John Adam Business Law Commerce Invention Study Art Poetry Music

John Adams Quotes

Tis impossible to gauge with much Præcision of the true Motives and Qualities of homo Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Noesis therefore of the intellectual and moral Globe is the sole foundation on which a stable construction of Cognition can exist erected.  – Alphabetic character to Jonathan Sewall (Oct 1759)

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.  – Argument in Defense of the British Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials (4 December 1770)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a gratuitous regime ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. – Notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772)

 A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.  – Letter of the alphabet to Abigail Adams (17 July 1775)

I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all. – Letter of the alphabet to Horatio Gates (23 March 1776)

Let them revere nothing merely organized religion, morality and freedom.  – Letter to Abigail Adams (fifteen April 1776)

You bid me fire your messages. But I must forget you kickoff.  – Letter to Abigail Adams (28 Apr 1776)

There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we beloved, revere, and tin confide in, has charms in information technology for which men will fight.  – Letter of the alphabet to Abigail Adams (17 May 1776)

Statesmen, my honey Sir, may program and speculate for Liberty, but information technology is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom tin can securely stand up. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Mensurate than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, just they volition not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.  – Letter to Zabdiel Adams (21 June 1776)

I am well aware of the Toil and Claret and Treasure, that information technology volition price Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.

I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will toll The states to maintain this Annunciation, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I tin can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I tin can see that the Stop is more than than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although Nosotros should rue information technology, which I trust in God We shall not.  – Letter to Abigail Adams (iii July 1776)

The second day of July, 1776, volition be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated past succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the solar day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to exist solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from 1 end of this continent to the other, from this time forrad forevermore.  – Alphabetic character to Abigail Adams (3 July 1776)

I long for rural and domestic scenes, for the warbling of Birds and the Prattle of my Children. Don't y'all think I am somewhat poetical this morning, for one of my Years, and considering the Gravity, and Insipidity of my Employment? — As much as I converse with Sages and Heroes, they have very piffling of my Dear or Admiration. I should prefer the Delights of a Garden to the Dominion of a World.  – Letter of the alphabet to Abigail Adams (16 March 1777)

I must report politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to written report mathematics and philosophy. The science of authorities information technology is my duty to study, more than than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and assistants and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a mode, all other arts. I must written report politics and state of war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to report mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in guild to requite their children a correct to report painting, poetry, music, architecture, bronze, tapestry and porcelain.  – Alphabetic character to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780)

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.  – Letter to John Quincy Adams (14 May 1781)

Thanks to God that he gave me stubbornness when I know I am correct. – Letter to Edmund Jenings (1782)

All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, non from a want of honor or virtue, then much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and apportionment. – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (23 August 1787)

The new Government has my best Wishes and most fervent Prayers, for its Success and Prosperity: but whether I shall have whatever Thing more to do with it, besides praying for it, depends on the time to come suffrages of Freemen.  – Alphabetic character to Thomas Jefferson (2 Jan 1789)

There is nothing which I dread so much equally a segmentation of the commonwealth into ii great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble anticipation, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil nether our Constitution.  – Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1789)

The History of out Revolution will be ane continued Lye from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklins electrical Rod, smote the Earth and out sprung Full general Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and thence forrard these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures and State of war.  – Alphabetic character to Benjamin Rush, 4 April 1790.

My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the almost insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and every bit I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne abroad by others and meet the mutual fate.  – On the Vice-Presidency of the United States, in a letter to Abigail Adams (19 Dec 1793)

I read my optics out and can't read half enough. … The more 1 reads the more than one sees we take to read.  – Letter to Abigail Adams (28 December 1794)

The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to chide us to be conscientious to prevent their growth in our own. – First Address to Congress (23 Nov 1797)

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution every bit a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of whatsoever other.  – Alphabetic character to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Tertiary Partitioning of the Militia of Massachusetts (11 Oct 1798)

