and entrusted to a select few with regarding its basic and simple. it is where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is started. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your democracy unfiltered. announcer: there are many ways to listen to c-span radio any, anywhere. in the washington d.c. area listen to 90.1 fm. use our c-span now app. on sirius xm radio on the tune in at or simply plate c-span radio. there is "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern, other public

affairs events. for the best thing to happen in washington with fast pace reports, get washington today weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and then at 5 p.m. eastern. listen to c-span programs on c-span radio anytime, anywhere. c-span, democracy unfiltered. and to welcome to those here at aei and those watching online and those watching on c-span i'm gary schmitt. i'm senior fellow at the american enterprise institute and the program on cultural, social and constitutional studies this evening program is a talk in discussion with professor on john adams the constitution and the of human nature a topic that might at first seem antiquarian. but given our current debates about constitutional order and as underlying it's a topic that quite relevant today before

introducing professor samuelson, let me outline this evening's format. professor samuelson we'll for about 20 minutes and then i will join him on the stage for a discussion back and forth and then we'll end the evening with questions and answers from the audience. and if you have questions online, please submit them. it's you can find the and the event announcement from aei. now let me briefly introduce dr. simonson richard is an associate professor of government at hillsdale college, washington, d.c. campus is an historian of the american founding politics and the constitutional order. his ph.d. is from the university of virginia. until relatively recently, he taught at california state university, san bernardino and previously was a visiting fellow at princeton university's james madison. it's my great pleasure to

welcome dr. samuelson to aei. hi, richard. the mike is yours. well, good evening. it's an honor to be here. thank you for having me. gary, thanks for the introduction. and i talk about john adams just. as you may remember, he's known as the lawyer in the boston massacre trial, the atlas of independence, as he was known, the atlas of the pushing the declaration through the floor. cohen and jefferson in 76, the author of the massachusetts constitution in 1759, which is, of course, the first state constitution written by a special convention ratified by the people and featuring separation of legislative, judicial powers and, house, senate, governor with a qualified veto. he went on to diplomatic office and helped negotiate end of the revolution and was a first vice

president. second president united states, and is also, as one of our great men of letters. he has correspondence with. jefferson is one of the great exchanges, american letters and, of course, is also the father and grandfather. great grandfather of some of the most distinguished american politicians and writers, but adams was also and is probably underappreciated as a writer on politics we don't study him as much other historians or political theorists constitutional scholars to understand how our constitution to work, what our constitutional order is like, what checks and are, what they're for, why you have to houses, questions that and that's unfortunate because he has a lot to teach us now to understand adams though and put him in the content and the story

and after all of 18th century thought particularly the second half of the 18th century, maybe you can flesh with reference to a point ernst cassirer makes in his philosophy. coursera said for the enlightenment, the odyssey became a political problem. the odyssey the problem evil and light of god's justice, evil in the world for the enlightenment, which i suppose can be summarized. he made an advertising slogan better living through reason if human nature, human beings capable of living better. how do you explain the grim record of the past and that became a political problem because you can what the nature of the problem was right now perpetual peace is of course the the first problem here right that is to say how we count for how do we get rid of war. and this comes at the time when

you look at napoleonic wars, etc., now we can get rid of scarcity, of course, a few years ago, the georgia a serious drought and some people looked at the original map so they remember this. they knew they drew. it's arguable they drew the border between georgia, tennessee incorrectly. and georgia had claim that they should have access to the tennessee river. now, old school, that's what wars come from. i got a map that says that's my water too. i'm i'm hiding water you go take it and then you fight it. one wag suggested that bulldogs and the volunteers play a football game to settle the issue, but that that's as as it went. and that's because thanks to technology, we've cure the problem of scarcity. or we can to a great degree cure that problem. people were literally dying of thirst in georgia at the time, and crops were still getting water to a great degree. of course, the federal union also helped. but when you look at the

napoleonic, jefferson and adams discussed this in their first exchange, they were alienated in the 1790s and stop writing each other and 1812 on new year's day, adams writes jefferson. and that's when they reconcile and this started these great exchanges in the first letter back, jefferson writes adams and says, well, if sire it's capitalists unadorned produces nothing but war and bloodshed, we'd be better off living like the indian savages arc as jefferson term then we are now well, y well, you don't to be terribly insightful to about the consequences of modern technology on war. if wars still happen at something like the rate they've had in the past or even in a diminished rate that of modern weaponry can anticipated. i mean you've seen the steam engine just recently moving

people more quickly you see the rod work with electricity and other things but also weaponry if that continues to grow, the prospect of war continuing to be a regular feature of human life is, downright terrifying, right? it's not a coincidence, mary shelley writes frankenstein in what? in 18, 18, 18? the new prometheus, right? there's a danger in that reproducing. well and so that's that's the war and peace, the international of this problem. all right. but we're talking about constitutions. well, as joseph said, the pharaoh, it's the same dream in light of history. why do you think you can create a constitution that's reasonably stable, that creates reasonable justice? why do you think create a republic that will last a free republic of equal citizens? where does that come from?

