Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams
David McCulloughStichwörter: patriotism service political country
marinate your mind
David McCulloughStichwörter: history
You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture.
You've got to become them."
(Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)
Stichwörter: history biography
It has been the will of Heaven," the essay began, "that we should be thrown into existence at a period when the greatest philosophers and lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live...
a period when a coincidence of circumstances without example has afforded to thirteen colonies at once an opportunity of beginning government anew from the foundation and building as they choose. How few of the human race have ever had the opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children? How few have ever had anything more of choice in government than in climate?
That there would be a political advantage in having the declaration written by a Virginian was clear, for the same reason there had been political advantage in having the Virginian Washington in command of the army. But be that as it may, Jefferson, with his "peculiar felicity of expression," as Adams said, was the best choice for the task, just as Washington had been the best choice to command the Continental Army, and again Adams had played a key part. Had his contributions as a member of Congress been only that of casting the two Virginians in their respective, fateful roles, his service to the American cause would have been very great.
David McCulloughThere was a burst of applause when George Washington entered and walked to the dais. More applause followed on the appearance of Thomas Jefferson, who had been inaugurated Vice President upstairs in the Senate earlier that morning, and "like marks of approbation" greeted John Adams, who on his entrance in the wake of the two tall Virginians seemed shorter and more bulky even than usual.
David McCulloughWhat was surprising--and would largely be forgotten as time went on--was how well Adams had done. Despite the malicious attacks on him, the furor over the Alien and Sedition Acts, unpopular taxes, betrayals by his own cabinet, the disarray of the Federalists, and the final treachery of Hamilton, he had, in fact, come very close to winning in the electoral count. With a difference of only 250 votes in New York City, Adams would have won an electoral count of 71 to 61. So another of the ironies of 1800 was that Jefferson, the apostle of agrarian America who loathed cities, owed his ultimate political triumph to New York.
David McCulloughShe was particularly curious about the Viginians, wondering if, as slaveholders, they had the necessary commitment to the cause of freedom. "I have," she wrote, "sometimes been ready to think that the passions for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creature of theirs." What she felt about those in Massachusetts who owned slaves, including her own father, she did not say, but she need not have--John knew her mind on the subject. Writing to him during the First Congress, she had been unmistakably clear: "I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always seemed a most iniquitous scheme to me--[to] fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.
David McCulloughAccording to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it.
Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount.
Reasons enough," Adams said.
What can be your reasons?"
Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.
Only those who [do] nothing [make] no mistakes.
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