71John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 18 July 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I have more to Say, on Religion. For more than Sixty years I have been attentive to this great Subject. Controversies, between Calvinists and Arminians, Trinitarians and Unitarians, Deists and Christians, Atheists and both, have attracted my Attention, whenever the Singular Life, I have lead would admit, to all these questions. The History of this little Village of Quincy , if it were worth...
72John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 September 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I owe you a thousand thanks for your favour of Aug. 22 and its Enclosures , and for D r Priestley’s “Doctrines of heathen Philosophy compared with those of Revelation.” your Letter to D r Rush , and the Sillabus Syllabus , I return inclosed with this, according to your Injunction; though with great reluctance. May I beg a copy of both? They will do you no harm: me and others much good. I hope...
73From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 October 1814 (Adams Papers)
I have great pleasure in giving this Letter to the Gentleman who requests it. The Revd David Edward Everett, the Successor of Mr Buckminster and Thatcher and Cooper in the politest Congregation in Boston, and probably the first litterary Character of his Age and State, is very desirous of Seeing Mr Jefferson. I hope he will arrive before your Library is translated to Washington. By the Way I...
74From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 20 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
The fit of recollection came upon both of Us, so nearly at the same time that I may, Sometime or other, begin to think there is some thing in Priestlys and Hartleys vibrations. The day before yesterday I sent to the Post office a letter to you and last night I received your kind favour of the 10th. The question before the human race is, Whether the God of nature Shall govern the World by his...
75From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
Accept my thanks for the comprehensive Syllabus, in your favour of Oct. 12. The Psalms of David, in Sublimity beauty, pathos and Originality, or in one Word, in poetry, are Superiour to all the Odes Hymns and Songs in any language. But I had rather read them in our prose translation, than in any version I have Seen. His Morality however, often Shocks me, like Tristram Shandy’s execrations....
76John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 June 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
In your Letter to D r Priestley of march 21. 1801 , you “tender him, the protection of those laws which were made for the wise and good, like him; and disclaim the legitimacy of that Libel on legislation , which, under the form of a Law, was for Sometime placed among them.” This Law, I presume was, the Alien Law, as it was called. As your name is Subscribed to that law, as Vice President, and...
77From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
I believe I told you in my last, that I had given you all in Lindseys Memoirs, that interested you. But I was mistaken. In Priestleys Letter to Lindsey Decr. 19. 1803, I find this Paragraph “With the Work I am now composing I go on much faster and better than I expected; so that in two or three months, if my health continue as it now is, I hope to have it ready for the Press; though I Shall...
78John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 February 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
Sitting at My Fireside, with my Daughter Smith , on the first of February My Servant brought me a Bundle of Letters and Newspapers from the Post office in this Town: one of the first Letters that Struck my Eye, had the Post Mark of Milton 23. Jan y 1812 . Milton is the next Town to Quincy and the Post office in it is but three Miles from my House. How could the Letter be So long in coming...
79John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
your Letters to Priestley , have encreased my Grief if that were possible, for the loss of Rush . Had he lived, I would have Stimulated him to insist on your promise to him to write him on the Subject of Religion. your Plan, I admire. In your Letter to Priestley of March 21. 1801 , dated at Washington you call “The Christian Philosophy, the most Sublime and benevolent, but the most perverted...
80From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 5 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Correspondences! The Letters of Bernard and Hutchinson, and Oliver and Paxton &c were detected and exposed before The Revolution. There are I doubt not, thousands of Letters now in being, but Still concealed, (from their Party to their Friends, which will, one day See the light. I have wondered for more than thirty Years that So few have appeared: and have constantly expected that a Tory...