good that does not belong to the possessor, because it is impossible to give ourselves beauty, or to preserve it. Madame du Barry expressed the philosophy of Carneades in more laconic language, when she said, “La véritable royauté, c’est la beauté,”—the genuine royalty is beauty. And she might have said with equal truth, that it is genuine aristocracy; for it has as much influence in one form of government as in any other; and produces aristocracy in the deepest democracy that ever was known or imagined, as infallibly as in any other form of government. What shall we say to all these philosophers, male and female? Is not beauty a privilege granted by nature, according to Plato and to truth, often more influential in society, and even upon laws and government, than stars, garters, crosses, eagles, golden fleeces, or any hereditary titles or other distinctions? The grave elders were not proof against the charms of Susanna. The Grecian sages wondered not at the Trojan war when they saw Helen. Holofernes’s guards, when they saw Judith, said, “one such woman let go would deceive the whole earth.”
Can you believe, Mr. Taylor, that the brother of such a sister, the father of such a daughter, the husband of such a wife, or even the gallant of such a mistress, would have but one vote in your moral republic? Ingenious,—but not historical, philosophical, or political,—learned, classical, poetical Barlow! I mourn over thy life and thy death. Had truth, instead of popularity and party, been thy object, your pamphlet on privileged orders would have been a very different thing!
That all men are born to equal rights is true. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has. This is as indubitable as a moral government in the universe. But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as ever was practised by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French revolution. For honor’s sake, Mr. Taylor, for truth and virtue’s sake, let American philosophers and politicians despise it.
Mr. Adams leaves to Homer and Virgil, to Tacitus and Quintilian, to Mahomet and Calvin, to Edwards and Priestley, or, if you will, to Milton’s angels reasoning high in pandemonium, all their acute speculations about fate, destiny, foreknowledge absolute, necessity, and predestination. He thinks it problematical, whether there is, or ever will be, more than one Being capable of understanding this vast subject. In his principles of legislation, he has nothing to do with these interminable controversies. He considers men as free, moral, and accountable agents; and he takes men as God has made them. And will Mr. Taylor deny, that God has made some men deaf and some blind, or will he affirm that these will infallibly have as much influence in society, and be able to procure as many votes as any who can see and hear?
Honor the day, and believe me no enemy.
IV.
That aristocracies, both ancient and modern, have been “variable and artificial,” as well as natural and unchangeable, Mr. Adams knows as well as Mr. Taylor, and has never denied or doubted. That “they have all proceeded from moral causes,” is not so clear, since many of them appear to proceed from physical causes, many from immoral causes, many from pharisaical, jesuitical, and Machiavelian villany; many from sacerdotal and despotic fraud, and as many as all the rest, from democratical dupery, credulity, adulation, corruption, adoration, superstition, and enthusiasm. If all these cannot be regulated by political laws, and controlled, checked, or balanced by constitutional energies, I am willing Mr. Taylor should say of them what Bishop Burnet said of the hierarchy, or the severest things he can express or imagine.
That nature makes king-bees or queen-bees, I have heard and read. But I never read in any philosopher or political writer, as I remember, that nature makes state-kings and lords of state. Though even this, for aught I know, might be sometimes pretended. I have read of hereditary rights from Adam to Noah; and the divine right of nobility derived from the Dukes of Edom; but those divine rights did not make kings, till holy oil was poured upon their heads from the vial brought down from heaven in her beak, by the Holy Ghost in the person of a dove. If we consult books, Mr. Taylor, we shall find that nonsense, absurdity, and impiety are infinite. Whether “the policy of the United States” has been wisdom or folly, is not the question at present. But it is confidently asserted, without fear of contradiction, that every page and every line Mr. Adams has ever written, was intended to illustrate, to prove, to exhibit, and to demonstrate its wisdom.
The association of “Mr. Adams with Filmer” in the third page, may excite a smile! I give you full credit, Mr. Taylor, for the wit and shrewdness of this remark. It is droll and good-humored. But if ever policy was in diametrical opposition to Filmer, it is that of the United States. If ever writings were opposed to his principles, Mr. Adams’s are so opposed. They are as much so as those of Sidney or Locke.
Mr. Adams thanks Mr. Taylor for proposing in the third page to analyze and ascertain the ideas intended to be expressed by the word “aristocracy.” This is one of those words which have been abused. It has been employed to signify any thing, every thing, and nothing. Mr. Taylor has read Mr. Locke’s chapter “on the abuse of words,” which, though it contains nothing but what daily experience exhibits to all mankind, ought, nevertheless, if he had never written any thing else, to secure him immortal gratitude and renown. Without the learning of Luzac, Vanderkemp, Jefferson, or Parsons, Mr. Adams recollects enough of Greek, to remember that “aristocracy” originally signified “the government of the best men.”
But who are to be judges of the best men? Who is to make the selection of the best men from the second best? and the third? and the fourth? and so on ad infinitum? For good and bad are infinitely divisible, like matter. Ay! there’s the rub! Despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats have, in all ages hit, at times, upon the best men, in the best sense of the word. But, at other times, and much more frequently, they have all chosen the very worst men; the men who have the most devotedly and the most slavishly flattered their vanity, gratified their most extravagant passions, and promoted their selfish and private views. Without searching volumes, Mr. Taylor, I will tell you in a few words what I mean by an aristocrat, and, consequently, what I mean by aristocracy. By an aristocrat, I mean every man who can command or influence two votes; one besides his own.