I pray Sky to bestow the all-time of blessings on this house and all that shall futurity inhabit information technology. May none merely honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.  – On the White Firm, in a alphabetic character to Abigail Adams (two November 1800)

Our obligations to our country never terminate but with our lives.  – Alphabetic character to Benjamin Rush (eighteen April 1808)

The Proclamation of Independence I always considered every bit a Theatrical Show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that; i.e. all the Celebrity of it.I volition insist that the Hebrews have done more to acculturate men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the about essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that take a chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all flesh the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization. – Letter to François Adriaan van der Kemp (16 February 1809)

When I went abode to my family unit in May, 1770, from the town coming together in Boston, which was the offset I had ever attended, and where I had been called in my absence, without whatever solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my married woman, "I have accepted a seat in the Business firm of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I requite yous this alarm, that you may prepare your heed for your fate." She burst into tears, simply instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, "Well, I am willing in this crusade to run all risks with you, and exist ruined with you, if you are ruined." These were times, my friend, in Boston, which tried women's souls also every bit men's.  – Letter to Benjamin Blitz (12 Apr 1809)

You and I ought not to die before nosotros have explained ourselves to each other.The Declaration of Independence I e'er considered every bit a Theatrical Testify. Jefferson ran abroad with all the stage effect of that; i.east. all the Glory of information technology.  – Letter to Benjamin Rush (21 June 1811)

The general principles on which the fathers accomplished independence, were … the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all those young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are every bit eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are equally unalterable as homo nature and our terrestrial, mundane organisation.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813.

While all other Sciences accept avant-garde, that of Regime is at a stand up; little better understood; piddling better practiced now than 3 or four one thousand years ago.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (nine July 1813)

You and I ought not to dice earlier we have explained ourselves to each other.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (13 July 1813)

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have non fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles take rolled downward in torrents.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (iii December 1813

What do nosotros mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; information technology was just an result and outcome of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 – 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drib of blood was shed at Lexington.If the Christian faith, as I understand it, or every bit you understand it, should maintain its ground, equally I believe it will, yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and arcane Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for i,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Even so so stiff is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.  – John Adams, alphabetic character to Thomas Jefferson (July sixteen, 1814).

As long every bit Property exists, information technology volition accumulate in Individuals and Families. Every bit long as Marriage exists, Cognition, Belongings and Influence will accumulate in Families.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (16 July 1814)

As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we hateful by the Revolution? The state of war? That was no part of the revolution; information technology was only an outcome and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the class of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.  – Letter of the alphabet to Thomas Jefferson (24 August 1815)

We may appeal to every page of history nosotros have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous and cruel as any rex or senate possessed of uncontrollable power … All projects of government, formed upon a supposition of continual vigilance, sagacity, and virtue, firmness of the people, when possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats and delusions … The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or accented power, is the aforementioned in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical quango, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. As capricious, savage, encarmine, and in every respect diabolical.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (13 November 1815)

Power ever sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a slap-up soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (two February 1816)

I see in every Page, Something to recommend Christianity in its Purity and Something to discredit its Corruptions.I nigh shudder at the thought of alluding to the near fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (3 September 1816)

Allow the human being mind loose. It must exist loose. It will exist loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine information technology.We take now, information technology Seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James'southward Bible, through all Nations. Would information technology non be better to utilize these pious Subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the Corruptions of Christianity; than to propagate those Corruptions in Europe Asia, Africa and America! … Conclude not from all this, that I have renounced the Christian religion, or that I agree with Dupuis in all his Sentiments. Far from it. I see in every Page, Something to recommend Christianity in its Purity and Something to discredit its Corruptions. … The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my Organized religion.  – Letter of the alphabet to Thomas Jefferson (4 November 1816)

Permit the homo mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.  – Letter to his son, John Quincy Adams (thirteen November 1816)

Xx times in the course of my late reading take I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no faith in it!!!" Only in this exclamation I would accept been every bit fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite visitor, I mean Hell.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (19 April 1817).

