Thoughts on Government, Part III: Recommendations

References aside, it remains to discuss the actual content of Thoughts on Government and the influence that it held over subsequent attempts at constitution-making in the United States. As mentioned in a previous post, Adams was asked for his recommendations as they specifically applied to the attempts undertaken by the various states in the 1770s to draft new governing charters. Consequently, many (though not all) of the early states constitutions follow the outline contained in Thoughts on Government fairly closely. It’s also worth noting how (or whether) Adams’ suggestions were translated into the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Though the Articles, the first governing charter of the United States, were written around the same time as the state constitutions and shortly after Thoughts on Government was published, they significantly deviate from Adams’ preferred formula. Conversely, the Constitution, written over a decade later in 1787 by men who had served in a variety of legislative roles and come to appreciate the naivety of their county’s early efforts at republican government, seems to hew much closer to Adams’ ideal arrangement in certain key respects.

This arrangement, Adams laid out in a fairly straightforward manner. After determining that a republic would be the preferred form of government, being based in virtue and most likely to preserve and promote the happiness of the people, he determined that a representative assembly should be the principal tool of legislation. This assembly, he argued, would, “depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good,” yet should also be, “in miniature an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them.” At the same time, this assembly should not be the only body tasked with shaping or administering the laws. Single assemblies, Adams asserted in paragraph fourteen, are susceptible to the “vices, follies, and frailties of an individual; subjects to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights on enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgements.” Such a legislative body would also be liable to guard its own interests at the behest of the people’s and increase its own privileges over time, and would be poorly suited to wield either judicial power (being too numerous, clumsy and ill-suited) or executive power (lacking the needed confidentiality or decisiveness). Therefore, Adams wrote in paragraphs seventeen and eighteen, there should be a second house of the legislature whose purpose would be to hold the assembly to account and mediate between the interests of that popular branch and those of the executive. This second house, or council, would be elected by the assembly from among its own members, or its constituents, or both, be of a relatively limited number (Adams suggests twenty or thirty), and be able to exercise an independent judgement (and a veto) in matters of the law.

As to the executive power, Adams suggested in paragraph nineteen that the two houses of the legislature, the assembly and the council, should elect a governor by joint ballot. This person would himself be free to exercise his own judgement, act as commander-in-chief of all militias and armies, and possess the power to hand out pardons. The governor would also be able to veto any acts of the legislature, though he should be inclined to do so only when it is clear that a proposed law runs counter to the overall public good. Adams also proposed that joint ballots of both houses be held to elect the lieutenant-governor, secretary, treasurer, commissary, and attorney-general, and that, along with the election of the members of the legislative assembly, such votes should be held annually. Adams similarly argued in paragraph twenty-four that a rotation of offices would be prudent, provided that “the society has a sufficient number of suitable characters to supply the great number of vacancies which would be made by such a rotation.” While ultimately leaving it up to the states to decide for themselves, he suggested an interval of three years in office to be followed by three years of exclusion.  

In paragraphs twenty-seven through twenty-nine, Adams advocated for an independent judicial branch. Judges and justices, he wrote, should ideally be nominated and appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the legislative council. They should also possess powers and responsibilities distinct from both the legislative or executive branches, and “be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention.” In order to prevent these legal officials from becoming beholden to private interests, Adams further recommended that they should hold their offices for life during good behavior, and that their salaries should be fixed by law.

Thoughts on Government contains a variety of other recommendations, having to do with militia laws, the elections of sheriffs and county officials, and the importance of liberal education, but those laid out above constitute the general framework that Adams endorsed. It is, I think, worth noting that at no point did he advise the inclusion of any kind of bill of rights. Such protections of individual liberties did find their way into many of the state constitutions written in the 1770s, though often in wildly differing forms, and its inclusion in the Constitution of 1787 was considered by many to be an absolute necessity. It’s possible that Adams did not believe it worth including in his essential blueprint because he felt a government structured along the lines he suggested would not be inclined to invade the rights of the people (being directly tied to them by their frequently elected representatives). Among other things this arguably demonstrates the naïveté of Adams and his compatriots. Never having had to create governments from scratch, the plans they ultimately decided upon were theoretically sound, but at times ill-equipped to handle the rigours of day-to-day administration, and ignorant of the tenacity of some of human nature’s darker aspects.

