TO BENJAMIN KENT.
[MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.]
PHILAD July 27 1776
MY DEAR FRIEND
I must beg you to impute to the true Reason my not having yet acknowledgd & answerd your very obliging Letter of the 24 May. The WANT OF LEISURE often prevents my indulging the natural Inclination of my Mind to converse with my distant Friends by familiar Epistles; for however unequal I feel my self to the Station in which our Country has placed me here, I am indispensibly obligd to attend the Duties of it with Diligence.
It has been difficult for a Number of persons sent from all parts of so extensive a Territory and representing Colonies (or as I must now call them STATES) which in many Respects have had different Interests & Views, to unite in Measures materially to affect them all. Hence our Determinations have been necessarily slow. We have however gone on from Step to Step, till at length we are arrivd to perfection, as you have heard, in a Declaration of Independence. Was there ever a Revolution brot about, especially so important as this without great internal Tumults & violent Convulsions! The Delegates of every Colony in Congress have given their Voices in favor of the great Question, & the People I am told, recognize the Resolution as though it were a Decree promulgated from Heaven. I have thot that if this decisive Measure had been taken six months earlier, it would have given Vigor to our Northern Army & a different Issue to our military Exertions in Canada. But probably I was mistaken. The Colonies were not then all ripe for so momentous a Change. It was necessary that they shd be united, & it required Time & patience to remove old prejudices, to instruct the unenlightend, convince the doubting and fortify the timid. Perhaps if our Friends had considerd how much was to be previously done they wd not have been, as you tell me some of them were, "impatient under our Delay."
New Govts are now erecting in the several American States under the Authority of the people. Monarchy seems to be generally exploded. And it is not surprising to me, that the Aristocratick Spirit which appeard to have taken deep Root in some of them, now gives place to that of Democracy, You justly observe that "the Soul or Spirit of Democracy is VIRTUE." No State can long preserve its Liberty "where Virtue is not supremely honord." I flatter my self you are mistaken in thinking ours is so very deficient, and I do assure you, I find reliefe in supposing your Colouring is too high. But if I deceive my self in this most essential point, I conjure you and every Man of Influence by Example and by all Means to stem the Torrent of Vice, which, as a celebrated Author tells us, "prevailing would destroy, not only a Kingdom or an Empire, but the whole moral Dominion of the Almighty throughout the Infinitude of Space." I have Time only to add that I am very affectionately,
Yours,