American Manuscripts & other Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

American Manuscripts & other Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 7. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS | John Quincy Adams explains the motivations for President Washington's retirement to Jean Luzac, editor of the highly influential Gazette de Leyde.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS | John Quincy Adams explains the motivations for President Washington's retirement to Jean Luzac, editor of the highly influential Gazette de Leyde

Lot Closed

October 14, 04:09 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ("JOHN Q. ADAMS") AS MINISTER TO THE NETHERLANDS, TO JEAN LUZAC, DISCUSSING GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS


One page (8 3/4 x 7 3/8 in.; 223 x 188 mm), The Hague, 26 November 1796


Jean Luzac's Gazette de Leyde was long one of Europe's newspapers of record and a strong supporter of the independence of the American colonies. But John Quincy Adams had noticed that the paper had printed under the heading "Extract of the news from London" an article claiming "that General Washington had been induced from disgust at the ingratitude with which his services have been recently paid, to retire from his eminent station. …" (see J. Q. Adams to Luzac, 25 November 1796, in the Henry Ford Collection: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/270026).


In the present letter, Adams tells Luzac that he has obtained a copy of Washington's "Address … to the People of America on His Declining the Presidency of the United States," which he trusts will disprove the false interpretation of the occasion promoted by the English press.


"I have now the pleasure to send you an American Paper, containing the address from the President to the People of the United States dated the 17th of September. You will there find that motives very different from disgust on his part, or of ingratitude in that of the Americans have induced his determination to retire. You will find also new proofs in it of that wisdom, virtue, and magnanimity which have always recommended the character of its author, to all the friends of freedom and humanity. I am fully persuaded that the advice it contains will make a profound impression upon the minds of the Americans, and you will I think concur in the opinion, that the Europeans would consult their own happiness if they were to learn some of the truths thus offered to consideration."


Adams was correct that Washington's "wisdom, virtue, and magnanimity" are all on display in his Farewell Address, his last significant action as president and one of his clearest declarations of republican principles. Written with the assistance of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, Washington's envoi called for unity in domestic matters and independence in international affairs. Washington's voluntary retirement also established precedence for a succession founded on republican standards as well as for the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. In his biography of Washington, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that the Farewell Address established "precepts to which the American statesman can not too frequently recur." 


In the second half of the letter, Adams discusses sending copies of Luzac's writings to friends in America. "I have received recent letters from my father in which he requests particularly to be remembered to you. I mentioned to you in the course of the Summer that I should be happy to forward the copies of your valuable work which you destined for him and for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [Luzac was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the Academy in 1789]. If you have them ready at present, I shall have an opportunity to forward them in the course of a few days. But indeed whenever it shall suit your convenience, I shall have occasions to send the books in the delay of a short time."