20481From John Adams to Emma Willard, 11 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
Accept my thanks for your obliging letter of the 25 of last month which I received but yesterday—the Book you mention is not yet arrived—I should be much pleased to see Mr Southwicks address, as I am a friend to every effort to improve the knowledge Virtue and happiness of our laborious Youth— I do not complain, Miss Willard, of the ingratitude of any party because I always endeavoured to be...
20482From John Adams to John Jay, 13 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I received, last night your kind favour of the 7th. Your design of writing to Mr Duane for Copies of our “very Short journals” as he calls them, is judicious, and all that is necessary. I am under no concern about Mr Duane’s Extracts or Copies, because Congress has ordered our Journals to be printed and they are in a course of publication. Although I am ashamed of mine, yet I know that Shame...
20483From John Adams to Richard Rush, 14 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have been tenderly affected by the kind expressions of your friendship in your letter of the 9th of february. In the course of forty years I have been called to assist in the formation of a Constitution for this State. This kind of Architecture I find is an Art or Mistery very difficult to learn and Still harder to practice. The Attention of Mankind at large Seems now to be drawn to this...
20484From John Adams to Emma Willard, 16 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have received Mr Southwicks address to the Apprentice of Albany and have read it three times over after the first reading I said there is no need of addition, subtraction, correction or alteration; a generation of apprentices educated in Mr Southwicks principles and formed upon his model would redeem a nation on the brink of destruction. After the third reading I found nothing worth...
20485To John Adams from David Hosack, 17 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
you did me the honour some time since after reading my memoir of Dr Hugh Williamson to write me a letter stating some particulars relative to the Hutchinson letters’ which were new to me and which are calculated to unfold some secrets of that affair that before were inexplicable, I mean relating to the agency of Mr Temple and Mr Hartley— I read that part of your letter to the new york...
20486From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 18 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I have made my Cantabridgians read your Letter to all my family at Breakfast. We all recognized the concordance between the Oration upon Industry and Doctor Barrows Sermons which I have caused to be read in my family over and over. Indeed I do not believe it possible for human Ingenuity to write any Thing upon Industry which may not be found Substantially in his five Sermons in favour of that...
20487From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 19 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
Must We, before We take our departure from this grand and beautiful World, Surrender all our pleasing hopes of the progres of Society? Of improvement of the intellectual and moral condition of the World? Of the reformation of mankind? The Piemontese Revolution Scarcely assumed a form; and the Neapolitan bubble is burst. And what Should hinder the Spanish and Portuguese Constitutions from...
20488From John Adams to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
I am glad I forgot to return your Son’s beautiful morsel on Industry with my last Letter; because it furnishes an Apology for writing another. In answering a letter I commonly forget to notice two thirds of it, till my Answer is Sent away. Helvetius and Rousseau preached to the French Nation Liberty , till they made them the most mechanical Slaves; equality till they destroyed all Equity;...
20489To John Adams from François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 21 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
Is it not Strange, that this year—I Should not have received one Single line from those—whom I So highly respect, at Boston? No—not even of Montezillo? It cannot be—that you are indisposed—or any of the family—your promising George would have mentioned it to me—The last notice I obtained of the family was from Fish-kill—and will the 4th of march your’s was of 18 Febr—Could it be possible, that...
20490From John Adams to David Sewall, 22 May 1821 (Adams Papers)
How do you do? as we have been friends for seventy years, and are Candidates for promotion to an other World, where I hope we shall be better acquainted, I think we ought to enquire now and then after each-others health and welfare while we stay here— I am not tormented with the fear of death; nor though suffering under many infirmities and agitated by many afflictions, weary of Life—I have a...