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The Rhetorical Design of John Adams's Defence of the Constitutions of … America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John E. Paynter
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Extract

In his Defence (1787–1788), John Adams rebuts French criticism of the legislative checks and balances present in most American constitutions. His aim, however, is not merely to conserve the constitutional status quo. In addition, he seeks to challenge younger Americans to reform all American constitutions by improving the tripartite legislative balance in them. That reform will be possible only on the basis of a reformed political science. Adams designed his Defence to provide his younger audience with that corrected political science, but to do so without undermining the authority and constitutional achievements of their Fathers. He does this primarily by offering an improved specimen of the kind of “reading and reasoning” that had informed the Founding generation. In it he rehabilitates certain “gloomy” authors as useful to republican political science, especially in their understanding of the passion for distinction and its place in republican government.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , Summer 1996 , pp. 531 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1996

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References

1 The Defence of the Constitutions of ⃛ America was originally published in three volumes during 1787–1788 by Dilly and Stockdale in London. It was later reprinted in The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Francis Adams, 10 volumes (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1850–1856).

2 For a summary of such scholarly criticism, see Thompson, C. Bradley, “John Adams's Machiavellian Moment,” Review of Politics 57 (1995):393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Adams's Davila essays first appeared as newspaper articles published serially in Fenno's, JohnGazette of the United States in 1790–1791Google Scholar. They were subsequently published together (with one omission) as Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History. By an American Citizen (1805). For an account of the Defence and Davila as parts of a single project, see Paynter, John, “John Adams: On the Principles of a Political Science,” The Political Science Reviewer 5 (Fall 1975):35–40.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Wood, Gordon S., The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969), p. 568.Google Scholar

5 Adams, , Works, 4:435.Google Scholar

6 ibid., pp. 292–94.

7 ibid., p. 293.

8 Adams, , Works, 6:278.Google Scholar

9 Adams, , Works, 4:290.Google Scholar

10 ibid., p. 287.

11 ibid., p. 284.

12 ibid., p. 406. Adams makes the same point when he concludes Davila, (Works, 6:394–99).Google Scholar

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14 ibid., p. 299.

15 ibid., pp. 299, 559–60.

16 In private, Adams voiced doubts about the adequacy of Turgot's understanding (though not about his love) of liberty. See, for example, his 1790 private correspondence in Works, 9: 563–64 and 570.Google Scholar A hint of these doubts occasionally surfaces in the Defence and Davila: see Works, 4:559–60 and 6: 280 on property and liberty.Google Scholar

17 Adams to Samuel Adams, 18 October 1790, Adams, , Works, 6:411–12.Google Scholar

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20 The Marquis de Condorcet's criticisms of Adams's, Defence occurred in his Quatre Lettres d'un Bourgeois of New Haven, sur l'Unite de la legislation (1788)Google Scholar. For Adams's explicit references to Condorcet in Davila, see Adams, , Works, 6:252, 272n. and 299.Google Scholar

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24 Adams, , Works, 4:389–91Google Scholar, in a section respectfully entitled “opinions of philosophers.” Adams uses Franklin again in this way (ibid., p. 410).

25 ibid., p. 294.

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27 Adams, , Works, 4: 298Google Scholar. At the end of the first volume of the Defence, Adams returns to the importance of beginning well (ibid., pp. 587–88).

28 Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 October 1787, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, ed. Cappon, Lester J., 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 1: 203–204. Italics mine.Google Scholar

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35 ibid., p. 168, quoting Marchamont Nedham approvingly. Italics mine.

36 ibid., p. 131.

37 ibid., pp. 185–86, 131, 6, 252, 204.

38 ibid., pp. 131,168–69, 416–17. Adams acknowledges that the best republics have been virtuous, but he insists that in such cases, the civic virtues have been “the effect of the well ordered constitution, rather than the cause– {ibid., p. 219).

39 ibid.

40 Adams to Samuel Adams, 18 10 1790, ibid., pp. 414–17.

41 ibid., pp. 275–76.

42 ibid., p. 415.

43 ibid., pp. 131,417. Italics mine.

44 ibid., pp. 416–17.

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46 ibid., p. 300.

