1From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1 January 1812 (Adams Papers)
As you are a Friend to American Manufactures under proper restrictions, especially Manufactures of the domestic kind, I take the Liberty of Sending you by the Post a Packett containing two Pieces of Homespun lately produced in this quarter by One who was honoured in his youth with Some of your Attention and much of your kindness. All of my Family whom you formerly knew are well. My Daughter...
2From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 February 1812 (Adams 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. Jany. 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 three...
3From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 10 February 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have received with great pleasure your favour of the 23 of January. I suspected that the Sample was left at the Post Office and that you would soon have it. I regret the Shabby Condition in which you found it: but it was the only Copy I had, and I thought it Scarcely worth while to wait till I could get a Sett properly bound. The Dissertation on the State of real homespun was a feast to me,...
4From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
Yesterday, I received from the Post Office, under an envellope inscribed with your hand, but without any letter, a very learned and ingenious Pamphlet, prepared by you for the Use of your Counsel, in the case of Edward Livingston against you: Mr Ingersol of Philadelphia, two or three Years ago Sent me two large Pamphlets upon the same Subject. Neddy is a naughty lad as well as a saucy one. I...
5From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
I wrote you on the first of this month acknowledging the receipt of your “Proceedings” &c and now repeat my thanks for it. It is as masterly a pamphlet as ever I have read; and every way worthy of the Mind that composed and the pen which commited it to writing. There is witt and fancy and delicate touches of Satyr enough in it to make it entertaining while the profusion of learning the close...
6From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 21 May 1812 (Adams Papers)
Samuel B. Malcom Esqr, is not wholly a Stranger to you. He was three years in my family in the Character of my private Secretary, and I believe his conduct appeared to you, as it invariably did to me ingenuous, candid faithful and industrious. His Friends in New York were among the most respectable; his Education was public and his Studies and in the Law and introduction to the Bar regular...
7From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1812 (Adams Papers)
I know not what, unless it were the Prophet of Tippacanoe had turned my Curiosity to inquiries after the metaphisical Science of the Indians, their ecclesiastical Establishments and theological Theories: but your Letter, written with all the Accuracy perspicuity and Elegance of your Youth and middle Age, as it has given me great Satisfaction, deserves my best Thanks. It has given me...
8From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 October 1812 (Adams Papers)
I have a Curiosity to learn Something of the Character Life and death of a Gentleman, whose name was Wollaston, who came from England with a Company of a few dozens of Persons in the Year 1622, took possession of an height on Massachusetts Bay built houses there for his People, and after looking about him and not finding the face of Nature Smiling enough for him, went to Virginia to seek a...
9From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 26 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
I thank you for your rich present of Dec. 28th. The Pettifogger of Furnivals Inn, or of Cliffords Inn, scarcely deserves the pains you have taken to enquire into his Biography. My Curiosity is selfish, personal and local. The Character of the Miscreant, however, is not wholly contemptible. It marks the Complextion of the Age in which he lived. How many Such Characters could you, and I...
10From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 February 1813 (Adams Papers)
I will not wait for regular answers to my Letters, while I am engaged in this important occupation of giving you Some Account of Tom Moretons New Canaan; which is infinitely more entertaining and instructive to me, than our Friend Condorcets “ New Heaven ” was almost 30 years ago, or than Swedenborgs “ New Jerusalem ” is now. In his third Chapter is a curious History. Before the English came...
11From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 29 May 1813 (Adams Papers)
To leave the Pettifogger of Funivals Inn, or Cliffords Inn, his Archbishop Laud, and his Chevalier of St. Iago of Compostella Sir Christopher Gardiner, for the present; Paulo Multo majora canamus. There has been put into my hands, within a few days a gross Volume in octavo, of 544 Pages with the Title of “Memoirs of the late reverend Theophilus Lindsey. M. A.” including a brief “Analysis of...
12From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 10 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter to Dr Priestley of March 21. 1801, You ask “What an Effort, of Bigotry in politics and religion have We gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves, they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power and priestcraft. All Advances in Science were proscribed as innovations; they pretended to praise and...
