11From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 February 1788 (Adams Papers)
The Letter that accompanies this, is from a Character so respectable, that I beg leave to recommend it to your particular Attention. The Correspondent will be found worthy of you.— I have taken Leave, and shall embark, as soon as the Equinoxial and its roughest Blusters are past. The Emperors Declaration of War announces louder Storms in Europe: but I hope to escape them all in a peaceful...
12From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 2 December 1788 (Adams Papers)
A multiplicity of avocations have prevented me, from answering your friendly Letter of the 2 d of July, till I am almost ashamed to answer it, at all. Your Congratulations on my Arrival and kind Reception are very agreable because I know them to be Sincere. your Compliments upon my poor Volumes are consolatory, because they give me grounds to hope that they may have done Some good. it is an...
13From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 February 1789 (Adams Papers)
Your obliging favor of the 22 d Ult I rec d. last night.— I remember so much of the transactions, at the formation of the Pensilvania Constitution, that I wish you could save time enough from almost any other pursuit, to arrange your materials for an History of the Revolution in Pensilvania, to be published hereafter; at present perhaps it might not be prudent. The four respectable characters,...
14From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 17 May 1789 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 19 of March deserves a particular consideration and answer, which I have not, till now, been able, from a multitude of avocations some frivolous yet indispensable, others of more consequence, to give it. The Influence which you Suppose I may have as President of the Senate, will be found to be very little, if any at all. you Say the Eastern States must not be Suspected: but...
15From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 9 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
No! You and I will not cease to discuss political questions: but We will agree to disagree , whenever We please, or rather whenever either of Us thinks he has reason for it.— I really know not what you mean by apeing the Corruptions of the British Court. I wish Congress had been called to meet at Philadelphia: but as it is now here, I can conceive of no way to get it transported thither,...
16From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 June 1789 (Adams Papers)
Your Single Principle, in your Letter of the 15 th must fail you.— You say “that Republican Systems have never had a fair Tryal.”— What do you mean by a fair Tryal? and what by Republican systems.— Every Government that has more than one Man in its soverignty is a republican system. Tryals innumerable have been made. as many as there have existed Nations. There is not and never was, I believe,...
17From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 5 July 1789 (Adams Papers)
Without waiting for an Answer to my last, I will take a little more notice of a Sentiment in one your Letters. You Say you “abhor all Titles.” I will take the familiar freedom of Friendship to say I dont believe you.— Let me explain my self.— I doubt not your Varacity. but I believe you deceive yourself, and have not yet examined your own heart, and recollected the feelings of every day and...
18From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 15 July 1789 (Adams Papers)
I have read D r Rush, de moribus Germanorum, with pleasure. As I am a great lover of paradoxes, when defended with ingenuity, I have read also the Phillippic against Latin and Greek, with some amusement: but my reverence for those Languages and the inestimable treasures hoarded up in them is not abated. Jean Jaques Roussseau’s phillippic against the arts and sciences amused informed and...
19From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 24 July 1789 (Adams Papers)
I have persecuted you, too much with my Letters.— I beg you would give yourself no trouble to answer them, but when you are quite at Leisure, from more important Business or more agreable Amusement. I deny; that there is or ever was in Europe a more free Republic than England, or that any Liberty on Earth ever equalled English Liberty, notwithstanding the defects in their Constitution. The...
20From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 July 1789 (Adams Papers)
“The Characters, I So much admire among the ancients,” were not “formed wholly by Republican forms of Government”— I admire, Phillip and Alexander, as much as I do Themistocles and Pericles, nay as much as Demosthenes— I admire Pisistratus, almost as much as solon: and think that the Arts, Elegance, Literature and Science of Athens, was his Work and that of his sons, more than of any or all...
21From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 2 February 1790 (Adams Papers)
I cannot give up my dear Latin and Greek although Fortune has never permitted me to enjoy so much of them as I wished.— I dont love you the less however for your Indifference or even Opposition to them. Pray do you carry your Theory so far as to wish to exclude French Italian, Spanish and Tudesque?— I begun to fear that your multiplied phisical and other Engagements had made You forget me— But...
22From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, [17] February 1790 (Adams Papers)
I had heard, before I rec d your Letter of the 12 th , of your new Engagements in the Colledge added to your extensive Practice and other virtuous Pursuits: and therefore was at no loss to account for your long Silence. I have no Pretensions to the Merit of your manly and successful opposition to the Constitution of Pensilvania: but I am very willing to be responsible for. any Consequences of...
