Finding the Real John Adams

By |2022-02-22T18:06:10-06:00October 29th, 2021|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Books, Essential, Featured, John Adams|

John Adams never had an optimistic view of human nature, and his experience in the Congress and abroad only deepened his suspicion that his fellow Americans might not have the character to sustain a republican government. As early as 1776, he expressed his doubts about America’s capacity for virtue. Library of America released John Adams: Writings [...]

A Founding of Words

By |2020-02-28T10:21:43-06:00February 24th, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, History, John Adams, Literature, Senior Contributors|

In so many ways, the American founding era (1761-1793) is a time period without equal in all modern history, as a dedicated group of citizens attempted to create and sustain the first republic on any large scale since the collapse of the Roman Republic with the assassination of Senator Marcus T. Cicero (43B.C.). They did [...]

The Well-Read Voter

By |2020-02-12T08:26:36-06:00February 12th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, John Adams, Quotation, Statesman|

The English Constitution is founded, tis bottomed And grounded on the Knowledge and good sense of the People. The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman [...]

“They Live Forever in the American Constellation”: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

By |2023-07-03T16:40:56-05:00February 10th, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Declaration of Independence, History, Independence Day, John Adams, Primary Documents, Thomas Jefferson|

Adams and Jefferson are no more. They are dead. But how little is there of the great and good which can die! To their country they yet live, and live for ever. Their stars have now joined the American Constellation. Beneath this illumination let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly [...]

Four Things Every American Should Know About Independence Day

By |2023-07-03T16:32:08-05:00July 3rd, 2019|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Declaration of Independence, History, Independence Day, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson|

The need for understanding our roots is as timeless as the human story itself and explains why we cling to the Declaration of Independence. Most people know that the Fourth of July—Independence Day—is a celebration of America’s separation from Great Britain. July 4, 1776 marks the beginning of the United States. It’s like our national birthday. [...]

The Progeny of Jefferson and Adams

By |2021-04-22T19:09:02-05:00December 27th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Featured, Gleaves Whitney, History, John Adams, Stephen Tonsor series, Thomas Jefferson|

All Americans tend to look at the nation either as disciples of Jefferson or as disciples of Adams: Jefferson told Americans what they wanted to hear; Adams told Americans what they needed to know… I. I was having a beer with a couple of other graduate students. We were looking out onto State Street, enjoying [...]

Finding the Real John Adams

By |2022-02-22T18:06:42-06:00November 8th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, History, John Adams, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

John Adams never had an optimistic view of human nature, and his experience in the Congress and abroad only deepened his suspicion that his fellow Americans might not have the character to sustain a republican government. In the Spring of 2016, Library of America released John Adams: Writings from the New Nation 1784-1826, the third and [...]

The Key to John Adams’ Political Principles

By |2020-10-29T23:06:14-05:00August 6th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Featured, John Adams, Liberty, Political Philosophy, Political Science Reviewer, Politics, Timeless Essays|

Of all John Adams' published writings, two works provide an especially fruitful resource for an inquiry into his deepest political reflection: his "Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" and "Discourses on Davila." As a political writer, John Adams is most remembered today for the constitutional prescriptions by which he [...]

Russell Kirk on the Variety and Mystery of Human Existence

By |2022-06-20T20:06:12-05:00May 10th, 2017|Categories: Alexis de Tocqueville, American Founding, Edmund Burke, John Adams, Russell Kirk, Ted McAllister, The Conservative Mind, Tradition|Tags: |

Too often the public conversation about universal truths divides along rather sterile ideological lines. Russell Kirk’s great warning is that this is not really a battle of ideas, understood abstractly, but a battle of sentiments or affections… Since the nation’s founding, a salutary tension has informed American political thought—a tension between the abstract, universal truths [...]

Sons of the Founders: A Great Generation?

By |2019-02-14T12:45:29-06:00March 15th, 2017|Categories: American Founding, Bradley J. Birzer, History, John Adams, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, World War II|

When the second generation of Americans inherited the leadership of the republic, they must have felt, in equal measure, a mix of immense pride and a sense of dread… I often imagine how difficult it must have been to be the son of a Founding Father. Can you imagine trying to live up to what [...]

Distresses Yet More Dreadful: Lessons From John & Abigail Adams

By |2021-10-29T13:12:50-05:00November 24th, 2016|Categories: American Republic, Featured, John Adams|

John and Abigail Adams remained faithful to what they believed were the permanent things. How might twenty-first-century Americans use their correspondence to better address the public questions that touch upon the fundamentals of American constitutional liberty? When I look back to the Year 1761, and recollect the Argument concerning Writs of Assistance, in the Superiour Court, which [...]

John Adams on the Passion for Distinction in Society

By |2021-10-29T11:26:17-05:00September 14th, 2016|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Civil Society, Democracy, Featured, John Adams, Liberty, Monarchy, Politics, Social Order|

The first task of the wise legislator in his effort to regulate emulation is to actively conduct the passion toward politically useful objects and thereby place the passion "on the side of virtue." Political Architecture: The Natural Order of the Many A full understanding of the passion for distinction requires that we look at man [...]

John Adams on Nobility and Social Architecture

By |2021-10-29T11:34:38-05:00September 8th, 2016|Categories: Adam Smith, American Founding, American Republic, Civil Society, History, John Adams, Virtue|

Even when wealth and noble birth are connected with talents, the two sets of talents differ, and those possessed by the nobleman are likely to be of greater worth than are those possessed by the man of wealth. Within his general view of man as naturally social, John Adams explored the nature of the passion [...]

“Republican Government” According to John Adams

By |2021-10-29T12:14:40-05:00August 31st, 2016|Categories: American Republic, Featured, Great Books, History, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Adams, John Locke, Liberty, Natural Law, Philosophy, Political Science Reviewer, Republicanism|

John Adams wondered why men cannot live together “naturally” at peace, with the justice of their relations emerging immediately from the operation of reason in each individual. As elaborated thus far, natural law teaches that legitimate government is circumscribed by liberty in a dual sense: It derives from the consent of equally free individuals, and [...]

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