13From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
I recd. yesterday your favour of May 27th. I lament with you the loss of Rush. I know of no Character living or dead who has done more real good in America. Robert Treat Paine still lives, at 83 or 84, alert drol and witty though deaf. Floyd I believe, yet remains. Paine must be very great; Philosopher and Christian; to live under the Afflictions of his Family. Sons and Daughters with Genius...
14From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
In your Letter to Dr. 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...
15From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the 15th came to me Yesterday, and it is a pleasure to discover that We are only 9 days apart. Be not Surprised or alarmed. Lindsays Memoirs will do no harm to you or me. You have right and reason to feel and to resent the breach of Confidence. I have had enough of the same kind of Treachery and Perfidy practiced upon me, to know how to Sympathize with you. I will agree with...
16From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
It is very true that “the denunciations of the Priesthood are fulminated against every Advocate for a compleat Freedom of Religion. Comminations, I believe, would be plenteously pronounced by even the most liberal of them, against Atheism, Deism.” against every Man who disbelieved or doubted the Resurrection of Jesus or the Miracles of the New Testament. Priestley himself would denounce the...
17From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 30 June 1813 (Adams Papers)
Before I proceed to the order of the day, which is the terrorism of a former day: I beg leave to correct an Idea that Some readers may infer from an expression in one of your Letters. No Sentiment or expression in any of my Answers to Addresses were obtruded or insinuated by any Person about me. Every one of them was written with my own hand. I alone am responsible for all the Mistakes and...
18From 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...
19From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Lord! Lord! What can I do, with so much Greek? When I was of your Age, young Man, i.e. 7 or 8 or 9 years ago I felt, a kind of pang of Affection, for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid my Addresses to Isocrates and Dionissius Hallicarnassensis &c &c &c I collected all my Lexicons and Grammers and Sat down to περι ενθεςεως ονοματων &c. In this Way I amused myself for sometime: but I...
20From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
I forgot in my last to remark, a very trifling Inaccuracy in yours of June 27th. The Letter intercepted in Hichbournes Trunk which was reported to glance at Mr Dickenson, was not in 1776. It was in the month of June 1775. Had it been June 1776, the English would not have printed it. The Nation had then too maturely reflected, on the necessity of Independence, and was too ripe and too hot for a...
21From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Let me allude, to one circumstance more, in one of your Letters to me, before I touch upon the Subject of Religion in your Letters to Priestley. The first time, that you and I differed in Opinion on any material Question; was after your Arrival from Europe; and that point was the french Revolution. You was well persuaded in your own mind that the Nation would Succeed in establishing a free...
22From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1813 (Adams 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...
23From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 18 July 1813 (Adams 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...
24From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 July 1813 (Adams Papers)
Dr Priestley, in a letter to Mr Lindsey Northumberland Nov. 4. 1803 Says “As you were pleased with my comparison of Socrates and Jesus, I have begun to carry the same comparison to all the heathen Moralists, and I have all the books that I want for the purpose, except Simplicius and Arrian on Epictetus, and them I hope to get from a Library in Philadelphia: lest however I should fail there, I...
25From 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...
26From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 August 1813 (Adams Papers)
Κριοùς μὲν ὄνοuς διζήμεθα, Κúρνε, καὶ ἵππους εὐγενέας· καί τις βούλεται ἐξ ἀγαθῶν κτήσασθαι. γῆμαι δὲ κακὴν κακοũ οὐ μελεδαίνει ἐςθλὸς ἀνὴρ, ἤν οἱ χρήματα πολλὰ διδῶ. Behold my translation “My Friend Curnis, When We want to purchace, Horses, Asses or Rams, we inquire for the Wellborn. And every one wishes to procure, from the good Breeds. A good Man, does not care to marry a Shrew, the...