Take the first hundred men you meet in the streets of a city, or on a turnpike road in the country, and constitute them a democratical republic. In my next, you may have some conjectures of what will appear in your new democracy.
V.
When your new democratical republic meets, you will find half a dozen men of independent fortunes; half a dozen, of more eloquence; half a dozen, with more learning; half a dozen, with eloquence, learning, and fortune.
Let me see. We have now four-and-twenty; to these we may add six more, who will have more art, cunning, and intrigue, than learning, eloquence, or fortune. These will infallibly soon unite with the twenty-four. Thus we make thirty. The remaining seventy are composed of farmers, shopkeepers, merchants, tradesmen, and laborers. Now, if each of these thirty can, by any means, influence one vote besides his own, the whole thirty can carry sixty votes,—a decided and uncontrolled majority of the hundred. These thirty I mean by aristocrats; and they will instantly convert your democracy of one hundred into an aristocracy of thirty.
Take at random, or select with your utmost prudence, one hundred of your most faithful and capable domestics from your own numerous plantations, and make them a democratical republic. You will immediately perceive the same inequalities, and the same democratical republic, in a very few of the first sessions, transformed into an aristocratical republic; as complete and perfect an aristocracy as the senate of Rome, and much more so. Some will be beloved and followed, others hated and avoided by their fellows.
It would be easy to quote Greek and Latin, to produce a hundred authorities to show the original signification of the word aristocracy and its infinite variations and application in the history of ages. But this would be all waste water. Once for all, I give you notice, that whenever I use the word aristocrat, I mean a citizen who can command or govern two votes or more in society, whether by his virtues, his talents, his learning, his loquacity, his taciturnity, his frankness, his reserve, his face, figure, eloquence, grace, air, attitude, movements, wealth, birth, art, address, intrigue, good fellowship, drunkenness, debauchery, fraud, perjury, violence, treachery, pyrrhonism, deism, or atheism; for by every one of these instruments have votes been obtained and will be obtained. You seem to think aristocracy consists altogether in artificial titles, tinsel decorations of stars, garters, ribbons, golden eagles and golden fleeces, crosses and roses and lilies, exclusive privileges, hereditary descents, established by kings or by positive laws of society. No such thing! Aristocracy was, from the beginning, now is, and ever will be, world without end, independent of all these artificial regulations, as really and as efficaciously as with them!
Let me say a word more. Your democratical republic picked in the streets, and your democratical African republic, or your domestic republic, call it which you will, in its first session, will become an aristocratical republic. In the second session it will become an oligarchical republic; because the seventy-four democrats and the twenty-six aristocrats will, by this time, discover that thirteen of the aristocrats can command four votes each; these thirteen will now command the majority, and, consequently, will be sovereign. The thirteen will then be an oligarchy. In the third session, it will be found that among these thirteen oligarchs there are seven, each of whom can command eight votes, equal in all to fifty-six, a decided majority. In the fourth session, it will be found that there are among these seven oligarchs four who can command thirteen votes apiece. The republic then becomes an oligarchy, whose sovereignty is in four individuals. In the fifth session, it will be discovered that two of the four can command six-and-twenty votes each. Then two will have the command of the sovereign oligarchy. In the sixth session, there will be a sharp contention between the two which shall have the command of the fifty-two votes. Here will commence the squabble of Danton and Robespierre, of Julius and Pompey, of Anthony and Augustus, of the white rose and the red rose, of Jefferson and Adams, of Burr and Jefferson, of Clinton and Madison, or, if you will, of Napoleon and Alexander.
This, my dear sir, is the history of mankind, past, present, and to come.
VI.
In the third page of your “Inquiry,” is an assertion which Mr. Adams has a right to regret, as a gross and egregious misrepresentation. He cannot believe it to have been intentional. He imputes it to haste; to ardor of temper; to defect of memory; to any thing rather than design. It is in these words,—“Mr. Adams asserts, ‘that every society naturally produces an order of men, which it is impossible to confine to an equality of rights.’ ” This pretended quotation, marked as it is by inverted commas, is totally and absolutely unfounded. No such expression ever fell from his lips; no such language was ever written by his pen; no such principle was ever approved or credited by his understanding, no such sentiment was ever felt without abhorrence in his heart. On the contrary, he has through life asserted the moral equality of all mankind. His system of government, which is the system of Massachusetts, as well as the system of the United States, which are the same as much as an original and a copy are the same, was calculated and framed for the express purpose of securing to all men equal laws and equal rights. Physical inequalities are proclaimed aloud by God Almighty through all his works. Mr. Adams must have been destitute of senses, not to have perceived them in men from their births to their deaths; and, at the same time, not to have perceived that they were incurable and inevitable, by human wisdom, goodness, or power. All that men can do, is to modify, organize, and arrange the powers of human society, that is to say, the physical strength and force of men, in the best manner to protect, secure, and cherish the moral, which are all the natural rights of mankind.
The French are very fond of the phrase “social order.” The English commonly hear it, or read it with a broad grin. I am not Englishman enough to join in this ridicule. A “social order” there must be, unless we would return to the forests, and assert individual independence in a more absolute sense than Tartars or Arabs, African negroes, or North American Indians, or Samoyedes, or Hottentots have ever conceived.
A beggar said at my father’s house, full seventy years ago, “The world is very unequally divided. But I do not wonder at it, nor think much of it. Because I know, that if it were equally divided to-day, in one month there would be as great odds as ever.” The beggar’s proverb contained as certain and as important truths as any that was ever uttered by the wise men
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