Adams, John | A learned disquisition on the common law and natural rights and the roles those concepts played in Adams's own contributions to the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States

Adams, John

Autograph letter signed (“Your affectionate father John Adams”), 3 pages (246 x 200 mm) on a bifolium of laid paper (watermarked posthorn), Quincy, 12 March 1802, to his son Thomas Boylston Adams, reception and file dockets on verso of second leaf; a few short tears along bottom margins and fore-edge of first leaf, light browning and traces of guard mount on blank verso of second leaf.

An extraordinary letter—both academic and affectionate—by the second president to his youngest son, offering Thomas advice on his budding legal career, analyzing common law and natural rights, and reminiscing about his own participation in the development of the Declaration of Independence.

In a letter of 3 March 1802, Thomas Boylston Adams consented to his father’s suggestion that he study common law—with the stipulation that John Adams assist him with the task. Thomas also noted his satisfaction with U.S. district judge Alexander Addison’s statement that the common law arose from the laws of nature and dictates of God. In this response, John Adams reassures his son, a fledgling lawyer in Philadelphia, that he should not misconstrue a suggestion made in an earlier letter as his setting a chore or criticizing his practice: 

“I recd. last night, your Letter of the 3d.—It was far from my thoughts to assign you a task. I meant only to turn your mind to a Subject, which must necessaryly engage much of your contemplations, as long as you live. The Folc Right [i.e, folkright, the aggregate of rules, some unwritten, that express the juridical consciousness of the people at large, a concept dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period], the Peoples Right, the common law, is the natural, Inheritance of Us all. It is our Birth Right.” 

Adams, far more widely read than any public man of his day, insisted that no statesman could act wisely without a deep understanding of the principles of government and the nature of man (Elkins & McKittrick, The Age of Federalism, p. 530). He recognized, however, that these natural rights could be misinterpreted by the common public, and that a thorough and applied reading of the law would allow those in the profession to become conversant with the principles governing personal and political liberty. As he explained to Thomas, “But precious as it is, and dear as it ought to be to all our hearts, it is likely to be a subject of controversy in this country, untill an examination of it, on a large Scale, Shall be undertaken and accomplished by you or Some other, whose Industry may be equal to the Subject.”

Yet Adams deprecates his own ability to help his son in this course of study: “The assistance to be expected from me, must be very Small. I have Scarcely a Law Book of any kind left in my office. It is almost 30 Years since I abandoned my Office and Law Library, and now I have none. My Recollections of the contents of Law Books, you may well Suppose to be very faint confused and incorrect.” (Adams’s involvement in politics and the rigors of the judicial circuit—the radius of his travels comprised more than 200 miles in all directions, taking him as far as Martha's Vineyard and the reaches of Maine—decided him to abandon his practice altogether in the 1770s. Oddly enough, about a fortnight after penning this letter to Thomas, Adams wrote several friends that he was toying with the idea of resurrecting his practice.)

But despite this display of modesty, Adams does not stint on advising his son of the pragmatic steps necessary to make a success at the law. “A Lawyer, Should have in his Desk, or Bureau, more pidgeon holes, than a Coiner of constitutions. In these he should deposit, in exact, numerical or Alphebetical order, all the Effects of his Researches into moot Points, as well as the States of his Cases and his notes of Arguments or Authorities relative to them. One of these Apartments in your Scrutoire or your Case or Drawers for writings you may dedicate to the common Law, and fill it up with your disquisitions as Slowly or as Swiftly as you please.— And if it Should be growing upon you at intervals for fifty Years; instead of injuring your mind body or estate, it may be of great benefit to the first and last, at least. Hæc Olim meminisse juvabit.— Indocti discant, et ament meminisse periti. The Plan indeed is vast, and will require a long time: but nothing presses for haste. The United States and the State of Pennsylvania are now within your reach. See what progress you make in ascertaining the common Law in them. You may pursue the Clue when you shall have Seized it, into other States at your Leisure.” The encouraging Latin epigram Adams provides is a hybrid, with the initial phrase taken from the first book of the Aeneid (“Some day, perhaps, remembering even this will be a pleasure”), while the second (“Let the unlearned learn, and let the experienced love to remember”) is a motto traditionally, if erroneously, attributed to Horace that appeared on the title-page of an anthology Adams was then reading, Jean François de La Harpe’s Lycée; ou, Cours de littérature ancienne et modern (16 vols. in 19, Paris, 1799–1805).

Despite his earlier claim that his “Recollections of the contents of Law Books [is] very faint confused and incorrect,” John Adams recommends a number of specific texts by classic jurists for Thomas’s study of common law: “Judge Addisons thoughts may be of Use to you: but figures of Spech are not always Science of Law. Passion Politicks and Eloquence Should always be Studied with diffidence and Jealousy in discussions of Laws and Government. Avail yourself however of every thing that can afford you any light.

“Lord Chief Justice Hale, wrote a Book under the Title of An History of the common Law I had it, and Suppose you have it now among my Law Books that I lent you. In this Work, an Octavo Volume well worth your reading, you will find much perhaps to your purpose. Fortesque Aland’s Reports You have among my Books. In a Preface to that Work there is much concerning the Saxon Language and the Saxon Folc Right. Ther is the best Deffinition, or description, or History if you will of the common Law, in that Preface, which I remember to have read. Blackstone took his Account of the common Law from that preface. Reeves’s History of the Law will probably assist you.”