27From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
Οὐδὲ γυνὴ κακοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀναίνεται εἶναι ἄκοιτις πλουσίου· ἀλλ’ ἀφνεὸν βούλεται ἀντ’ ἀγαθοῦ. Χρήματὰ γὰρ τιμῶσι, καὶ ἐκ κακοῦ ἐσθλὸς ἔγημε, καὶ κακὸς ἐξ ἀγαθοῦ. πλοῦτος ἔμιξε γένος. Grotius renders this into latin, thus. Nec dedignatur ditemque malumque maritum femina: divitiæ præ probitate placent. In pretio pretium est: genus et prænobile, vili, obscurum claro, miscet avaritia. I Should render...
28From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
I owe you a thousand thanks for your favour of Aug. 22 and its Enclosures, and for Dr Priestley’s “Doctrines of heathen Philosophy compared with those of Revelation.” Your Letter to Dr Rush, and the Sillabus, 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 you will...
29From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
My last Sheet, would not admit an Observation that was material to my design. Dr Price was “inclined to think” that infinite Wisdom and Goodness, could not permit infinite Power, to be inactive, from Eternity: but that, an infinite and eternal Universe, must have necessarily flowed from these Attributes. Plato’s System was “ Αγαθος ” was eternal, Self existent &c. His Ideas, his Word, his...
30From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 September 1813 (Adams Papers)
Considering all things, I admire Dr Priestleys last Effort for which I am entirely indebted to you. But as I think it is extremely imperfect, I beg of you to pursue the investigation according to your promise to Dr Rush, and according to your Syllabus. It may be presumptuous in me to denominate any Thing of Dr Priestley imperfect: but I must avow, that among all the vast Exertions of his...
31From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, September 1813 (Adams Papers)
σὲ γὰρ πάντεσσι θέμις θνητοῖσι προσαυδᾶn. “It is not only permitted but enjoined upon all Mortals to address you.” Why should not our Divines translate it “It is our duty and our priviledge to address the Throne of thy grace and pray for all needed lawfull Blessings temporal and Spiritual,”. Θεμις was the Goddess of honesty, Justice, Decency, and right; the Wife of Jove, another name for Juno....
32From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
As I owe you more for your Letters of Oct. 12. and 28 than I Shall be able to pay. I Shall begin with the P.S. to the last. I am very Sorry to Say, that I cannot assist your memory “in the Enquiries of your letter of August 22d.” I really know not who was the compositor of any one of the Petitions or Addresses you enumerate. Nay farther I am certain I never did know. I was So Shallow a...
33From 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....
34From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 November 1813 (Adams Papers)
I cannot appease my melancholly commiseration for our Armies in this furious Snow Storm, in any way So well as by Studying your Letter of Oct. 28. We are now explicitly agreed, in one important point, vizt That “there is a natural Aristocracy among men; the grounds of which are Virtue and Talents.” You very justly indulge a little merriment upon this Solemn Subject of Aristocracy. I often...
35From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 3 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
The Proverbs of the old greek Poets, are as Short and pithy as any of Solomon or Franklin. Hesiod has several. His Αθανατους μεν πρωτα θεους νομω, ως δiακεitai Τiμα . Honour the Gods established by Law. I know not how We can escape Martyrdom, without a discreet Attention to this præcept. You have Suffered, and I have Suffered more than you, for want of a strict if not a due observance of this...
36From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 19 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
Ridento dicere Verum, quid vetat. I must make you and myself merry or melancholly, by a little more Phylosophical Speculation about the formidable Subject of Aristocracy. Not long after General Dearborns return to Boston from the Army, a violent Alarm was excited and Spread in Boston and through the country, by a report at first only Secretly whispered in private circles that an Affair of Love...
37From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 December 1813 (Adams Papers)
Answer my Letters at your Leisure. Give yourself no concern. I write as for a refuge and protection against Ennui. The fundamental Principle of all Phylosophy and all Christianity is “ Rejoice Always in all Things .” Be thankfull at all times for all good and all that We call evil.” Will it not follow, that I ought to rejoice and be thankful that Priestley has lived? Aye! That Voltaire has...
38From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, February 1814 to 3 March 1814 (Adams Papers)
I was nibbling my pen and brushing my Faculties, to write a polite Letter of Thanks to Mr Counsellor Barton for his valuable Memoirs of Dr Rittenhouse though I could not account for his Sending it to me; when I received your favour of Jan. 24th. I now most cordially indorse my Thanks over to you. The Book is in the modern American Style an able imitation of Marshalls Washington, though far...