all right. and particular the question of the problem of human equality and inequality. right. and that's where adams seems to disagree with some of his cohorts. adams very much thinks inequality is simply a human norm and not just inequalities for good causes, but inequalities for random causes. you know, if you think about, say, rousseau and adams in the start of his long work on the defense of constitutions, the first substantive chapter after the prefatory marx, he says. rousseau says the society of gods would govern for themselves equally. and adams snidely remarks that must not be the greek god, but he has extensive discussion of the second discourse that forwards the inequality and rousseau distinguishes those that are natural, and those are the ones relatively benign and the unnatural ones family names.

well, for that, adams reads it entirely differently. he says, no, that's actually not the case inequality comes from the human condition, inequalities of the sort that are well from the human perspective less than benign. benign. i mean, adams has faith in the cosmic sense. he's an optimist. god must have made the world way for a reason. so our is to make good we can of it right. but the narrow sense it seems unfortunate that many people seem to in power who shouldn't or have sway, who shouldn't be and adams thinks this is really going to because this age of revolutions he's been seeing and he's starting to see, he spent several years in france, his in england. he writes the defense, the constitutions he's gotten to know the people who are trying make a revolution. and he thinks they're idiots. i mean, they haven't worked in politics by and large. and they expect much too much in terms of their ability to change

world. but if you go to the second discourse, rousseau seems to say that human beings were just proclaimed progress, meaning movement, the rise progress of acts doesn't mean from lower to higher, but we are human. our basic way of living our natures seem to change from our primitive condition, we're basically content and living more or less as human animals, and maybe it's best for it a little bit above. that kind of like paine's distinction in the sort of common sense between society and government. and rousseau says. we get very unhappy as move into civilization, and you get these random unfortunately qualities. adams thinks not to know those things come together. they're in every human society. his approach to human society, human nature is, i suppose you might say, sociological. no, i'm an historian. i recently learned that faber used the term political sociology. i have no idea if i'm using the term the same way. i suspect not just for any theorist, just put that aside,

but what he's saying. study what are humans like in their situation, right? and want to be an example of how we study human nature. he's young, he's just finished his apprenticeship in law. he's back moved back home with his parents. some things never change. and his parents have a huge fight. he's so upset. he goes up to his room. and i should have watched because then i could have seen husbands, wives arguing. all right, so what's the point? dogs bark, fish swim. husbands and wives argue it's it's going to happen. there will be families, there will be couples and husbands, wives looking at each other's nerves sometime. that's nature. so two are inequality. is jefferson adams have this great exchange on natural aristocracy and jefferson for a shorthand a platonic notion of it that is those who have virtue and talents will rise. and jefferson gives evolution evolutionary character formally before gunpowder. the strongest guy, a natural aristocrat he helped keep people line. but thanks to gunpowder or that

powder that equalize that but now the virtue and talent are defined in terms some higher notion. adams is looking ruthlessly, empirically at this like after the fashion, the scientific method, the modern scientific method, right? you see these features over and over and over again. rise, for example. apparently we know from that taller tend to make more than shorter people, i guess we call it height, privilege. now maybe that's random, maybe culture, but maybe we're just of wired that way. we see hierarchy are status seeking creatures. adams called beauty a talent, right. if i remember correctly, when the bell curve came out more than a year in in i my fair response was i can't rivers newsweek or the new republic they said actually iq doesn't you that much of an edge it looks those you regard as attractive they get a huge edge in life maureen or happiness etc. etc. now those would not the type of

criterion that are evenly distributed or fair. and this is tough. no, guys, that's the way human beings are wired. you have to deal with factors such as that putting people ahead and he would also say disagree with inequalities of wealth, which people there will be some people with more almost always and they will have an edge having a famous father or mother that will give you an edge. i mean, you really doubt if and one of obama's kids or bush kid or trump kid, etc. ran, for office they'd have an edge, particularly in the male lines. they had the actual name that just seems a human reality. it is a random factor. there's no necessary connection to talent, but a political system must account for that. all right. in addition, we are satisfying creatures. we seek that in any given, adams would say you have 100 people. how many have been uncommitted were equal people where everyone does the same amount of work right. it almost never happens. there's always a few people run things.