John Adams’s familiarity with these texts was well earned. He contracted to read law with James Putnam of Worcester in August 1756 for a period of two years. Once his studies were completed, he moved back to Braintree where he continued to prepare for the bar. In between chores on his father's farm, he translated Justinian and slowly read (by his own admission), Sir Geoffrey Gilbert's dense Treatise of Feudal Tenures (McCullough, John Adams, pp. 42–43). After his interview with Jeremiah Gridley, the dean of the Boston bar, Adams was invited to read in Gridley's law library.  Shortly thereafter in November 1758 Gridley sponsored Adams's admission to the bar.

After his admittance, Adams forged on with his rigorous reading regimen. The burgeoning success of his practice spurred an interest in assembling a legal library of the first degree. In a diary entry dated 30 January 1768 he records that he is "mostly intent at present upon collecting a library and I find that a great deal of thought and care, as well as money, are necessary to assemble an ample and well chosen assortment of books" (Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, I:337). McCullough states that for Adams, like Jefferson, "books [were] an extravagance he could no longer curb (with one London bookseller he had placed a standing order for 'every book and pamphlet, of reputation, upon the subjects of law and government as soon as it comes out'" (McCullough, John Adams, p. 64).

His library, comprising some 3,500 volumes, is now housed at the Boston Public Library. Of these, 254 volumes are legal treatises, including four of the works mentioned in the letter to Thomas, some of which are found in multiple editions. A copy of Sir Matthew Hale’s Historia Placitorum Coronæ, perhaps distinct from the copy given to Thomas, is part of the collection. Fortescue Aland's Reports bears Adams's ownership inscription and is dated 1770. Reeve's History of the Common Law not only contains Adams's signature but also that of Thomas Boylston's son John Quincy (dated 1853) and the bookplate of another grandson, Charles Francis Adams. Adams also owned two editions of Blackstone's famous Commentaries as well as a set of his law tracts which survive in the collection. 

Adams at last recommends some his own writings to his son, staking a claim for having provided “the rough materials of the Declaration of Independence.” Adams later chafed at the idea that his Declaration of Rights was overlooked as the cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence, having been eclipsed by Jefferson's authorial contributions. In his own copy of his Discourses on Davila, which recognized the dangers of an unbalanced democracy then unfolding in France, he privately fumes in an annotation: “The Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 contained Nothing but the Boston Declaration of 1772 and the Congress Declaration of 1774. Such are the Caprices of Fortune. This Declaration of Rights was drawn by the little John Adams. The mighty Jefferson by the Declaration of Independence 4 July 1776 carried away the glory both of the great and the little.”

In a less agitated mood, he here informs his son, “If you look into the Journal of Congress for 1774 you will find a Declation [sic] of the Rights of the Colonies and another of the Violations of those Rights— These declarations or Lists were drawn up by two Committees. I was one of the first Committee and drew up the Report. in this you will See, not only the rough materials of the Declaration of Independence made two years after, but you will See in what Light the common Law was Seen by that Congress and by all America at that time. Extracts from these Journals, Should go into your common Law Pidgeon hole. There is a public printed declaration of the Town of Boston Some time anteriour to the meeting of the first congress which will deserve your Attention.”

A footnote to this letter in The Adams Papers explains that “The Declaration of Rights and Grievances was adopted by the Continental Congress on 14 Oct. 1774 and listed ten rights that the Congress determined all colonists held, including the right ‘to life, liberty, and property.’ It also detailed recent parliamentary acts that were deemed ‘infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists’ and noted the pending implementation of a trade boycott and the preparation of an address to the inhabitants of Britain and ‘a loyal address’ to George III. [John Adams] successfully argued that the document should emphasize the relatively unassailable tenets of natural law over the more tenuous and variable precepts of common law. To support his claim [Adams] pointed to the Nov. 1772 resolutions of the Boston committee of correspondence, which listed grievances against Parliament and detailed colonists’ constitutional rights as Britons. The resolutions were published as The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, Boston, [1772]” (Evans12332; ESTC W29680).

Adams concludes the letter with an admonition regarding Thomas’s safekeeping of their correspondence, “I can keep no Copies of my Letters to you and therefore I pray you to keep them Safely or to burn them, that they may not fall into the hands of the Ennemy of all good.”

Thomas Boylston Adams, third son and youngest surviving child of John and Abigail (Smith) Adams, was born 15 September 1772. He graduated from Harvard in 1790 and studied law in the Philadelphia office of Jared Ingersoll for three years. He was admitted to the bar in 1793 but embraced the practice of law with far less enthusiasm than his father or siblings. When the opportunity arose in 1794 to serve as secretary to his brother John Quincy on the latter's first diplomatic mission to The Hague, he seized the moment, returning to Philadelphia four years later in the middle of his father's presidency.

While his parents would have preferred him to settle in Quincy, they both recognized that Philadelphia offered more opportunities for a young lawyer with a recognizable name, but both evidently doubted their son's ability to succeed in the fast world of the capital (Ferling, John Adams, p. 388). He practiced law and contributed to Joseph Dennie's Port Folio in Philadelphia for some years thereafter. He was still in Philadelphia struggling with his practice in 1802.

At the urging of his parents, he moved back to Quincy in 1803 and opened a law office there (Ferling, John Adams, p. 420) and sat in the Massachusetts legislature, 1805-1806. In 1811 he was appointed chief justice of the circuit court of common pleas for the southern circuit of Massachusetts. In spite of his participation in government and judicial appointment, Thomas's law practice never equaled the success of his father's. In later years Thomas sank into alcoholism like his brother Charles before him; and by the 1820s Thomas was employed chiefly as a caretaker for his father and the farm. He died 13 March 1832, in Quincy.

REFERENCE

The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, ed. Woodward, Martin, Minty, et al., 15:185–188