I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation, for, equally I believe, the most enlightened men of information technology accept participated in the amelioration of the philosophy of the age; once restored to an independent government, and no longer persecuted, they would before long wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their graphic symbol, peradventure in time become liberal Unitarian Christians, for your Jehovah is our Jehovah, and your God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is our God.  – Alphabetic character to Mordecai Manuel Noah (1819)

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.  – Letter to J.H. Tiffany (31 March 1819)

When we say God is a spirit, we know what we mean, as well equally nosotros do when nosotros say that the pyramids of Egypt are affair. Let usa exist content, therefore, to believe him to be a spirit, that is, an essence that we know zilch of, in which originally and necessarily reside all energy, all power, all capacity, all activeness, all wisdom, all goodness.  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (17 January 1820)

Tin can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?  – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (nineteen May 1821)

The Europeans are all securely tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never go rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of organized religion. They all believe that keen Principle which has produced this dizzying universe, Newton'southward universe and Herschell'due south universe, came downward to this piffling ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the globe.  – Letter of the alphabet to Thomas Jefferson (22 January 1825)

Quondam minds are like old horses; you lot must do them if you wish to go along them in working order. No man who ever held the function of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will brand one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he tin bestow.  – Letter to Josiah Quincy Three (14 Feb 1825)

My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth yr from its birth, of the independence of the United states of america: a memorable epoch in the register of the human race, destined in hereafter history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the utilise or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped past the human being mind.  – Reply to an invitation to 50th Independence Mean solar day celebrations from a commission of the citizens of Quincy, Massachusetts (7 June 1826)

Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude and I am utterly averse to the access of Slavery into the Missouri Territories.  – Letter to William Tudor

Excerpts from John Adam'due south Diaries

Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that nosotros detect religion incumbered with in these days?Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me virtually the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, "that a mere beast or finite being could non make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes," and that "these things are very mysterious."

"17. Wednesday. A fine morning. Proceeded on my journey towards Braintree. Stopped to come across Mr. Haven, of Dedham, who told me, very civilly, he supposed I took my faith on trust from Dr. Mayhew, and added, that he believed the doctrine of satisfaction of Jesus Christ to be essential to Christianity, and that he would not believe this satisfaction unless he believed the Divinity of Christ. Mr. Balch was at that place also, and observed, he would not be a Christian if he did not believe mysteries of the gospel; that he could conduct with an Arminian, just when, Dr. Mayhew they denied the Divinity and satisfaction of Christ, he had no more to do with them; that he knew to make of Dr. Mayhew's two discourses upon the expected of all things. They gave him an thought of a cart whose wanted greasing; it rumbled on in a hoarse, rough style; there was a skillful deal of ingenious talk in them, just it was thrown together in a jumbled, confused gild. He believed the Doctor wrote them in a great panic. He added further that Arminians, notwithstanding stiffly they maintain their opinions in wellness, e'er, he takes notice, retract when they come to die, and choose to die Calvinists. Set out for Braintree, and arrived about dusk."

Spent an 60 minutes in the start of the evening at Major Gardiner's, where information technology was thought that the design of Christianity was not to make men good riddle-solvers, or expert mystery-mongers, but good men, good magistrates, and good subjects, skillful husbands and good wives, skillful parents and good children, good masters and good servants. The following questions may exist answered some time or other, namely, — Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion incumbered with in these days?

No human being is entirely gratis from weakness and imperfection in this life. Men of the most exalted genius and active minds are generally most perfect slaves to the honey of fame. They sometimes descend to every bit mean tricks and artifices in pursuit of award or reputation equally the miser descends to in pursuit of gold.

A pen is certainly an splendid instrument to set up a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.

By my physical constitution I am but an ordinary man … Still some great events, some cutting expressions, some mean hypocracies, have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth, sleep, and littleness into rage like a lion.

The Christian faith is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in aboriginal or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity, let the blackguard Paine say what he will; it is resignation to God, it is goodness itself to man.