47 Adams, , Works, 6: 218Google Scholar. In private correspondence, Adams made a much harsher indictment of the “great leaders of the Revolution,” criticizing their “ignorance of the Nature of government and their obstinacy in refusing to learn it.” See Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 29 May 1787, The Papers of John Adams, ed. Taylor, Robert J. et al. , 8 vols, to date (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), reel 115Google Scholar. He is especially critical of their opinion that authority can be maintained and law executed without distinctions and ranks, which these “great leaders” insist “ought not to exist” (Adams to Tudor, William, 27 05 1789, Adams Papers, reel 115)Google Scholar. See also Adams to Warren, James, 24 05 1786, Adams Papers, reel 113.Google Scholar

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50 Adams's respect for William Smith diminished in the 1790s, as Smith's conduct disclosed serious flaws in his character. See Adams to Smith, 19 12 1798, Adams, , Works, 8:618.Google Scholar

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53 ibid., pp. 217–18.

54 Adams, , Works, 4: 292–94.Google Scholar

55 ibid., p. 294.

56 Thompson, , “Machiavellian Moment,” pp. 397–98.Google Scholar

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58 ibid., pp. 284, 559.

59 ibid., p. 284, 296.

60 ibid., p. 293.

61 ibid., p. 463.

62 ibid., p. 466.

63 According to Adams, the most accurate account of the modern English constitution was given by Jean Louis DeLolme in The Constitution of England. But even DeLolme lacked a correct understanding of the human passions and of how those passions are connected with the various aspects of the English constitution (Adams, , Works, 6: 396–97)Google Scholar. For a list of American improvements on the English constitution, see Adams, , Works, 4: 382.Google Scholar

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65 Adams, , Works, 4:466.Google Scholar

66 ibid., p. 406.

67 ibid., pp. 408, 410. On the importance of Machiavelli to Adams's project in the Defence, see Thompson, , “Machiavellian Moment,” pp. 397–415.Google Scholar

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69 Adams, , Works, 4:406–407Google Scholar. See also Adams to Belknap, , 5 06 1787, Adams Papers, reel 115.Google Scholar

70 Adams's earlier appropriation of Montesquieu as a friend of balance occurred in the first volume of the Defence (Adams, , Works, 4:423–27).Google Scholar

71 Montesquieu, , The Spirit of the Laws, trans, and ed. Cohler, Anne, Miller, Basia, and Stone, Harold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 42 and 36.Google Scholar

72 Adams, , Works, 6: 208–211Italics mine.Google Scholar

73 ibid., p. 210.

74 ibid., p. 208; Adams, , Works, 4:406 Italics mine.Google Scholar

75 Adams, , Works, 6:232.Google Scholar Adams uses Smith without naming him. For a brief account of that use, see Lovejoy, Arthur O., Reflection on Human Nature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), pp. 190–92 and 213–15.Google Scholar

76 Adams, , Works, 6:245.Google Scholar

77 ibid., pp. 232, 237, 246.

78 Adams, , A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)Google Scholar, in Works, 3:452.Google Scholar

79 On Adams's analysis of the natural ground of social orders, see Paynter, , “Principles,” pp. 52–68.Google Scholar

80 Adams, , Works, 6:246.Google Scholar

81 ibid., pp. 245, 241, 246, 234.

82 ibid., pp. 243, 245–46,168.

83 Adams, , Works, 4:293.Google Scholar

84 Thompson, , “Machiavellian Moment,” pp. 399–406.Google Scholar

85 Adams, , Works, 4:297.Google Scholar

86 ibid., p. 435.

87 Adams, , Works, 6:217.Google Scholar

88 Saint-John, Henry, Bolingbroke, Lord Viscount, “Letters on the Study and Use of History,” in The Works of Lord Bolingbroke, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1841): 173–334Google Scholar. On Adams's early reading of Bolingbroke, see Adams, , Diary in The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, gen. ed. Butterfield, L. H., 4 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 1: 11, 12, 35, 36, 38, 40, 73, 176, 200, 210; 2: 386; and 3:264Google Scholar. Many of the Diary references indicate that Adams not only read Bolinbroke's work, but “wrote” it “pretty industriously ” into his literary commonplace book. His extant commonplace book does not seem to contain any Bolingbroke material (see Adams Papers, reel 187).

89 Adams, , Works, 5:11Google Scholar, quoting Machiavelli approvingly.

90 Bolingbroke, , Works, 2:229Google Scholar. The work praised by Bolingbroke and appropriated by Adams was Davila's Dell' Istoria delle Guerne Civili di Francia.

91 Adams, , Works, 6:269, 365Google Scholar, quoting Davila approvingly.

92 ibid., p. 246.