21John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 December 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I return the Analysis of Dupuis with my thanks for the loan of it. It is but a faint Miniature of the original. I have read that original in twelve Volumes, besides a 13 th of plates . I have been a Lover and a Reader of Romances all my Life. From Don Quixotte and Gill Blas to the Scottish Chiefs and an hundred others. For the last year or two I have devoted myself to this kind of Study: and...
22John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 June 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
your favour of the 15 th 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...
23John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 6 May 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
Neither Eyes Fingers or Paper held out, to dispatch all the Trifles I wished to write in my last Letter . In your favour of April 8 th You “wonder for what good End the Sensations of Grief could be intended”? You “ wish the Pathologists would tell Us, what the Use of Grief, in Our Œconomy, and of what good it is the Cause proximate or remote.” When I appro a ch Such questions as this, I...
24From 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...
25From 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...
26From 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...
27John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1812 (Jefferson 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...
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, 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...
30John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 10 June 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
In your Letter to D r 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 every thing into the hands of power and priestcraft. All Advances in Science were proscribed as innovations; they pretended to praise and...