1From John Adams to John Taylor, 14 April 1824 (Adams Papers)
While I was prepareing to send to the Post office a letter to you, written on the 12th. I received yours of the 8th. I know not that I ever received a letter so consoleing to my heart and so refreshing to my spirits. It is kindness, candor and generosity—I am extremely sorry to hear that you have been sick, and the more so, that you are not yet well, but I still hope you will live to write me...
2From John Adams to John Taylor, 12 April 1824 (Adams Papers)
I have received with kindness and thank fullness, your learned work upon the Constitution—I have had as much read to me as I have been able to hear—but inted to have it all read to me if I live It is long since I have ceased to write read, speak or think upon Theories of Government and now I am on at half way on my eighty ninth year I am incapable of either. I see you have treated me with...
3From John Adams to John Taylor, 12 March 1819 (Adams Papers)
The painful difficulty of holding a pen which has been—growing upon me for many years & now in the middle of the 84th year of my age has become insupportable must be my apology—not only for terminating my Strictures upon your enquiry but for the necessity I am under of borrowing another hand to acknowledge the receipt of your polite & obliging letter of Feb’y 20th. I have never had but one...
4From John Adams to John Taylor, 5 March 1815 (Adams Papers)
A few Words more concerning the Characters of litterary Men. What Sort of Men have had the Conduct of the Presses in the United States for the last thirty Years? In Germany, in England in France in Holland, tho Presses even the Newspapers have been under the direction of learned Men. How has it been in America? How many Presses, how many Newspapers have been directed by Vagabonds fugitives...
5From John Adams to John Taylor, 24 February 1815 (Adams Papers)
The Correction in your favour of the 10th is exact. I pray you to restore No. 24 to its place No. 3 and all the Subsequent ones to their Ranks. In future I will correct the procedure. But it may be Some time before I can go on, for I have So many Irons in the fire, that I cannot bring them at once on the Anvil and hammer them all in the nick of time. I have not numbered this because it is a by...
6From John Adams to John Taylor, 24 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
That the first Want of Man is his Dinner, and the second his Girl, were truths well known to every Democrat and Aristocrat, long before the great Phylosopher Malthus, arose, to think he enlightened the World by the discovery of them. It has been equally well known, that the Second Want is frequently So impetuous as to make Men and Women forget the first; and rush into rash Marriages, leaving...
7From John Adams to John Taylor, 21 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
You remember I have reserved a right of employing twenty years to answer your Book, because you consumed that number in writing it. I have now written you thirty Letters and have not advanced beyond a dozen pages of your Work. At this rate I must ask indulgence for forty or fifty years more. You know that your Amusement and my own are the principal Objects that I have in View. In the fine...
8From John Adams to John Taylor, 19 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
Suppose Congress Should at one Vote, or by one Act, declare all the Negroes in the United States, free, in imitation of that Great Authority the French Sovereign Legislature? What would follow? Would the Democracy, Nine in ten, among the Negroes be gainers? Would not the most Shiftles among them be in danger of perishing for Want? Would not Nine in ten perhaps Ninety nine in a hundred of the...
9From John Adams to John Taylor, 18 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
“Knowledge” you Say invented Alienation, and became the natural Enemy of Aristocracy. This “Invention” of “Knowledge” was not very profound or ingenious. There are hundreds in the Patent office more brilliant. The Right, Power and Authority of Alienation is essential to Property. If I own a snuff box, I can burn it in the Fire, cast it into a Salt pond crush it to attoms under a Wagon Wheel,...
10From John Adams to John Taylor, 16 January 1815 (Adams Papers)
Give me leave to add a few Words, on this Topick. I remember the Time when three Gentlemen, Thomas Hancock, Charles Apthorp and Thomas Green, the three most oppulent Merchants in Boston, all honourable virtuous and humane Men if united could have carried any Election, almost unanimously in the Town of Boston. Harrington, whom I read forty or fifty Years Ago and Shall quote from Memory, being...