Though the eleven states constitutions that were written after Thoughts on Government was published in the spring of 1776 largely followed the pattern Adams laid out, because there was really no one traditional or time-tested blueprint to abide by the occasional eccentric addition or alteration was not uncommon. Some varied the way that certain officers of the government were to be elected. The Constitution of North Carolina, for example, followed Adams’ program very closely, changed only to allow the voters to elect senators directly instead of the assembly. Maryland’s constitution followed a similar tack, but called for the election of state senators by specific electors, to be selected by the voters every five years. New Jersey’s 1776 constitution, written in haste, also adhered to the assembly/council/governor arrangement, but allowed Supreme Court justices to be elected jointly by the assembly and council for seven year terms, and all other judicial officials for five year terms. Others added offices or administrative bodies to Adams’ ideal composition. Delaware did so, adding to its executive branch a Privy Council of four members, elected by and from the assembly and council, whose purpose was to advise the Governor and consent to his decisions. Virginia’s charter called for a similar body, with eight members instead of four, to be elected either from the assembly, council, or the general public.

Perhaps the most radically different of the 1770s constitutions was Pennsylvania’s. Drafted by a body of legislators and scholars, including one Benjamin Franklin, it allowed all men twenty-one and older who had paid taxes to vote (thus abandoning the traditional property qualification that prevailed in most states for decades after the Revolution), and outlined a unicameral legislature, a twelve-member Supreme Executive Council that elected its own President, and a judiciary appointed for seven year terms and removable at any time. In addition, the Pennsylvania constitution called for a Council of Censors, to be elected every seven years and tasked with holding the government to account, censuring government actions or legislation deemed to have violated the constitution, and calling conventions for the purpose of drafting amendments. While it’s difficult to determine why exactly the Keystone State’s constitution differed so aggressively from those of its counterparts, it may have had something to do with the traditions of government that had been established under the earlier colonial regime. After all, by 1776, Pennsylvania already possessed an established history of stable, democratic rule, and it’s entirely likely that Pennsylvanians preferred to follow their own lights than the advice of a well-intentioned Boston lawyer.     

Even the Constitution of Massachusetts, which Adams played a large part in drafting in 1779, differed somewhat from the plan that Thoughts on Government laid out. Though government in Massachusetts was divided into three independent branches, with a bicameral legislature and annual elections for major offices, it also allowed the election of Senators and the Governor by all qualified voters. This admission to democratic government seems uncharacteristic of Adams, though it was actually quite typical of the era. The 1770s were a volatile decade in the history of the United States, and there is a definite sense when reading documents from that time that the American Founders were “working without a net,” and were distinctly aware of the fact. They had few blueprints to draw on, few practical examples to follow, and reams and reams of theories and concepts to puzzle over, dissect and reassemble in new and different ways.  The state constitutions written during this era are a prime example of this process; though they tended to hold fast to a handful of basic principles, so much else was left on the table, to be determined by each state as their needs dictated. And Adams seemed aware of this, too. In paragraph twenty-three, he wrote:

 “This mode of constituting the great offices of state will answer very well for the present; but if by experiment it should be found inconvenient, the legislature may, at its leisure, devise other methods of creating them…or make any other alterations which the society shall find productive of its ease, its safety, its freedom, or, in one word, its happiness.”

As the Framers of the later United States Constitution would tacitly admit by their inclusion of a robust amending formula, stable governments were born out of sound principles, but they lived and died in the hearts and minds of their citizens. And in the 1770s the hearts and minds of Americans were distinctly undecided as to what, other than the essentials, constituted good republican government. John Adams had his ideas on this topic, and put them forward in Thoughts on Government, but even he (stubborn and often obstinate man that he was) was willing to admit that there was no one way forward.

Thoughts on Government, Part II: Influences

Though it’s not a very lengthy document, John Adams’ Thoughts on Government is relatively dense with information. And along with its various recommendations for the proper structuring of a republican constitution (which I’ll be discussing in my next post) it contains a handful of references, veiled and explicit, to theories or documents that Adams was influenced by in his deliberations on the topic of government. As with the Declaration of Independence I do believe it’s important to explore these influences, and discuss how they affect the way Adams’ writings and the things they put in motion are viewed, and how they connect the events of the American Revolution to the wider philosophical and political world of the 18^th century.

Off the top, I’d say it’s worth noting that Adams beings and ends Thoughts on Government with quotations from English poets Alexander Pope and John Milton. In addition to being a poet, Pope was also a satirist and a noted friend and supporter of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a politician and political philosopher who was extremely influential among the learned class in North America for his support of republicanism. And Milton, aside from penning the much-celebrated Paradise Lost, had supported the execution of Charles I in 1649 and subsequently served in the government of the Commonwealth of England (a republic which lasted from 1649 to 1659). That he chose to quote these men, using their words to punctuate his own, reveals Adams’ attachment to the republican philosophical movement that existed within the broader 17^th-and-18^th-century Enlightenment, and more specifically to a particular English strain of political thought.

