1John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 July 1813, with Postscript from Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson, [ca. 15 July 1813] (Jefferson Papers)
Never mind it, my dear Sir, if I write four Letters to your one: your one is worth more than my four. It is true that I can Say and have Said nothing new on the Subject of Government. yet I did Say in my Defence and in my Discourses on Davila, though in an uncouth Style, what was new to Lock , to Harrington , to Milton , to Hume to Montesquieu to Reauseau , to Turgot , Condorcet
2John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 August 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I believe I told you in my last , that I had given you all in Lindseys Memoirs, than that interested you. But I was mistaken. In Priestleys Letter to Lindsey Dec r 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...
3John 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...
4John 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...
5John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 29 May 1813 (Jefferson 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...
6John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
It is very true, that “the denunciations of the Priesthood are fulminated against every Advocate for a compleat Fre e dom 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 denounc e...
7John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 30 June 1813 (Jefferson 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 responsable for all the Mistakes and...
8John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, [ca. 3–5] July 1813 (Jefferson 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...
9John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 November 1813 (Jefferson 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 22 d .” 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...
10John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 22 July 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
D r Priestley , in a letter to M r 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
11John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 9 July 1813 (Jefferson 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 ενθε ς εως ονοματων &c. In this Way I amused myself for sometime: but...
12John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, [22] September 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Considering all things, I admire D r Priestleys last Effort for which I am entirely indebted to you. But as I think it is extreamly imperfect, I beg of you to pursue the investigation, according to your promise to D r 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...
13John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 12 July 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I forgot in my last to remark, a very trifling Inaccuracy in yours of June 27 th . The Letter intercepted in Hichbournes Trunk which was reported to glance at M r 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...
14John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 11 June 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I rec d yesterday your favour of may 27 th . 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...
15John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 13 July 1813 (Jefferson 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...
16John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 September 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
My last Sheet , would not admit of an Observation that was material to my design. D r 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...
17John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, [ca. 4 October] 1813 (Jefferson 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,.” Θεμiς was the Goddess of honesty, Justice, Decency, and right; the Wife of Jove , another name for...
18John 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...
19John 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...
20John 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...
21John 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...
22John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, [ca. 14] August 1813, with Postscript, 16 August 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Κριοùς μὲν καὶ 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...
23John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 14 November 1813 (Jefferson 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....
24John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 2 September 1813 (Jefferson 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...