and usually one most important thing in any organization or committee that's the way the world is. and adams would say, look, in the classic regime, you see one, a few, and in many in any gathering of humans that's just going to happen. and the factors that that won't necessarily be those that we would choose behind a veil of ignorance is simply we wired it. adams would say, if you try to change that i think the reason why goes on a thousand pages right to go would say what we see in the american constitution this imitation of the english constitution because england a king, lords and commons. the americans have a senate and a governor or executive. so why are you doing that? you don't have aristocrats. you know, a king. just have one house like the pennsylvania of 1776, which was created by franklin and paine and others in 1776, the summer of 76, after independence. and that became the ideal of many intellectuals, it also was

jettisoned around 1790, wasn't working so well. but why? and i'm saying because there are hierarchies by nature, single house will be subject the he says in 76 will be it's normal passions flights of passion, anger rationality is you need a second house to draw that off and he something different though the second house he thinks can be kind of an internal ostracism you know why do you need a second house you go from well what a human being's life is like. he's looking empirically and remember empiricism is simply you drop the object and it drops. remember this corrective high school, 32 feet per second accelerating and it happens time. now we know the next time the object won't hold still because we've never seen it before. actually, we don't know that from and we just know we've never seen it. and so it's a good right so just describing we describe these patterns of human behavior over time and of inequalities of a certain sort seemed to arise over and over again. you have to take them into

account in the constitution or they will overwhelm your system and. adams the second part is what's in sense. that's that's one. the next part is is the answer to that he thought he thought the answer that was an upper house. and that was controversial in the day because he's not just accepting inequality. he's accepting essentially an house which is kind of a socratic, at least in underlying. that his people in the house will aspire to be. it might work in my recollection, is the society for say it is attorney general what the ag is known as a society for aspiring governors. right. it's kind of we're like. right. well, the senate he thinks people want the upper house back when it really was an upper house. right. and that will cabin the more ambitious people. and those people be talented they will capabilities often to do work, but if given the chance they will serve themselves and on the other hand the people

being lazy, we are always very happy to let people take care of us. that is huge numbers of people. a certain percentage the time. thank you for doing that. don't worry about it. in the meantime, the rest of us lose, our citizenship because we're being taken care of instead of doing the work ourselves. right. the spider-man principle i call to my students with great power comes great responsibility. most us don't want to be responsible. ergo, we're happy to thank others doing the work. so that's that's the underlying problem. and the element here is he thinks the political structure, the two houses plus a governor plus an executive of the veto. why? well, the metaphor is from james harrington. harrington. he quotes at length in his defense constitutions as well. you have two girls with a piece of cake. and how do they divide it to be fair and my brother and myself to this were kids all the time. one cuts and the other chooses. and as i recall, you always want the other guy to cut because you never cut right in the middle. and when you're six years old, the worst thing in the world for

your brother, he's a mere cake to you right? but so that is your interest to make a fair division. that's a rough justice course. of course, you need a third balance in there. he was bigger than push me. take all the cake you need and to have a balance, you do something actually holding the balance. so you need three to have a balanced constitution. you can't just have two. and he thinks that actually serves a character forming dimension and i think this sets adams view of the constitution from madison if look at federalist 51 carefully right madison says well yes if, men are angels, no government will be necessary. and adams is said much the same thing earlier power must be opposed to power and interest to interest probably borrowing. i had aunt says or an aunt i like to call and i might honor of her marriage to her blue her for i blue her she says probably quoting montesquieu, too. i can't prove that same idea, right? but madison calls those checks and balances auxiliary

precautions. they're not the main feature. the main feature for madison. the extended sphere the extended republic. it is reliance on the people primary for madison. but he's explicit. the reliance of the people does not work in a small republic. and so it's merely auxiliary for adams they are primary. why because they shape the souls of the politicians and men imitative they will shape rest of us. that is at the very end the last paragraph fans of constitutions before he closes his famous comment at across the water constitution ratification calling it the greatest act of delivery in human history of national liberation in human right. we have this unique opportunity we're equals. we're able to liberate more people. any previous time in history. but that equality and equality of citizens equality of rights, equality under law and that democracy very broadly. we are a government of laws, not of men. there are going to be regular and predictable inequalities