This is further evidenced by a passage (by my reckoning in the tenth paragraph) in which Adams writes out the names of eight English republican political philosophers, claiming that the principles they represent would no doubt meet with scorn from “modern English men,” but that their writings would convince any rational mind that the only good government must be republican in form. In addition to the quoted Milton, these men included Algernon Sidney (who was executed in 1683 for plotting against Charles I), James Harrington (who wrote about the ideal republican constitution), John Locke (who I discussed in my first set of posts), Marchmont Nedham (propagandist for the Commonwealth of England), Henry Neville (another satirist), Gilbert Burnet (Scottish theologian and contemporary of Locke), and Benjamin Hoadly (clergyman and prominent defender of the Glorious Revolution).  17^th-century republican philosophers, writers, and supporters of the ill-fated Commonwealth, they would not have been held in the highest esteem by the political class in Britain in 1776. For that reason Adams’ familiarity with them says something about his and his contemporaries’ education and influences. After all, for him to be able to say “the works of Harrington or Sidney are particularly instructive on this subject,” he had to be assured that his readers would know who he was referring to and what they had written. This evident familiarity with English republican philosophy of Adams and his colleagues provides further insight into the colonists’ self-identity as members of a distinctly English political tradition.

Particularly un-English, however, is Adams reference to the views expressed by Montesquieu (who I also mentioned in a previous post) in his Spirit of the Laws. Montesquieu, among other things, stated in his treatise that there were three basic forms of government, the republic, the monarchy, and the despotism. Each of these forms, he claimed, was grounded in a central motivating principle: republics were motivated by virtue, or the willingness of the people to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good; monarchies were motivated by honor, or the love of rank and privilege; and despotisms were motivated by fear, of the ruler or the ruling class, from which there was no legal protection. In the sixth through ninth paragraphs of Thoughts on Government Adams makes essentially the same argument, further claiming that Americans weren't fearful enough to fall prey to despotism and didn't love honor as much as virtue, being the noblest principle and the best foundation for “the most generous models of government.” Because Adams’ later life would show that his sentiments lay most definitely with Britain and its political traditions (though certainly not to the extent that some of his detractors claimed), it’s interesting to see him reference a prominent French philosopher so directly, and at such a relatively early stage in his career. Coming from someone like Thomas Jefferson or James Madison an affinity for Montesquieu would not have seemed remarkable, both being noted devotees of French culture and philosophy. But from Adams, the staid, sober Anglophile, it feels more than a little out of character. What this points to, I think, is an awareness on the part of Adams and his confederates of their connection to the larger intellectual world of the 18^th-century. Though many viewed their conflict with Parliament and the Crown through a distinctly English political and historical lens, the educated class in the colonies were very conscious of the broader philosophical discussions that had been going on in Western Europe since the 17^th century, and considered themselves a vital part of the conversation.

Adams makes two further references of note that connect with both his attachment to English history and his knowledge of Western European politics and government. In the fourteenth paragraph of Thoughts on Government, during a discussion of the faults inherent in a unicameral legislature, Adams refers to the English Long Parliament and the States General of the Dutch Republic as examples of assemblies that grew ambitious and voted themselves into permanent existence. Though he doesn't go into great detail as to how these examples help him make his point, I do believe that they reveal some of the elements of history and contemporary political science that Adams felt were worth drawing upon when setting about crafting an ideal republican constitution.

After an eleven-year period of ruling without legislative approval, Charles I summoned the Long Parliament in 1640 in an effort to pass much-needed financial legislation. The assembled members ultimately voted that Parliament should meet at least once every three years whether the king called an election or not in an attempt to prevent another period of personal rule by the monarch. Tensions between Charles and the assembly mounted over the years that followed as Parliament tried to standardise taxation and wrest control of the military away from the crown. The dispute came to a head in 1642 when, after moving his court from London to Oxford and effectively dividing the legislature between supporters of Parliament and the Crown, armed hostilities broke out and the English Civil War effectively began. The Long Parliament continued to sit throughout this period, was purged of its “disloyal” members in 1648, forcibly disbanded in 1653, recalled in 1659, and finally permanently dissolved in 1660. Because of its well-documented resistance to royal authority and the republican-leaning sentiments of many of its members the Long Parliament came to be looked upon favorably in post-Glorious Revolution Britain as a harbinger of parliamentary supremacy and constitutional monarchism. As a citizen of the colonies, who had long nurtured a rather tenuous relationship with the Crown, Adams was more than likely of this opinion. Indeed, his claim in Thoughts on Government was that the Long Parliament’s “one fault” was its perpetual nature. This reference, among other things, reveals both Adams’ dedication to the principle of government accountability, and his tendency to view the dispute between the colonies and the Crown and the prospect of ideal government in a distinctly English context.

