Beschreibung:

ADAMS, John, President, Signer (Massachusetts) . Autograph letter signed ("John Adams") as President, to the Reverend Dr. Walter, "East Chester, 20 miles from New York," 24 October 1797. 2 full pages, 4to, 250 x 200 mm. (9.13/16 x 8in.), margins and corners of one side of the sheet trimmed close, affecting two letters , otherwise in excellent condition. "THE...LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE AUTHORITIES ARE MADE TO CHECK EACH OTHER" A rare letter as President, commenting on his writings on government, their influence on the Federal Constitution and his despair for Europe's current situation. He thanks Walter for sending "two volumes of essays from the beneficent Genius of Count Rumford," then writes: "If you have laboured through the three Volumes of my Defence of the Constitution [published 1787-88], you have done them an honour that very few other Men of Letters have taken the trouble to bestow on them. They were written with a view of not only compassing the ferment in America which produced Shay's Rebellion, but with a hope of laying before the French Nation, and all Europe, some Considerations, which had not been much attended to for a century past...My Labour however has been lost, as much as Plato's in his Republic, Sir Thomas More's in his Eutopia or [Sir Thomas] Harrington's in his Oceana. If I had not some little consolation in thinking that it had some effect in producing our Federal Constitution, I think I should almost repent on having wasted my time in Writing it." Then Adams elaborates upon the system of checks and balances, one of the fundamental principles of his plan: "It is an Attempt to place Government upon the only Philosophy which can ever Support it, the real Constitution of human Nature: not upon wild visions of its perfectibility. That...which produces Rivalries of Men, Cities, and Nations and consequent Injustice and Disorder is applied as a remedy to its own excesses. The Emulations of the Legislative and Executive Authorities are made to check each other and the Emulation between the poor and the rich, in their respective representative assemblies [the House and the Senate], are employed in the same way. And by no other means were ever human Passions restrained...The whole history of Nations is brought to support the Theory. But all the ages of the World have not afforded stronger Proof of its Infallability, than the last ten Years of the History of France, Holland, Italy, &c." "Had I possessed the Leisure of a Man of Letters," he concludes, "I might have made it shorter: but had the Eloquence of a Burke or a Rousseau fallen to my Lot, I never could have induced Numbers [of people] to read it sufficient to have convinced Nations and saved their Blood. Such is the condition of Humanity..." Adams' Defence had advocated three branches: "a strong executive, an independent judiciary and a legislative branch divided into an upper and a lower house" (Ellis, John Adams Passionate Sage , p.149).