Adams Papers
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To John Adams from Ezra Stiles, 28 February 1788

From Ezra Stiles

Yale College Febrỹ 28th. 1788.

Sir

Last Sum̃er I wrote you acknowleding the Receipt of the Abbe Mably’s Pamphlet, and your Letter accompanying it.1 On the 19th. Inst. I received the two Volumes of your Letters in a most neat & elegant Edition, thro’ the Hands of Mr Andrew Craige of New York.2 I am greatly honored by these repeated Testimonials of your Excellencys Friendship. These last Volumes shew a more thorough Investigation upon the Policies of antient & modern States, than has I believe ever been made before. It is with Pleasure that I observe your leading Ideas have given the Complexion to the Constitution of the State of the Massachusetts formerly, and now lately to the new improved Polity of the federal Constitution, already adopted by six States of the Union; and which I hope will be finally adopted by all the States. For altho’ a perfect System of Policy may not yet be investigated, and if investigated could perhps not be introduced to general Reception without some unhappy Alterations; yet we have to rejoyce that Liberty & public Right are so well established, and an efficacious Government & competent unfrustrable Revenue, for the public Purposes of the Union, are so well secured & provided for as we find in the new federal Constitution. I do not hear that Hampshire Convention, now sittg, hath come to a Decision. But we have good Informn that they will adopt it. N York & Pensylva have delayed. But we believe will finally accede. Be pleased to accept my Thanks for your kind & most acceptable Present. I have the honor to be / Sir, / Your most obedt Servt

Ezra Stiles

RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “His Excelly Dr Adams.”

1. See Stiles’ letter of 10 March 1787, above, which he completed on 25 April. JA likely sent the Abbé de Mably’s Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des Etats Unis d’Amérique, Amsterdam, 1784.

2. Dr. Andrew Craigie (1743–1819), of Boston, served as apothecary general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and then relocated his practice to New York City. Craigie likely acquired a copy of JA’s 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 thanks to Daniel Parker, for whom see James Lovell’s 12 April 1789 letter, and note 3, below (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 8:392; ANB description begins John A. Garraty, Mark C. Carnes, and Paul Betz, eds., American National Biography, New York, 1999–2002; 24 vols. plus supplement; rev. edn., www.anb.org. description ends ).

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    Adams Papers
    Title
    To John Adams from Ezra Stiles, 28 February 1788
    Author
    Stiles, Ezra
    Recipient
    Adams, John
    Date
    28 February 1788

    Reference

    Cite as
    “To John Adams from Ezra Stiles, 28 February 1788,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-19-02-0206. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 19, February 1787–May 1789, ed. Sara Georgini, Sara Martin, R. M. Barlow, Amanda M. Norton, Neal E. Millikan, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016, p. 281.]

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