 Though in 1776 it was really the only republic in existence, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (or Dutch Republic) was not particularly representative of the people it governed or responsive to their needs and concerns. Having emerged out of a rebellion against Spanish rule in 1581, the Republic was governed by the States General, more a semi-feudal assembly than a modern legislature. In essence, each of the provinces had an assembly of its own consisting of representatives from each of the recognized towns and the local nobility. These assemblies each nominated delegates to the States General, who voted as provinces rather than as individuals. The States General was responsible for the military, foreign relations, and tariffs, and left most domestic issues to the individual provinces. The de-facto head of state, the Stadtholder, was initially appointed to his position by the respective provincial assemblies, though the office became hereditary by the mid-18^th century. Similarly, the various provincial assemblies became less and less receptive to public opinion over time as executive authority in most towns became centralized in the hands of the wealthy business class. By the 1770s, in spite of its foundation amidst a popular revolt, the Republic had become highly aristocratic in nature and was dominated by large landowners, bankers, merchants, and the ruling princes. It is thus unsurprising that Adams looked to the Republic as a prime example of how governments intended to fairly and rationally administer a complicated set of interests could become unresponsive to the people. But more to the point, I think, Adams’ invocation of the Dutch model demonstrates his ability to occasionally see beyond just his favored English examples, and look to the broader Western world for inspirations and cautions in his quest to design a more perfect form of republican government.

Taken together, the references in Thoughts on Government to political philosophers and poets, English history and Dutch politics provide evidence of both the intellectual character of John Adams (as a man of meticulous habits and particularly English sympathies) and the way he approached the notion of the ideal republic. While he clearly viewed (along with some of his contemporaries) certain strains of English political thought and English history as a source of knowledge and inspiration, his willingness to invoke the writings of Montesquieu and the contemporary Dutch Republic demonstrates his sense of the American Revolution and the philosophical questions it raised as part of a broader discussion on the nature of government that was connected to the history and politics of the enlightened, 18^th-century world.  

Thoughts on Government, Part I: Context

Having just discussed a work of Jefferson’s, I’d like to turn now to an essay written by a contemporary/rival/friend/enemy, the irascible, unsinkable John Adams. Specifically, I’d like to look at Adams’ Thoughts of Government, written in the spring of 1776 in response to a petition of the North Carolina Provincial Congress and whose main points became the basis of that state’s first constitution. It’s an interesting document, I think, because it seems to predict the three-part structure that would eventually be adopted by the United States Constitution in 1788/89, shows evidence of the philosophies and historical examples that influenced its author, and illustrates Adams’ at-times conflicted view of the relationship between government and the governed. Neither as radical as Jefferson nor as restrained as Washington, John Adams was a committed revolutionary who was at once enthusiastic about the future he perceived for his countrymen and pessimistic as to their capability of achieving it. Thoughts on Government provides evidence of this contradiction, and shines a spotlight on a turning point in early American history (after the beginning of the Revolution but before the colonies declared their independence).

Since I’ve already discussed, at length, the events that led up to the American Revolution and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, I’ll confine this post to a discussion of Adams himself and the processes the various colonies went through in drafting each of their first constitutions.

Though often viewed as a relatively ineffective president, and derided by many of his contemporaries as a blustery, egomaniacal monarchist, John Adams was one of the most active figures of the early years of the American Revolution, whose efforts on behalf of the fledgling United States are arguably unequalled. Legislator, lawyer, political philosopher, farmer and diplomat, Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1735. The son of a cobbler and Puritan Deacon, Adams was a member of one of the oldest families in Massachusetts and from a young age felt the need to live up to the legacy of his freedom-seeking ancestors. Though raised in relatively modest circumstances he was able to attended Harvard College and graduated in 1755. After spending a few years as a school teacher in Worcester he decided on the law, was apprenticed to local lawyer John Putnam, and was admitted to the bar in 1758. Never as charismatic or popular as his second cousin Samuel Adams, John achieved success through persistence, attention to detail, thorough study of the law, and intense analysis of historical example.

