Extraordinary autograph letter signed "J. Q. Adams" to William Cranch, on the proposed Constitution, detailing at length his objections to various sections of Article 1, criticizing the proposed document as not in the democratic interests of the people to protect their liberties, quoting from Blackstone and his father's Defense of the Constitutions, and concluding: "We shall in a short time slide into an aspiring aristocracy, and finally tumble into an absolute monarchy, or else split into twenty separate and distinct nations perpetually at war with on another; which God forbid!"

Adams, John Quincy

Edité par Newburyport, 1787

4pp. 4to. Both John Quincy Adams and his first cousin William Cranch (1769-1855), whose mother was Abigail Adams's sister, graduated Harvard in 1787. Cranch would go on to read the law in Boston under Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge Thomas Dawes, while Adams studied under jurist Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport. Cranch would would become one of the most learned legal minds of the United States, becoming the reporter of decisions of the Supreme Court and a distinguished professor of law; Adams, of course, would become a U.S. Senator, Ambassador, Secretary of State and eventually the sixth President of the United States. Roughly a month after the Constitution was referred to the states for ratification, Adams and Cranch began a correspondence on the merits and shortcomings of that document. Much of their discussion focussed on Article 1, which laid out the bicameral legislative branches of government and their respective powers. In the first letter in their correspondence on the subject (WC to JQA, Oct. 5, 1787), Cranch posed some general and brief queries about the aristocratic nature of the Senate, the absence of absolute veto power of the President, and on the extensive enumerated powers of the House articulated in Art. I, §.8, though noting he "have got but half thro yet." Adams replied nine days later (JQA to WC, Oct. 14, 1787), beginning his letter, "Since politics is the word, let politics rule the roast." That letter detailed his objections to the Constitution, which largely focussed on the powers of Congress not being democratic enough in protecting the liberties of the people. Among his objections were the frequency of elections in the house (Art. I, §.2), the conflict of interest to allow Congress to regulate its own elections (Art. I, §. 4), the inability of states to pay their debt without the ability to levy duties (Art. I, §9), the broad powers allowed Congress in Art. 1, §8 and the apparent contradiction between Art. VII and the Articles of Confederation concerning the number of votes needed for ratification (with Art. 13 of the latter requiring unanimous consent). Cranch was delayed in his reply to Adams (WC to JQA, Nov. 26, 1787) but offered a number of explanations to Adams's critique, including that the biennial elections being a matter of timing with state elections occurring at non conforming dates, that it was impossible logistically to allow the people the right to recall their representatives, presciently suggesting that the Federal government would assume the state revolutionary war debts, and arguing that the powers given to Congress in §8 with the balance of powers between the branches was consistent with "your father's idea of a perfect Government"; i.e. as delineated in John Adam's Defence of the Constitutions. In this, the final letter in their correspondence on the subject, Adams outlines his democratic objections to the Constitution, which he believed did not do enough to protect the liberties of the people, beginning: "Your answers to the objections which in my last letter I stated against the proposed form of Government, are ingenious and plausible yet I readily confess they have not convinced me: I will state the reasons which induce me to adhere to my former opinion, and wish you to reply after which we shall have gone through a regular forensic, and then we may drop the subject, which will soon be discussed by the proper judges." He next turns to the issue of the frequency of elections in the House, arguing that every two years is not frequent enough: "You say in answer to the objection to §2 of Article 1, that we must make allowances for the local prejudices of the different gentlemen who framed the Constitution, and consider biennial elections, as a medium between those in the different State Constitutions. But I conceive the State Constitutions are nothing to the purpose. The only question to be answered is, whether annual or biennial elections are the best. Now I can conceive they oug. N° de réf. du vendeur 366584

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : Extraordinary autograph letter signed "J. Q....
Éditeur : Newburyport
Date d'édition : 1787
Reliure : 4pp. 4to