that we must account. all right. and what says if you created even this, the virtues are often an effect of the constitution as much as a and if you created republic of highwaymen, you know, crooks, the highway, not waylon, willie and they were forced to divide and choose one over we're so what's the other? they might be made honest men by the process that is the system tames the ambition of your leaders and after doing it over and over again, you it you know by now my brother myself. no sharing we don't you want more cake fine right. so we have to do that. so the country retains something of the classical notion that the constitution shapes the character of the people keeps the share shapes the character of those who govern and shakes character of the citizens. and he keeps that in line, keeps

that into our constitution and regime. and i think in some ways is self-consciousness about that role in the government and is connecting that with some kind of republican which regime sets out as a part and he gives us some particular insight into how our constitutional order can and some things we might want to pay attention to. atoms in the massachusetts constitution, quoting other constitution, said, you should return to principles that is you have to go back to your fundamental principles or will drift and the frequent occurrence to the fundamental principles of regime in addition to honesty, piety, justice, no is necessary, but as you do that, you know what the principles are and what human possibilities are. if you have too high a notion of what can be changed in human life, you will probably not get to a good solution. so you must both the character,

your specific people, and the character of human nature. human beings involved politics. and adams thinks the solution to that is to create some kind of middle regime combined. of course, with the separation of executive judicial powers, which which he's also a strong supporter and a in question does it actually work? can you actually use upper house to create a kind of contained, quasi aristocratic element or that never functional? it doesn't to be what's going on today, but i'm wondering if the age of, the great triumvirate of clay webster and calhoun, that's kind of what we and if look at the constitution convention on june sixth john dickinson who didn't like adams because he wrote a private letter to abigail was in which adams criticized dickinson. but he said, you know what, we need to have one house. this is one in charge and negotiate towards a compromise for the just from the people. but a second one, you know what? we have states, we don't have

laws, but the states can serve as proxies. proxies for the house laws. and that's the day madison writes to who's dead in paris, i can't i'm really frustrated by the adams on the convention. i don't. that's a coincidence. i wonder if at least the 19th century that you combined that senate representing the states actually kind of did work that way in a certain way. and now in the 20th century, of course, a direct election and so many other things are different. maybe not, but it does give you some interesting insight into how the constitutional regime was structured and i wonder if adams insight might help us as we if reconsider and rethink how things are working nowadays. thank you very much. that was great, richard. thank you.

thank you so much. let me begin with a sort of something that struck me when you first began your you made mention the fact that you thought that adams was in some ways underappreciated in his political thought and the wonderful job of laying that out. well, on the other hand, i would say in the last decade plus, we've had you know a fairly large number of adams books and. we've even had a tv series was relatively popular. how do we of square the circle? you know how is it that adams with all this new material is deeper political thought has been not fully appreciated as you. i mean adams is very much on the map right. he's in the seventies you had 1776 and the adams chronicles and mccullough's book was what, 99? and then the series based mccullough's book. and now there's lots of as their new book on adams presidency.

but yeah, i politically i think he wrote too much and long. yeah. people don't want to read. yeah. the tldr really matters when book is this thick. three volumes and there's more. right. he's also usually the foil that is the contrast with adams and jefferson. a classic, but usually doesn't get his due. it's really you just you quote adams quickly as the antithesis to jefferson as opposed to really get to his thought and. i also because of the sedition acts he's also once you're president once term presidents get less love by and large, although you have to be a rare circumstance for, someone who's not a two term president to be appreciated, of course, is it's political thought. so you really have. you get the federalist papers in all classes, which makes sense. it's condensed. it's a and it's easily accessible. but the adams papers are not even an annotated version of the defense.