Adams’ path to national prominence began with his vocal opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765. As a member of the Braintree town meeting he penned a series of instructions for the community’s representatives at the Massachusetts General Court (the colony’s legislature) directing them to come out against the Act on the grounds that it violated elements of English law, and certain of the colonists’ established rights. The “Braintree Instructions” were later published in the Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Gazette, adopted by forty other towns in the colony, and used as a basis for the instructions sent from Boston’s own town meeting. Five years later, Adams lent his services to the eight British soldiers accused of perpetrating the Boston Massacre in March, 1770. Though fearing the damage it would do to his growing reputation, he conducted a thorough defense wherein he called strict attention to the facts of the case (calling them “stubborn things”), asked the jury to disentangle themselves from their lingering bitterness over the ongoing dispute between the colonies and Parliament, and invoked English history and law and the principle of protecting innocence. Adams was ultimately successful in securing an acquittal for six of his clients (two were convicted of manslaughter) and was elected to serve in the Massachusetts General Court.

During his tenure in the legislature Adams continued to speak out against what he perceived as the overreach of the British Parliament and the fundamental sovereignty of the individual colonies, and in 1774 he was sent to preach these same views to the assembled delegates of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He returned to the city in 1775 with the convening of the Second Continental Congress, and during his tenure there he worked tirelessly to promote unity among the colonies (aided by his recommendation of George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army) and pushed for their eventual independence. Accordingly, he strongly supported the May, 1776 resolution of Virginian Richard Henry Lee that recommended the colonies draft new governments, a measure he saw as a major step toward complete autonomy from Britain. Well-known for his promotion of republican values, Adams was subsequently asked by a number of his colleagues in Philadelphia for advice on the proper structure of their new colonial governments. In response to a petition of the legislature of North Carolina Adams drafted as essay entitled Thoughts on Government, which was later published and distributed and became a seminal influence on the state constitutions that emerged in the months and years that followed.

Of the Thirteen Colonies that were represented in Philadelphia in 1776 and which became the core of the nascent United States, Connecticut and Rhode Island elected to keep the royal charters they had been granted as colonies in the 17^th century, adhering to them in all matters that did not directly contradict their independence from Britain. Connecticut only received a new constitution in 1818, and Rhode Island kept to its original 1663 charter until forced by a popular rebellion to draft a new one in 1843. The eleven colonies that did set about drafting state constitutions in the 1770s did so under different circumstances and by different means.

Among his other instructions, Adams recommended that the colonies convene special conventions for the purpose of drafting their new charters, and that the resulting documents be submitted to the people for ratification. The special conventions, he argued, were preferable to leaving the task to the various state legislatures, as there would be nothing to stop those same representative bodies from altering or abolishing the constitutions at some later date. The calling of special conventions emphasized how unique and important the constitutions were, and the ratification process reinforced the ultimate authority of the general population. His native Massachusetts followed this path in 1779, under his guidance; as did Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland in 1776 (though Maryland’s constitution wasn’t ratified by the people), and Georgia and New York in 1777. Against Adams’ recommendation, Virginia’s constitution was drafted and ratified by the state legislature in 1776. New Hampshire accomplished the same in January of that year, as did South Carolina in March and North Carolina in December. New Jersey’s constitution, intended as a stop-gap measure in the face of imminent British invasion, was composed by a small group of people over the course of five days and ratified by the legislature within forty-eight hours. Interestingly, New Jersey was the only state to allow women to vote (until it was rescinded in 1807, anyway), and in spite of its intended status as temporary the 1776 constitution remained in force for a further sixty-eight years.

These early state constitution varied in their content as well. Some contained a bill of rights similar to the one ratified by the British Parliament in 1689, suitably adapted to republican principles, while others did not. A few, like Pennsylvania’s, described a unicameral legislature (with only a single chamber of popularly elected representatives), while most others were bicameral (containing also a second chamber, usually referred to as a senate or council of state). None of the constitutions allowed for a popularly elected executive, but rather mandated that the legislature elect a president (usually for a single year-long term). Of these eleven documents, most were replaced within a few decades or in some cases only a few years, and Massachusetts’ 1779 constitution is the only one that remains in force (after 120 amendments). That being said, while the influence of Adams’ Thoughts on Government was not always strongly felt in the structure of the new constitutions, it played a significant part in underlying the logic behind their existence and the principles they sought to enshrine.