Tacitus appears to have been equally bang-up an enthusiast equally Petrarch for the revival of the commonwealth and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies confronting them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most awful cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely exist practised upon a virtuous and wise people.

Omnium rerum domina, virtus. Virtue is the mistress of all things. Virtue is the master of all things. Therefore a nation that should never practise wrong must necessarily govern the world. The might of virtue, the ability of virtue, is not a very common topic, non so common as it should be.

John Adams – A Dissertation on the Catechism and Feudal Police force (1765)

The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.

Always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and pattern in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish function of mankind all over the world.

The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom establish either leisure or opportunity to course a spousal relationship and exert their strength; ignorant as they were of arts and messages, they have seldom been able to frame and back up a regular opposition. This, however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they accept accordingly labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the nifty Legislator of the universe.

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers accept earned and bought information technology for the states, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their claret.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a full general noesis among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to cognition, as their nifty Creator, who does cypher in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that nigh dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I hateful, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled abroad, the people accept a right to revoke the authority that they themselves accept deputed, and to constitute other and ameliorate agents, attorneys and trustees.

The jaws of ability are ever open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

Be not intimidated, therefore, past any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever tin can be warranted by the laws of your state; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties past any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, every bit they are oft used, are but 3 different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

John Adams – Novanglus Essays (1774 – 1775)

Nosotros are told: "It is a universal truth, that he that would excite a rebellion, is at heart as cracking a tyrant as always wielded the iron rod of oppression." Be information technology so. We are non exciting a rebellion. Opposition, nay, open, avowed resistance by arms, against usurpation and lawless violence, is non rebellion by the law of God or the land. Resistance to lawful authority makes rebellion. … Remember the frank Veteran acknowledges, that "the give-and-take rebel is a convertible term."

 Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed.

John Adams – Thoughts on Government (1776)

The form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one give-and-take, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.We ought to consider what is the finish of authorities, before nosotros decide which is the best course. Upon this point all speculative politicians will hold, that the happiness of guild is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the class of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in ane discussion, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest caste, is the best.

Fearfulness is the foundation of almost governments; only it is and so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be probable to corroborate of whatsoever political institution which is founded on it.

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are and so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and contained upon both, that then it may be a check upon both, equally both should be checks upon that.

John Adams – A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for uncomplicated honesty and evidently sense, in a house of representatives. The most illustrious of them must, therefore, be separated from the mass, and placed past themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism.

The moment the idea is admitted into gild, that belongings is not as sacred every bit the constabulary of God, and that there is non a strength of constabulary and public justice to protect information technology, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thousand shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every guild, before it tin be civilized or made free.

Killing ane tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. Only killing one tyrant but makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to constitute and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. Allow it be the study, therefore, of lawgivers and philosophers, to enlighten the people's understandings and meliorate their morals, by good and general education; to enable them to comprehend the scheme of government, and to know upon what points their liberties depend; to dissipate those vulgar prejudices and pop superstitions that oppose themselves to good regime; and to teach them that obedience to the laws is every bit indispensable in them every bit in lords and kings.

A unmarried assembly will never be a steady guardian of the laws, if Machiavel is right, when he says, Men are never good merely through necessity: on the contrary, when good and evil are left to their choice, they will non neglect to throw every thing into disorder and confusion. Hunger and poverty may make men industrious, but laws only tin brand them good; for, if men were and so of themselves, there would be no occasion for laws; just, as the case is far otherwise, they are admittedly necessary.

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the country, the majesty of the people, call it what you volition — a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at one time an object of ambition and dispute, and, in fourth dimension, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.

John Adams – Discourses on Davila (1790)

The earth grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused. Newspapers, magazines, and circulating libraries take made flesh wiser. Titles and distinctions, ranks and orders, parade and ceremony, are all going out of fashion.