the constitutions decision they made long ago, that's just, you know, respective. anyway, can you imagine the jefferson papers not doing or not having done an annotated notes state of virginia? right. it doesn't make sense. so there's there's an underappreciated political thought. i think partly, because it square with how we're used to thinking about the republic and, maybe because the books are too thick to be popular. just one anecdote of that. adams when he died, donated his library to the grammar school in town for good for the kids. well, you can imagine how much ten year olds need to read 15 volumes of a veto in french. so it wasn't very well used. but yeah i mean, it is the case that the three volumes are not the easiest thing to get through. i'm impressed that you've actually spent so time doing it so whereas the federalist papers, you know, you, you know,

a couple of weeks and you, you go through it even if you're not fully you sort of appreciate what's going on. sometimes. nevertheless. so one, i mean, one of the reasons why it's interesting is that, you know, when gordon wood published, his creation the american republic, he seemed to go out of his way to, you know, slam adams as being irrelevant to to the american enlightenment project. so the that didn't help adams's reputation at all because gordon wood at the time was so well thought of. how would you respond to wood in regard? which is interesting, that chapter, it's the penultimate chapter of a six hour and 15 or so page book. i and adams is probably quoted more any was in that book and more than else in his mentor to balance ecological origins. the american revolution. and they have this love hate relationship with adams they're not quite sure what to make of it at end, he thought. adams has terrific insight, but

he's also irrelevant. why is irrelevant? because he misunderstood how constitutional thought was changing. but that misses a fundamental question, right? would given the way he understands history thinks, because everybody talking differently about how the constitution works, that meant the constitutional order had changed of course, it is entirely the prevailing discourse about what's going on, the constitution and the actual function that constitution are separate things. but what is if you see jack higgins discussion of the importance of language in his work really comes out. that would really is i think overly impressed by language in that sense in history its historical movement and. he misses the question of institutional design. there isn't really room for an actual thinker working it to give you an example and adams is very self-conscious about the political movements, the cultural, the linguistic movements in his day. and the historian says, that's my you're butting in how it us

very uncomfortable because the way we're trained most of these think about the people of the past this is what they were like and we look at them as opposed to thinking the people of the past and seeing them illuminate issue and i think would miss is that the end of that chapter, he says. adams says there's no special for america, meaning we're of the same clay as others. i don't think he necessarily means, but would think he means things he means that is america is not a different kind of nation. among the possibilities we might different from most things that have been tried across history, which is still which is separate from saying, no, we're going to have the same types of problems that are characteristic of all nations. those two things can be separated, yeah, i would and balan both have a tendency, not a tendency. i think it's part of the core methodology, which is to take phrases and be as abstracted from actual the larger argument and also the the politics of the

history of the day. i mean, it's i mean, there's a good reason why it's called the ideological, you know, histories. i mean, but of course, i think that this is the history there. there's a curious and an accurate and accurate is in to that actually is interesting because ideologies have entered 1790s to describe a certain group of thinkers that adams opposed and jefferson like that he had traces work translated so right now that might take on different meaning over time but there's a tension in there if. you are disagreeing with ideologues and yeah. would just give you kind of he has a habit of not quoting full sentences and giving a simple let's not getting the nuance of a thought i'll put it that way yeah yeah. but when it comes to adams mean there's always i mean his relatively calm and or people write about adams as though you know in 1775 and 1776 is very much the optimist about the

liberal project and then and then you get the the the defense and it seems to be more pessimistic about about the prospect of of advancement of the liberal project. i it you don't think that's fair. well he writes mercy warren in 76 and says well were a commercial republic. that's because all kinds of corruptions we have we have an opportunity people had and had the first in the preface of the defense. he says americans have the greatest opportunity present to anyone since the transgression of the first pair. and if we don't do, we'll merit the punishment. heaven so he still thinks we have a special opportunity. 87 and in 76 he's already, you know, he's still a son of new england whose worry, you know, there's for everybody, there's an age old shoulder and a devil on the other. and that doesn't change. yeah. do you do you think? the defense was written for the american audience.

was it written for european audience? i think it's and that's that's important, too, writing in england in 86, 87, he's talking to reformers and he's knowing that people want reform things in france and he thinks it's smart talking. he doesn't think they know what they're doing. i mean, in america, every colony had a legislature. they were used to politics. they had newspapers. what were 20, 25 by 76 with no prior restraint. so they were basically allowed publish an occasional limitation afterwards, whereas france had three newspapers that were legal all censored by the king, and there's some underground newspapers, no regular politics whatsoever. and then they jump to try to jump to a full representative government, some sort, and they have no experience whatsoever. what doing? of course they're going to mess up, but they also don't understand the difference between a sellout, the compromise, because they've never done it. and it's not surprising it winds up rather messy plus their ideas