23From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 April 1790 (Adams Papers)
The Tories as you observe in your friendly Letter of 24 Feb. are more attached to each other; they are also, We must candidly confess, more of real Politicians.— They make to themselves more merit with the People, for the smallest services, than the Whigs are able to do for the greatest. The Arts, the Trumpetts the Puffs, are their old Instruments and they know how to employ them. The History...
24From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 April 1790 (Adams Papers)
Your letter of April 13, soars above the visible diurnal Sphære.— I own to you that avarice Ambition the Love of Fame &c are all mysterious Passions. They are the greatest Absurdities, Delusions and Follies that can be imagined, if in this Life only We had hope. In the Boat on our Return from Point no Point, the principal Topick of Conversation was Independence. — an intercepted Letter early...
25From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 6 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
It seemeth unto me that you and I ought not to die without saying good-bye or bidding each other Adieu. Pray how do you do? How does that excellent Lady Mrs: Rush; How are the young ladies? Where is my Surgeon & Lieut? How fares the lawyer? Two learned & famous Physicians, Sydenham & Rush have taught us, that the plague & the yellow fever, and all other epidemic diseases when they prevail in a...
26From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
I have just now received your friendly letter of the 19th. and rejoice with you Sincerely in the Wellfare of your Family. I wish you had named the Captain in the British Army who has been So fortunate as to marry your Second daughter; Many of those officers are worthy Men, and you are much in the Wrong to deplore her as lost to you,—for life. Neither Upper Canada nor England are so far off,...
27From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 April 1805 (Adams Papers)
I am highly gratified, to possess So authentic an Account of the Several rising branches of your numerous and amiable Family, in whose Welfare I feel So much Interest, that I ask your Permission to add my Benediction to yours. It is to me highly probable that those who have been carried Captive into the British Dominions, will Succeed as Well in Life, as those who may be destined to enjoy all...
28From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 7 July 1805 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter, my dear Friend, of the 29th. of June, Suggets enough of Serious reflections, to compose a longer reply, than I am, at present disposed to write, or than you could read with any Satisfaction. John Ross, and I think, some others, whom you have not mentioned were in the Boat with us from Point no Point. I wish to ascertain, if I could the Month and Day as well as the names of the...
29From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 August 1805 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 14th gives an exact Analysis of Pennsylvania and its Parties: and from it, a probability results, that the Old Constitution will be revived. But, for what reason do you call it Dr. Franklins? I always understood it to be the Work of Cannon, Matlack, Young and Paine, and that Franklin, though President of the Convention, had no greater hand in its fabrick than the painted head...
30From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 30 September 1805 (Adams Papers)
Although it is a gratification to my feelings to write to you and a much greater pleasure to receive a Letter from you: Yet I have no desire to give you any trouble, or the least Anxiety on my Account when your Answer is delayed. I know your Avocations and respect them. No Apology is ever necessary, for any pause in our Correspondence. The Journals of Congress afford little light, in...
31From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 4 December 1805 (Adams Papers)
I am half inclined to be very angry with you for destroying the Anecdotes and documents you had collected for private Memoirs of the American Revolution. From the Memories of Individuals, the true Springs of Events and the real motives of Actions are to be made known to Posterity. The Period in the History of the World, the best understood, is that of Rome from the time of Marius to the Death...
32From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 January 1806 (Adams Papers)
The new Edition of your medical Works, mentioned in your favour of the sixth of this month, have been committed to mr Shaw: my Nephew whom you know, and will be sent to me from Boston in due time. Many of those compositions I have read and shall read again with much pleasure, and shall make them as generally useful as I can among the Physicians in my Neighbourhood: but as I feel as few as I...
33From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 26 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the fifteenth is received. In a cornfield, which I had manured with seaweed and Marsh mud, in a compost with other materials, I found, last fall, two plants of an uncommon Appearance which I Suspected to be the Kali: because—they resembled the descriptions of it which I had read in the Dictionary of natural History and in the Œconomical Dictionary, both of which quote Monsieur...
34From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the tenth, like all others from your pen, notwithstanding all your apologies, was a cordial to my Spirit. I must confess to you, that the data, upon which you reason from the Prophecies concerning the future amelioration of the condition of mankind, are too obscure and uncertain, to authorize us to build any System upon them for the conduct of Nations—It is well to understand as...
35From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 July 1806 (Adams Papers)
I have two of your Letters to acknowledge, at once. The Treatise on the Spleen I have read, and been entertained by it, perhaps more than I should have been if I had been better acquainted with the sciences on which it depends. Your medical Speculations are to me as entertaining as Romances of which I am a great lover: but they are as much in request among the learned of your Profession: so...
