American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760–1805: Two Volume Paperback Set

32. John Adams, Thoughts on Government

PolWritV1_401-450.indd 401 2/21/12 10:03 AM [32} ]OHN ADAMS 1735-1826 Thoughts on Government BOSTON, 1776 Revolutionary leader par excellence, Adams was born in Braintree, on the outskirts of Boston, where the first of his line had settled nearly a hundred years before. Educated at Harvard, he studied and practiced law in Braintree and Boston until public life pulled him away. Adams won high acclaim throughout the colonies for pamphlets, pieces in newspapers, and one extensive book that appeared as the Constitution was being drafted in Philadelphia. He represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress from its beginning until pressed into service on a series of missions to European countries, and culminated his career with two terms as vice-president and one term as president of the United States. His greatest contributions to the conception and architecture of republican government may have been made in rn6, when he was highly influential in drafting the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation and wrote his remarkably succinct Thoughts on Government; and in q8o when he was principal draftsman of the Massachusetts Constitution of that year, which is still in effect and has been widely copied. The pamphlet Thoughts on Government originated as a letter written to two of North Carolina's delegates to the First Continental Congress. Adams probably wrote out three more copies with minor variations before Richard Henry Lee of Virginia put into print the version written some months before to George Wythe of Virginia. That is the version reproduced here. Lee, among others, credits Adams's "letter" with a highly determinative effect on the character of the state constitutions then being written. The editors have in this piece removed a number of commas that mar the flow of the prose. PolWritV1_401-450.indd 402 2/21/12 10:03 AM My dear Sir, { 402} BOSTON, 1776 If I was equal to the task of forming a plan for the government of a colony, I should be flattered with your request, and very happy to comply with it; because, as the divine science of politics is the science of social happiness, and the blessings of society depend entirely on the constitutions of government, which are generally institutions that last for many generations, there can be no employment more agreeable to a benevolent mind than a research after the best. Pope flattered tyrants too much when he said, "For forms of government let fools contest, That which is best administered is best." Nothing can be more fallacious than this. But poets read history to collect flowers, not fruits; they attend to fanciful images, not the effects of social institutions. Nothing is more certain, from the history of nations and nature of man, than that some forms of government are better fitted for being well administered than others. We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue. Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates, Mahomet, not to mention authorities really sacred, have agreed in this. If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form? Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it. Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed, the former is but a part of the PolWritV1_401-450.indd 403 2/21/12 10:03 AM (403} JOHN ADAMS 1735-1826 latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness. The foundation...