Celebrate . . .

(from Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood)

". . . Adams thought the really important decision for independence had been taken on Julh 2, when the Congress voted to break away from the British empire. "The Second Day of July," he told Abigail, "will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America." He believed that it "would be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by Solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.". . . "

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Preoccupation . . .

(from Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood)

". . . This American aristocracy, however, was very different from that of Europe. European nobles, said Adams, had more pride, "that kind of pride which looks down on commerce and manufacturing as degrading." Perhaps this contempt for commerce, he said, played a useful role in Europ. Maybe it helped prevent the European nobility from becoming too rich and inhibited its acquiring too large a proportion of landed property. Or the aristocracy's valuing honor over money might have saved the European nations from being completely consumed by avarice. . . The American aristocracy's preoccupation with money distinguished it from the European aristocracy and was one of its weaknesses. . . " 

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Nothing . . .

. . . new


(from Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood)
". . . since the Middle Ages the people had struggled to wrest their rights from the twin tyrannies of power - monarchs and the church. For centuries the great had exploited the ignorance and timidity of ordinary people in order to dominate and oppress them. When government was properly restrained by respect for the people's rights, it could be a useful force for good. "But when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an incroaching (sic), grasping, restless and ungovernable power.". . . "

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Old Days?. . .

. . . food for constitutionalist thought . . .


(from Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham)

". . . Jefferson wrote Adams in 1816. Jefferson took the broadest of views: "I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy." . . . Adams was always less sanguine. "I dare not look beyond my nose into futurity," he wrote Jefferson. "Our money, our commerce, our religion, our national and state constitutions, even our arts and sciences, are so many seedpots of division, faction, sedition and rebellion. Everything is transmuted into an instrument of electioneering.". . . The past, he (Jefferson) thought, should hold no magical, unexamined claim over the present. "Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched," he wrote in 1816 . . . "They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present: and 40 years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading: and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...but I know also that the laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind....We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.". . . "

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Fake . . .

. . . what?!!!. . .

Please be careful how much you believe what you hear . . .


(from Lincoln's Last Trial by Dan Abrams and David Fisher)
". . . then from memory (Attorney John Palmer) quoted John Adams, "but as Mr. Adams told us, 'Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.' . . . "

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Two . . .

(from http://www.selfgovernment.us/news/3)
"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."
-- John Adams, Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1780), "The Works of John Adams", vol 9, p.511

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Legacy. . .

(from John Adams, by David McCullough)
". . . Adams's only known response to the news of (Benjamin) Franklin's demise was in a letter to (Benjamin) Rush in which he lamented the lies history would tell of "our revolution." "The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklin's eletrical rod smote the earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod and thence forward these two conducted all the policy, negotiation, legislation, and war.". . . "

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Mrs . . .

. . . John Adams. . .

(from John Adams, by David McCullough)
". . . In a particularly memorable letter, she recounted a crisis that arose when the youngest of her hired hands, James Prince, a free black boy she had taken under her wing in Philadelphia, came to ask if he might attend evening classes in town at a new school for apprentices, Abigail, who had taught him herself to read and write, warmly approved, but was soon asked by a neighbor to withdraw James. If she did not, she was told, the other boys would refuse to attend and the school would close. Had James misbehaved, Abigail asked. No, she was informed, it was because he was black. Did these other boys object when he attended church? No, they did not. . . "The boy is a freeman as much as any of the young men, and merely because his face is black is he to be denied instruction?" she asked. "How is he be be qualified to procure a livelihood? Is this the Christian principle of doing unto others as we would have others to do to us?. . . She requested that the boys be sent to her. "Tell them. . . that I hope we shall all go to Heaven together." And this, she was please to report to Adams, ended the crisis. She heard no more on the subject; James continued in the school. . . "

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The Future . . .

. . . from the perspective of 1786. . .



(from John Adams by David McCullough)
". . . a memorable change must be made in the system of education and knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. The education of a nation instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many. . . "

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Community . . .

(from John Adams by David McCullough)
". . . He described how the shrieking "rabble" pelted the soldiers with snowballs, oyster shells, sticks, "every species of rubbish," as a cry went up to "Kill them! Kill them!" One soldier had been knocked down with a club, then hit again as soon as he could rise. "Do you expect he should behave like a stoic philosopher, lost in apathy?" Adams asked. Self-defense was the primary canon of the law of nature. Better that many guilty persons escape unpunished than one innocent person should be punished. "The reason is, because it's of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.". . . "

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Good Humor . . .

(from John Adams, by David McCullough)
". . . Because wisdom and education were not sufficient of themselves, he had added the further "duty" of government to "countenance and inculcate" the principles of humanity, charity, industry, frugality, honesty, sincerity - virtue, in sum. And amiability as well - "good humor," as he called it - counted for the common good, the Constitution of Massachusetts was to proclaim, suggesting that such delight in life as Adams had found in the amiable outlook of the French had had a decided influence. . . "

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Freedom . . .

(from John Adams by David McCullough. . . on Thomas Jefferson's writing of 'the declaration' in 1776)

". . . He borrowed readily from his own previous writing, particularly from a recent draft for a new Virginia constitution, but also from a declaration of rights for Virginia, which appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on June 12. It had been drawn up by George Mason, who wrote that "all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights. . . among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty." And there was a pamphlet written by the Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson, published in Philadelphia in 1774, that declared, "All men are, by nature equal and free: no one has a right to any authority over another without his consent: all lawful government if founded on the consent of those who are subject to It.". . . (John Adams commenting)I was delighted with its high tone and flights of oratory with which it abounded, especially that concerning Negro slavery, which, though I knew his southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly would never oppose. . ."

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Ample . . .

. . . opportunities has Mr. Adams had to roll over in his grave . . .


(from wikipedia.com)
". . . In the closing months of his term Adams became the first president to occupy the new, but unfinished President's Mansion (later known as the White House) beginning November 1, 1800. "I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it," Adams wrote on his second night in the mansion. "May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.". . ."


. . . and he COULD have another very soon . . .

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