have a mistaken impression about how much change is actually possible. you know french adams in some ways and the four papers is he on what is crossings l.a.? he amuse himself by reading quixote. and in some way he's playing sancho to the philosophic man from la lamantia. you know, they're real for their idealistic, crazy ideas. they say, no, no, no, get down to reality if you want to make a difference. and he was definitely writing for them and writing for the reformers in in addition, i think to writing for the americans. if you look the last i should read which the volume with me if you look at the last paragraph first of all in defense he says there are two ways of dealing with the problems of a republican government and they are either by king or checks and balances. i do not think it may be complete coincidence, but i would not be surprised if madison don't know the two ways he talks about federalist ten. he's saying you got the wrong

ways. adams caesar, that was a very famous phrase in federalist. and he's i think they're arguing about. so i think he is self-consciously trying to get it out there before the convention meets as well. you you know, there's the strange attraction to the pennsylvania constitution, always been of interest me. i mean, i wonder whether the attraction. i mean besides was you mentioned, you know look we don't a lord so why would we have an upper house from their point of view but also wonder whether or not there's there's to be said about they thought this a simpler frame government and thereby closer to nature as they understood. i mean so i wonder if there's this a real disagreement about nature what adams is. assuming and versus what the french intellectuals are assuming they how robust is nature right. and i think that's that's very

well very well a good way of putting it. where do these mixed come from? adams have you ever seen the movie big fat greek wedding, the father there is very proudly greek, and he can find a greek root for every single word you mentioned. well, adams is kind like that as he finds in the regime in every history. he reads there's a one, there's a few. there's a many. now that might be a bit too much, but he thinks that every political situation those groups are going to form and, they must be comedy because that's the way human beings together. it's going to happen. and that view of human nature. i do not as versed in political theory in this political philosophy. those i mean, you go from mark who talks about the tabula rasa but that's no one neat ideas you're moving to a more open human nature and then you get rousseau, who seems to think nature is radically, at least as it presents on the surface. and most people going to read it that way. people get out of the bottom

anyway and so i think they are very impressed with the possible liberty that you can create a much more equal society. in addition, if they do accept of the ancient idea that your regime shapes your character, they're going to say it's it's the second house and the the and the kingly order or the governor or the executive that creates hierarchy. you're creating the regime as opposed to saying, no, it's happening nature and you accept that or not. yeah, i have a little anecdote from my own research. so benjamin franklin course has a big hand in writing the pennsylvania constitution, and that's reason why the french are so enamored with because they're also enamored with franklin. but i came across a letter where after shays rebellion, franklin writes and of course, the governor, massachusetts bowdoin is you know very, very effective in an of putting shays rebellion down and franklin writes bowdoin

governance. bowdoin says you know you got the best constitution in the country. so even franklin by that point in time was, you know, sort of, you know, moving away from what he had helped create so or franklin's interesting the is his comment he the only known comment of franklin's is oracular discussing the second house he says well it's kind like people on a cart carrying heavy objects and they're going down a hill for horses. it's a really steep hill they put of the horses are facing the other way. so the cart doesn't tumble down the hill and adams is that can be read in many ways it can be very prudent to do that or it could be saying what you're trying to do. i don't think it's necessary because that's not our situation. but he said he starts with franklin. he's trying. what have people said about why you need the second house for

there's apocryphal story that jefferson asked washington what's the second house for? and he says, why do you put your teen your saucer before you drink it? that doesn't quite seem be tried, be traceable, but that that's kind of the idea. yeah, it's it's it's very that's the other thing is why did you how she's in massachusetts when that was theory a better constitution and that's the whole story the story does does that when you mean as you say he looks back in history and finds something about mixed regime everywhere. but of course the the logic the mixed regime originally was that you had different principles of justice that be represented by these particular, you know, a monarchy and a lords. and then or popular democratic element. adams doesn't to cottoned to that. no, no, that's precisely he does not gotten to it maybe doesn't that doesn't work but yeah you

see does he seem to recognize the difference or he doesn't talk about it. that's it. i don't know if he he's he's reputed he's not talking about it because he doesn't want to mention it. say i disagree but he definitely justice is more unified. maybe that's you know that is the way he sees don't know i don't not he doesn't see it that way the justice is the one that you the many that's true. you know maybe the criticism is that's what he's producing course and he does and he said you get all these fights about it jefferson actually i think seemed have can keep the first edition of the defense from being reprinted in in because that's what they started doing i think yeah and he calls its writings heresies. yeah. is that because adams wasn't as careful writers he should have been. well that's irony you know adams is not an esoteric the terms are perfectly current. i mean, there's a letter from the governor of, massachusetts