36From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 September 1806 (Adams Papers)
Thanks for your favour of Aug. 22d. My Experience is perfectly conformable to yours, respecting silent Men. Silence is most commonly design and Intrigue. In Franklin it was very remarkable, because he was naturally a great Talker. I have conversed with him frequently in his garrulous humours, and his Grandson, or Son, Billy has told me that he never knew a greater Talker than his Grandfather....
37From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1806 (Adams Papers)
When I recd your favour of the 24. Oct, I Soberly expected a grave dissertation on the Perfectibility of Man. Although I thank you for the political information you give me, which is amusing and although I doubt not your Physiological researches will result in something usefull to the publick, yet, as I have ever considered all Arts Sciences and Litterature as of small importance in comparison...
38From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1806 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for yours of the twenty fifth of November. I was in hopes you would have explained to me the System of human Perfectibility which was is claimed as the Invention of Dr Priestley. The System of the French Œconomists I took some Pains, more than five and twenty years ago, to understand; but could not find one Gentleman among the Statesmen, Phylosophers and Men of Letters, who...
39From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 2 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
You make me very happy when you Say, that you agree with me upon the Subject of the Perfectibility of Man. Let every Man endeavor to amend and improve one and We Shall find ourselves in the right Road to all the Perfection We are capable of: but this rule Should by no means exclude our utmost exertions to amend and improve others, and in every Way and by all means in our Power to ameliorate...
40From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 12 April 1807 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 3d is received; I am willing to allow you Philosophers your opinion of the universal gravitation of matter, if you will allow mine that there is in some souls a principle of absolute levity that buoys them irresistibly into the Clouds. Whether you call it etherial spirit or inflammable air it has an uncontroulable tendency to ascend & has no capacity to ascertain the height...
41From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I thank you, my dear Sir for the promptitude of your Answer to my last Letter, and for inclosing the misterious one to you, which however has every Appearance of honesty about it. My Daughter Started the Idea that it might be our Friend Wm. Smith of Charlestown who married Miss Izzard: but the Date of the Letter is New York. My Daughter, upon my Receipt of your Letter wrote to her Husband on...
42From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 21 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I return you, the Letter of Edward Smith. Time may or may not unriddle this whimsical Mystery. It might however in the mean time to put Us on our guard against Intrigues. My not preserving a Copy of my Letter to Dr Nathan Webb (for he was a Physician) is no Wonder: for I never kept a Copy of any Letter, till I became a Member of Congress in 1774. The observation of your Son Richard is very...
43From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received at an Exhibition of Musick in our polite Village of Mount Woollaston, on thursday, your Letter relative to Mr Loude, and sent it immediately to Dr Tufts by his Lady, that the Young Gentlemans Friends might be informed of his Situation. I lament the untimely decline of a Youth, although I never Saw him, who has been represented to me, as one who injured his health by too intense an...
44From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have received your favour of the ninth of this Month, and conveyed to Dr Tufts your Letter to him, who desireses me to express to you the high sense he has of your Benevolence And Humanity to Mr John Loude. The Doctor will write you, as soon as he can find means of conveying to the Parents of that unfortunate youth the money you enclosed. What Shall We Say, my Friend? A pious and virtuous...
45From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 June 1807 (Adams Papers)
John Bunjan, if he had written my last Letter to you would have called it an history of Gods Judgments against Lyars and Libellers. Such indeed it seems to be. A great Number of others might have been added, and two or three at least ought to have been. Phillip Freneau is one of the Number: but I know not in what Light to consider him. A Libeller, he certainly was not only against me but...
46From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, September 1807 (Adams Papers)
I want to write an Essay.—Whom Shall I choose for a Model?—Plutarch, old Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Johnson, or Franklin? The last, if he had devoted his Life to the Study might have equalled Montaine in Essays or La Fontaine in Fables: for he was fitter more fitted for either or both than to conduct a Nation like Prony or Colbert. I am however too round about, to imitate the close,...
47From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 September 1807 (Adams Papers)
It is rare, that a Letter of yours remains so long upon my Table unacknowledged as has that of July 9th. Crudens Apophthagm is well worthy of your Remembrance and that of your Posterity for forty times forty years more. It is the only Clue to the Labyrinth of the World, the only key to the Riddle of the Universe. “Some Crimes are punished to prove a Providence; others escape to teach a future...
48From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 11 November 1807 (Adams Papers)
I have, long before the receipt of your favour of the 31 of October, supposed that either you were gazing at the Comet or curing the Influenza: and in either case, that you was much better employed than in answering my idle Letters. Pray! have our Astronomers at Phyladelphia, observed that Stranger in the Heavens? Have they noted its Bearings and Distances, its Course and progress! whence it...
