Adams Papers
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From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 19 June 1789

To Benjamin Rush

New York June 19. 1789

Dear Sir

Your Single Principle, in your Letter of the 15th 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, on Earth, a Nation, which has not been, at Some Period of its duration, under a republican Government. i. e. under a Government of more than one. all the various combinations and modifications which the subtile Brains of Men could invent have been attempted, to no other purpose but to shew that Discord Anarchy and Uncertainty of Life, Liberty and Property; can be avoided only by a perfect Equilibrium in the Constitution. You Seem determined not to allow a limited monarchy to be a republican System, which it certainly is, and the best that ever has been tryed.—

There is no Proposition, of the Truth of which I am more clearly convinced than this, that the “Influence of general Science,” instead of curing any defects in an unballanced Republick, would only increase and inflame them and make them more intollerable. for this obvious and unanswerable Reason, that Parties would have in them, a greater number of able and ambitious Men, who would only understand the better, how to worry one another with greater Art and dexterity.— Religion itself, by no means cures this inveterate Evil, for Parties are always founded on some Principle, and the more conscientious Men are, the more determined they will be in pursuit of their Principle system and Party.

I Should as soon think of closing all my Window shutters, to enable me to see, as of banishing the Classicks, to improve Republican Ideas.— How can you Say that Factions have been few in America? Have they not rendered Property insecure? have they not trampled Justice under foot? have not Majorities voted Property out of the Pocketts of others into their own, with the most decided Tyranny.?

Have not our Parties behaved like all Republican Parties? is not the History of Hancock and Bowdoin, the History of the Medici, and Albizi—that of Clinton and Yates, the Same with that of the Cancellieri and the Panchiatichi.?1 and so on through the Continent.— and We Shall find, that without a Ballance the Progress will soon be, from Libels to Riots, from Riots to Seditions and from Seditions to civil Wars.

Every Project to enlighten our Fellow Citizens has my most hearty good Wishes: because it tends to bring them into a right Way of thinking respecting the means of their Happiness, civil political social and religious.

I wish with all my heart, that the Constitution had expressed as much Homage to the Supream Ruler of the Universe as the President has done in his first Speech. The Petit Maitres who call themselves Legislators and attempt to found a Government on any other than an eternal Basis of Morals and Religion, have as much of my Pitty as can consist with Contempt.

I am my dear sir yours

John Adams.

RC (private owner, 1977); addressed by WSS: “Dr. Benjamin Rush / Philadelphia”; internal address: “Dr Rush.”; endorsed: “John Adams.” LbC (Adams Papers); APM Reel 115.

1The Medici and Albizzi families were longstanding political rivals in medieval Florence, while the Cancellieri and Panchiatichi clans headed warring factions in Pistoia. JA included the history of both Italian republics in the second and third volumes of his Defence of the Const. description begins John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, London, 1787–1788; repr. New York, 1971; 3 vols. description ends , for which see vol. 19:130–132. During the 1789 New York gubernatorial election, Federalists supported Robert Yates despite his Antifederalist leanings, in an attempt to divide the Antifederalists and oust incumbent George Clinton (JA, Defence of the Const. description begins John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, London, 1787–1788; repr. New York, 1971; 3 vols. description ends , 2:103, 3:56–57; William J. Connell and Andrea Zorzi, Florentine Tuscany: Structures and Practices of Power, N.Y., 2000, p. 238, 319; Young, Democratic Republicans description begins Alfred F. Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1967. description ends , p. 130–132).

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