PREVIEW: The Legacy of John Adams by Wendell Garrett (Half-Leather)

the legacy of john adams A Sele^ion of Documents

th e l e g a c y o f JOHN ADAMS A Sele^ion of Documents wendell garrett

tho rn wi llow pr e s s 20 07

ďŹ rst edition copyright Š 20 07 wendell garrett

The texts of the letters and documents printed here are all taken from the life and works of john adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston, 1856), 10 volumes, and the diary and autobiography of john adams, ed. L. H. ButterďŹ eld (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 4 volumes.

wendell garrett New York City

contents The Legacy of John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions Instructions of the Town of Braintree The Massachusetts Constitution, 1780 The Autobiography of John Adams, 1770 Inaugural Address, 1797 John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, 1818 Correspondence of John Adams with Thomas Jefferson, 1814-1816 The Adams National Historic Site The Birthplaces of John and John Quincy Adams

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13 37 62 68 116 125 136 151 166 173

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facsimiles & illustrations john adams bust. Plaster bust by J. B. Binon at Faneuil Hall, 1819. p. 4 john adams. John Singleton Copley, engraved portrait. p. 12 map of boston peninsula. Early map of Boston from the collection of Historic New England. p.24 john adams birthplace. South Elevation. Quincy, Massachusetts.

Historic American Building Survey. p. 36 john adams. Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, 18001801. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of William H. Huntington, 1883 (83.2.470). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 49 white house. South elevation drawing by Benjamin H. Latrobe, c. 1817.

Library of Congress. p. 61 letter to james a. bayard, april 10, 1802. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Delaware. p. 67 adams national historic site front entrance. Historic American Building Survey. p. 78 john adams. Oil painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1798 and 1815. National Gallery of Art. p. 93 john adams national historic site, South Elevation. Quincy, Massachusetts. Historic American Building Survey. p. 112 letter to caesar a. rodney, september 13, 1818. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Delaware. p. 138, 139 adams mansion garden plan. Quincy, Massachusetts. Historic American Building Survey. p. 150 adams mansion. Transverse view. Quincy, Massachusetts. Historic American Building Survey. 13 p. 169 birthplaces of the adamses. Quincy, Massachusetts. The New York Historical Society. p. 172

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mong all the founders of the American Republic in the first rank of importance, John Adams enjoyed the fewest moments of popularity during his lifetime and, until recently, has had the least public attention and acclaim. It is a strange reflection on the attitude of democracies toward their great men that America should have exalted two born aristocrats from Virginia and failed to recognize in John Adams, a descendant of humble and honest folk, a striking illustration of the principle of equal opportunities and the symbol of a new social order. After two centuries, the second President of the United States remains unsung, a distant and lonely figure in American history. Between George Washington, who saved and made the country, and Thomas Jefferson, who heralded in the New World the advent of democracy, John Adams stands in a chiaroscuro as a man of fundamental honesty and real courage, to whose memory is attached no great historical achievement. Except by sufferance of being second on the roll of Presidents, his has never been a household name in the United States. Far fewer towns, counties, schools, mountains, and the like, have been named for him than for Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, or perhaps some others.

Born in New England of yeoman stock— he was of the fourth generation from Henry Adams, the first of the family to emigrate from Somerset County, England, to America — and buried in New England, he seems to belong to New England more than to the country. During his life he failed to appeal to the imagination of his contemporaries, and to posterity he bequeathed no sharply coined motto, no political maxims to be quoted on patriotic occasions and used in electoral campaigns. Even though Adams’s public writing could be ponderous, his

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