39From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1814 (Adams Papers)
I recd, this morning your favour of the 5th. and as I can never let a Sheet of your’s rest I Sit down immediately to acknowledge it. Whenever Mr Rives, of whom I have heard nothing, Shall arrive he shall receive all the cordial Civilities in my power. I am sometimes afraid that my “Machine” will not “Surcease motion” Soon enough; for I dread nothing So much as “dying at top” and expiring like...
40From 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...
41From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
The Bearer of this Letter, after an Education at our Cambridge, travelled with J. Q. A. to Russia, spent two years in looking at parts of Europe, returned to Boston, read Law with one of our first Professors in Boston, is admitted to the Bar, and now Wishes to have the honour of Seeing Montecello and paying his respects to President Jefferson. His Name is Francis C. Gray a Son of our Lt...
42From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 20 December 1814 (Adams Papers)
The most exalted of our young Genius’s in Boston have an Ambition to See Montecello, its Library and Sage. I lately gave a Line of Introduction to Mr Everett, our most celebrated Youth: But his Calls at home, forced him back from Washington. George Ticknor Esquire who will have the Honour to present this to you, has a reputation here, equal to the Character given him in the enclosed Letter...
43From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 19 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Education, which you brought into View in one of your Letters; is a subject so vast, and the systems of Writers are, So various and so contradictory: that human Life is too short to examine it: and a Man must die before he can learn to bring up his Children. The Phylosophers, Divines, Politicians and Pædagogues, who have published their Theories and Practices, in this apartment are without...
44From 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...
45From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 June 1815 (Adams Papers)
Can you give me any Information, concerning A. G. Camus? Is he a Chateaubriand? Or a Marquis D’Argens? Does he mean to abolish Christianity? Or to restore the Inquisition, the Jesuits, the Pope and the Devil? Within a few days, I have received a thing as unexpected to me as an Appartition from the dead; “Rapport a L’Institut National, Par A. G. Camus, imprime par ordre de L’Institut, Pluviose...
46From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 30 July 1815 (Adams Papers)
Who shall write the History of the American Revoluion? Who can write it? Who will ever be able to write it? The most essential Documents, the debates & deliberations in Congress from 1774 to 1783 were all in secret, and are now lost forever. Mr Dickinson printed a speech which he said he made in Congress against the declaration of Independence; but it appeared to me very different from that...
47From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 24 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
If I am neither deceived by the little Information I have, or by my Wishes for its truth, I Should Say that France is the most Protestant country of Europe at this time, though I cannot think it the most reformed . In consequence of these Reveries I have imagined that Camus and the Institute, meant, by the revival and continuance of the Acta Sanctorum, to destroy the Pope and the Catholic...
48From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 November 1815 (Adams Papers)
The fundamental Article of my political Creed is, that Despotism, or unlimited Sovereignty, or absolute Power is the same in a Majority of a popular Assembly, and Aristocratical Counsel, an Oligarchical Junto and a Single Emperor. Equally arbitrary cruel bloody and in every respect, diabolical. Accordingly arbitrary Power, wherever it has resided, has never failed to destroy all the records...
49From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 February 1816 (Adams Papers)
I know not what to say of your Letter of the 11th of Jan. but that it is one of the most consolatory, I ever received. To trace the commencement of the Reformation I suspect We must go farther back than Borgia, or even that Huss or Wickliff, and I want the Acta Sanctorum to assist me in this Research. That Stupendous Monument of human Hypocricy and Fanaticism the Church of St. Peter at Rome,...
50From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 March 1816 (Adams Papers)
I cannot be Serious.! I am about to write you, the most frivolous letter you ever read. Would you go back to your Cradle and live over again your 70 years? I believe you would return me a New England Answer, by asking me another question “Would you live your 80 years over again”? If I am prepared to give you an explicit answer, the question involves So many considerations of Metaphysicks and...