The Political Science of John Adams CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AT T the two periods when the American people had the unusual opportunity of instituting governments to suit themselves, no man had studied constitutional lore so deeply or reached such definite conclusions in regard to what he called "the true elements of the science of government, as John Adams. To John Adams politics was "the art of securing human happiness," "the divine science";' and with the duties of the hour he was fully impressed. "No people ever had a finer opportunity to settle things upon the best foundations," he wrote in 17763; and when the next occasion was approaching in 1787, he repeated that "the people in America have now the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number, since the trans Works, ed. by C. F. Adams, Boston, 1856, iv., 290. 2 IV., 203, ix., 339, 512. 3 IX., 434, cf. 391, iv., 200. gression of the first pair"; and, he added, as "the constitutions now made in America will not wholly wear out for thousands of years," "it is of the last importance that they should begin right." I 2 To start them right he did all that he could, and he was satisfied that he did much; for not free from conceit was John Adams. He boasted that his early thoughts had influenced those who framed the constitutions of North Carolina and New York in 1776 and 1777; that he was treated as "the putative father" of the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, which he had himself drafted; and that his later opinions not only determined the remodeling of the constitutions of South Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, but through their influence upon the State governments, affected also the composition of the Federal Government. With due allowance for the exaggeration of egotism, in these claims lurks a fair amount of truth. His views, however, passed beyond what was acceptable to the people, and because he insisted upon them "in season and out of season' (cf. ix. 451), hardly had the Federal Constitution been put into working order, he fell from grace, and since then less attention has been paid to his doctrines than they deserve. He developed a system for which he took no pride as inventor, but which he thoroughly made his own; for, while other political philosophers have touched upon its parts and investigated its details here and there, more than any did he minutely analyze it into its elements and carry it back to its principles, elaborately draw it out into its corollaries, symmetrically clothe it in a complete form, and trenchantly IV., 290, 298, cf. 587. 2 II., 508, iii., 59, x., 410, cf. i., 209; vi., 463, cf. iii., 361, ix., 106; iii., 23, vi., 458, viii., 508, x., 392, cf. ix., 556. argue for it on grounds both of experience and of reason. To political science he thus made a contribution that is well worthy of reconsideration. The examination of it not only is of historical interest, giving insight into the causes of our constitutions being what they are, but may lead to lessons in the valuation of their merits and defects. In Adams's career as a political writer may be discerned three distinct periods. He began to write on public questions in 1765, and this first period continued down to the summer of 1786, when it came to an abrupt end. He was occupied with practical affairs, first with discussing our relations to England, then with advocating independence and union, and lastly with urging the establishment, and outlining the plan, of State governments and the Confederation. The second was a theoretical period, during which, at its beginning already long absent from the country and its practical affairs, he was engaged in defending the State constitutions against the criticism of radical writers like Price and Priestley in England, Turgot, Condorcet, and others in France, and against the spread of the ideas of Franklin and Thomas Paine, already embodied in the unicameral constitution of Pennsylvania, which was imitated by South Carolina, Georgia, and Vermont, and in advocating improvements of a directly contrary nature. Also, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the establishment of the new government, he welcomed this as containing features he had recommended, and took it under his wing, but subjected it to criticism where he thought it fell short and suggested what he believed would be inevitable future amendments. This was, too, a dogmatic period, in which from the high vantage of his fuller studies and meditations he looked back upon his earlier efforts as put forth at a time when he "understood very little of the subject" (ix. 566). He flattered himself that now he had studied government as the astronomer does the stars, "by facts, observations, and experiments," or as the carpenter does shipbuilding, learning the principles of nature before constructing a machine subject to their sway (cf. vi. 479, 481); and he was "as clearly satisfied of the infallible truth of the doctrines maintained" in his book, as "of any demonstration in Euclid," so much so as to "think them as eternal and unchangeable as the earth and its inhabitants," and to know "with infallible certainty" that future experience will confirm them. Accordingly, the system he expounded he pronounced to be "the only scientific government; the only plan which takes into consideration all the principles in nature, and provides for all cases that occur" (vi. 44). This period, the fullest, was the shortest. It was followed by a third period of recantation from his advanced and solitary position, in which he showed himself submissive to the American constitutions as they were and are, and renounced and denounced the extraneous views which had rendered him unpopular, retaining most of his opinions, however, in some sort of shape, to save his face. * J., 432 (cf. vi., 252); ix., 568 (cf. 571); vi., 300. |