49From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 28 December 1807 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your printed lecture on the humanity Economy and other virtues, which require of us, more attention to our domestick animals, and especially to their diseases. We see our horses, horned cattle, sheep, swine and other species, as well as our cats and dogs, sick or wounded and no body knows what to do with them or for them, so that a broken bone or a fit of sickness is almost...
50From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 January 1808 (Adams Papers)
What a pitty it is; and indeed what a Shame it is, that We have not a Word in our language to express the idea of the French Word Naiveté ? There is not a figure of Rhetorick So impressive as this is ’tho it is no figure, but the most perfect simplicity. I know not whether it is possible to define it. Neat and plain, Seems to be flat and poor. Simple Nature, is not Satisfactory. Simplex...
51From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 February 1808 (Adams Papers)
Your two last Letters have puzzled me. In one you tell me that your Citizens are clamorous against the Residence of Congress at Washington. Now Washington was the Father of the Columbian Territory, the City of Washington and the Residence of Congress in it: and Washington Jefferson and L’Enfant were the Triumvirate who planned the City the Capitol and the Prince’s Palace. In your last Feb. 18...
52From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 18 April 1808 (Adams Papers)
I have your favour of the 5th. My dear Mrs Adams bids me present her friendly regards to you and Mrs Rush and all your family, and to say to you that she has read your Letter with pleasure excepting what relates to a Gentleman from whom she had before a great Esteem, and all she can Say upon that Subject is that she wished she had not read it. In my jocular prayer to the Saint I meant No...
53From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 June 1808 (Adams Papers)
I give you this Title for the present only. I Shall Scarcely allow you to be a political, moral, or Christian Philosopher, till you retract Some of the Complaints Lamentations, Regrets and Penitences in your Letter of the 13th.—But more of this presently. Mr John Reed, the first Lawyer who left a great Reputation in our State, in the Administration of Governor Shirley was a Councillor, or in...
54From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 July 1808 (Adams Papers)
Handsome Bradford, of thy City, allarmed me, the other day at our Athenaeum in Boston, by telling me, that Dr Rushes Business had amazingly encreased and was encreasing. Knowing thine Ardor in thy Profession, I was apprehensive that thy Zeal for the Health of the Sick would Soon eat thee Up, and consequently that thine Ether would escape from this Colluvies of Humanity to the Regions of...
55From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 31 August 1808 (Adams Papers)
Instead of preparing for Commencement, I am answering your delicious Letter of the 24th.—But where to begin or where to end! I will follow your own order. If I had ever heard that a Pen of Tacitus had been preserved among the Reliques of Antiquity, I Should Swear you had Stolen it to draw the Character of the most conspicuous moral political and military Character Phenomenon of this Age.— I...
56From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 8 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
I will not Stand upon Ceremonies, with you, and wait for the Return of a Visit, or an Answer to my last Letter. Whatever proportion of Loyalty to an established Dinasty of Kings, or whatever taint of catholic Superstition there may be in the present Sensations of the Spanish People, I revere the Mixture of pure Patri or however their Conduct may have been excited by British or Austrian Gold, I...
57From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 27 September 1808 (Adams Papers)
That Rosicrusian Sylph, that Fairy Queen Mab, or that other familiar Spirit whatever it is, that inspires your nightly dreams, I would not exchange, if I had it, for the Dæmon of Socrates. You have more Wit and humour and Sense in your Sleep, than other People I was about to Say, than you have yourself when awake. I know not whether I have ever read two finer Allegories, than the two you have...
58From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 10 October 1808 (Adams Papers)
The three Classes of People in Boston, who direct our public Affairs are the Same as those you describe in your favour of 22 of Sept. It gives me great pleasure, to learn that our old Friend Mr Clymer is as he always was a pure-American. I cannot however boldly defend the long Continuance of the Embargo. I thought it at first a necessary Measure, but was fully apprehensive it could not be long...
59From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether I shall make you smile or weep, excite your ridicule or pity or contempt when I reveal to you the mistery of my long delay to answer your last Letters. But before I unriddle that unusual negligence, I must say a few words concerning our Friend Whartons Attachment to Prophecies and his habit of applying them to passing events. I have no objection to the Study, but I am aware...
60From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 January 1809 (Adams Papers)
What Signify Clamours against Commerce Property Kings Nobles Demagogues Democracy, the Clergy Religion? For to each and all of these has the Depravity of Man been imputed by some Philosophers. Rousseau says the first Man who fenced a Cabbage yard ought to have been put to death. Dr but Diderot says the first Man who Suggested the Idea of a god ought to have been treated as an Enemy of the...