This is roundly and frequently asserted in the streets, and sometimes on theatres of college rank. Some truth there is in information technology; and if the opportunity were temperately improved, to the reformation of abuses, the rectification of errors, and the dissipation of pernicious prejudices, a corking advantage it might be. But, on the other mitt, imitation inferences may be drawn from it, which may make mankind wish for the historic period of dragons, giants, and fairies.

Are riches, honors, and beauty going out of mode? Is not the rage for them, on the reverse, increased faster than improvement in knowledge? As long as either of these are in vogue, will there not be emulations and rivalries? Does not the increase of knowledge in any man increase his emulation; and the diffusion of noesis amid men multiply rivalries? Has the progress of scientific discipline, arts, and messages yet discovered that at that place are no passions in human nature? no ambition, avarice, or want of fame? Are these passions cooled, diminished, or extinguished? Is the rage for admiration less agog in men or women? Take these propensities less a tendency to divisions, controversies, seditions, mutinies, and civil wars than formerly? On the contrary, the more knowledge is diffused, the more the passions are extended, and the more than furious they grow.

Property must be secured, or liberty cannot be. But if unlimited or unbalanced ability of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, French republic will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the wolf. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national associates to the people, to respect property, volition be regarded no more than than the warbles of the songsters of the forest. The smashing art of law-giving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature, and in constituting the legislative a perfect balance against the executive power, at the same fourth dimension that no individual or political party can become its rival. The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual command over the other, the weaker will always be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. The nation which volition non adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other culling. Rivalries must exist controlled, or they will throw all things into defoliation; and there is zip merely despotism or a rest of ability which can command them.

Letters to John Taylor (1814)

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. At that place is nada moral or immoral in the idea of information technology. The definition of information technology is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies idea and choice and power; it tin can elect between objects, indifferent in betoken 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 skillful and moral evil, and has power to choose the former and refuse the latter, it tin can, if information technology volition, cull the evil and reject the good, equally we see in experience it very often does.

I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can exist so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; only while it lasts, it is more than bloody than either.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a republic nonetheless that did non commit suicide. It is in vain to say that commonwealth is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less aggressive, or less avaricious than elite or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple authorities, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

The priesthood accept, in all aboriginal nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; cognition has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a complimentary research? The blackest billingsgate, almost ungentlemanly insolence, the near yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated and applauded. Merely affect a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will shortly find you lot have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm almost your legs and hands, and fly into your confront and eyes.

What practise we mean by the American Revolution?

Simply what do we hateful by the American Revolution? Practise we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

By what ways this great and important amending in the religious, moral, political, and social graphic symbol of the people of thirteen colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and contained of each other, was begun, pursued, and accomplished, it is surely interesting to humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity.

To this end, information technology is profoundly to exist desired, that young men of messages in all the states, especially in the thirteen original States, would undertake the laborious, but certainly interesting and agreeable job, of searching and collecting all the records, pamphlets, newspapers, and fifty-fifty handbills, which in any mode contributed to change the atmosphere and views of the people, and compose them into an independent nation.

The colonies had grown upwardly under constitutions of authorities so different, there was and then bang-up a variety of religions, they were composed of then many different nations, their community, manners, and habits had so piddling resemblance, and their intercourse had been and then rare, and their noesis of each other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same organization of action, was certainly a very hard enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in then brusque a time and past such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together — a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever earlier effected.

In this inquiry, the gloriole of individual gentlemen, and of separate States, is of little consequence. The means and the measures are the proper objects of investigation. These may be of use to posterity, not merely in this nation, simply in South America and all other countries. They may teach mankind that revolutions are no trifles; that they ought never to be undertaken rashly; nor without deliberate consideration and sober reflection; nor without a solid, immutable, eternal foundation of justice and humanity; nor without a people possessed of intelligence, fortitude, and integrity sufficient to carry them with steadiness, patience, and perseverance, through all the vicissitudes of fortune, the fiery trials and melancholy disasters they may have to see.

locklearclearders.blogspot.com

Source: https://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/john-adams

Share this post