But above all, shall I request you to collect circular letters from members of Congress in the middle and southern States to their constituents? I would give all I am worth for a complete collection of all those circular letters. Please to recollect Edward Livingston's motions and speeches, and those of his associates, in the case of Jonathan Robbins. The real terrors of both parties have always been, and now are, the fear that they shall lose the elections, and consequently the loaves and fishes; and that their antagonists will obtain them. Both parties have excited artificial terrors, and if I were summoned as a witness to say, upon oath, which party had excited, Machiavillialy, the most terror, and which had really felt the most, I could not give a more sincere answer than in the vulgar style, put them in a bag and shake them, and then see which comes out first.
Where is the terrorism now, my friend? There is now more real terrorism in New England than there ever was in Virginia. The terror of a civil war, à La Vendee, a division of the States, &c., &c., &c. How shall we conjure down this damnable rivalry between Virginia and Massachusetts? Virginia had recourse to Pennsylvania and New York. Massachusetts has now recourse to New York. They have almost got New Jersey and Maryland, and they are aiming at Pennsylvania. And all this in the midst of a war with England, when all Europe is in flames.
I will give you a hint or two more on the subject of terrorism. When John Randolph in the House, and Stephens Thompson Mason in the Senate, were treating me with the utmost contempt; when Ned Livingston was threatening me with impeachment for the murder of Jonathan Robbins, the native of Danvers in Connecticut; when I had certain information, that the daily language in an Insurance Office in Boston was, even from the mouth of Charles Jarvis, "We must go to Philadelphia and drag that John Adams from his chair;" I thank God that terror never yet seized on my mind. But I have had more excitements to it, from 1761 to this day, than any other man. Name the other if you can. I have been disgraced and degraded, and I have a right to complain. But as I always expected it, I have always submitted to it; perhaps often with too much tameness. The amount of all the speeches of John Randolph in the House, for two or three years is, that himself and myself are the only two honest and consistent men in the United States. Himself eternally in opposition to government, and myself as constantly in favor of it. He is now in correspondence with his friend Quincy. What will come of it, let Virginia and Massachusetts judge. In my next you may find something upon correspondences; Whig and Tory; Federal and Democratic; Virginian and Novanglian; English and French; Jacobinic and Despotic, &c.
Meantime I am as ever, your friend.
JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Quincy, July, 1813.
Dear Sir,—Correspondences! The letters of Bernard and Hutchinson, and Oliver and Paxton, &c., were detected and exposed before the Revolution. There are, I doubt not, thousands of letters now in being, (but still concealed from their party,) to their friends, which will, one day, see the light. I have wondered for more than thirty years, that so few have appeared; and have constantly expected that a Tory History of the rise and progress of the Revolution would appear; and wished it. I would give more for it than for Marshall, Gordon, Ramsay, and all the rest. Private letters of all parties will be found analogous to the newspapers, pamphlets, and historians of the times. Gordon's and Marshall's histories were written to make money; and fashioned and finished to sell high in the London market. I should expect to find more truth in a history written by Hutchinson, Oliver, or Sewall; and I doubt not, such histories will one day appear. Marshall's is a Mausolæum, 100 feet square at the base, and 200 feet high. It will be as durable as the monuments of the Washington benevolent societies. Your character in history may easily be foreseen. Your administration will be quoted by philosophers as a model of profound wisdom; by politicians, as weak, superficial, and short sighted. Mine, like Pope's woman, will have no character at all. The impious idolatry to Washington destroyed all character. His legacy of ministers was not the worst part of the tragedy; though by his own express confession to me, and by Pickering's confession to the world, in his letters to Sullivan, two of them, at least, were fastened upon him by necessity, because he could get no other. The truth is, Hamilton's influence over him was so well known, that no man fit for the office of State or War would accept either. He was driven to the necessity of appointing such as would accept; and this necessity was, in my opinion, the real cause of his retirement from office; for you may depend upon it, that retirement was not voluntary.
My friend, you and I have passed our lives in serious times. I know not whether we have ever seen any moments more serious than the present. The Northern States are now retaliating upon the Southern States their conduct from 1797 to 1800. It is a mortification to me to see what servile mimics they are. Their newspapers, pamphlets, hand-bills, and their legislative proceedings, are copied from the examples set them, especially by Virginia and Kentucky. I know not which party has the most unblushing front, the most lying tongue, or the most impudent and insolent, not to say the most seditious and rebellious pen.
If you desire explanation on any of the points in this letter, you shall have them. This correspondence, I hope, will be concealed as long as Hutchinson's and Oliver's; but I should have no personal objection to the publication of it in the National Intelligencer. I am, and shall be for life, your friend.