francis bernard, the, you know, normal oxford educated guy, not particularly not dumb but not great intellectual. he writes, i think in one of his what what is it? what is one of his advisers back in london? you know, i'll give you some parts letter that are esoteric and some esoteric. and so that was not a surprising concept to them. but adams thought that's not fair. everybody you have to say, know sometimes the truth can be. ironic. and he would explain things ironically that's separate but he thought essentially you present the same basically and bluntly to everybody that's actually not good politics. but it is also when the attempt to hide what you're saying is aristocratic and his soul rebels that so the irony of adams is precisely that you know he doesn't actually believe in being politic because that would be unfair that would be hierarchal we didn't get you didn't get a chance to talk about it much. but obviously adams has quite a lot to say about sort of executive power.

a, how does it fit in more broadly with the separation of system? you you talked about and also then the second thing is, if you could speculate to the about how you think that view his view of executive power actually shaped his behavior when he became president. yeah well he's the he's the guy he spoke the unity secrecy and dispatch in the early 87. so before wilson and hamilton talked about it and he definitely had you have to execute you have do or as grant said i am verb i and so you need that has to a person when there's two people you know have accountability you don't have a clear line of authority or as one comedian said if you only have one child and not really a parent because you know who did it, right. so you a one person, so you know who did it right. and and that's you and also

thinks you need a he would prefer a full veto because that protects executive from being run by the legislature. and then you no longer have the independence needs to do his job and so the job of executive he focuses on the separation of powers isn't really under threat. by the time rights defense constitution. he mentions it regularly that you have to separate executive judicial powers and by then the judicial powers out of the executive. it of course had been in the executive branch under the king and he also but he focuses on you need to have the president personally by the people because you need essentially the dynamic between the president and the commons to keep aristocratic senators as actually in in line, because otherwise they'll get too big for their britches. so he kind of expects a certain form of of a dynamic between the

president, the people, this maybe the poor country may be our terms for b certain populism. it's ironic given adams ideas that they work together to keep the government itself from becoming an interest against the people because it's very common throughout history for the people in office to, use their powers to line their own pockets. so keeping the executive separate from the two branches is definitely part of that otherwise there will be a problem of control. the various branches you can't have government of laws. it says without the separation of powers, because if you combining the two powers, it'll be used. yeah, i do know you complained about the u.s. constitution mix of the senate with the president on appointments and treating him. he really did not want that mix there. i mean, and in that they really did want to ostracize the senators. one final question for me before

we turn to the audience so as you presented it, adams thinks that the question of human is really at the heart of how he thinks about you. sort of the regime and what has to be done institutionally. how would he respond to tocqueville's argument? you know, in the american experience, it's equality. that's the major concern. how does how would adams square that circle? i wonder if that if he would if it's so different in the in the well, first of all, the defense in the original version is supposed to reshuffle version. there is all of book in the start of book nine and plato's republic, the move into the regimes and get democratic man where the idea of equality prevails and you can read tocqueville as a commentary that you have this love, intense love, equality and standards come down to what our on that. and tocqueville talks about various aspects of it.

you know the civil society and other things and you can see one might suspect is worried what's our what's to be our tendency is going to be down to much excessive equality, leading us away from the need to have something else. and so he's pushing back against that anticipate. what's going to be a second, third, fourth generation problem? whereas i think in the i believe colin sheehan puts quite directly to rebecca madison, they want to tear down the slave owning aristocracy. so they're worried that we have to start to get down to equality, whereas new england, yes, you have the grandees of a certain sort, you know, the winthrop's and you have the essex and others, but they don't really their status is not high. and the concern as you move forward a few generations he says, i'm writing for a country of 100, 200 million people a century hence. all right. so is that i wonder?

that's is on his mind that he's trying push against that by giving to push us to look up because our tendencies will be looked at bring everything down to equality. yeah when. i was looking at his first address to congress. of course, it's in the context of everybody's, you know, he's too monarchical, you know, he's not republican enough. and so he spends a lot of time trying to bed that down, but very in and very little spots. he he sort of indirectly says. but of course, this constitution probably will need to be changed as we move along. i mean, so even then it would been the most politic thing for to do is not even suggest such he was as you say, being very blunt about, you know, about these matters. he's not known for being politic in many cases. all right. turn questions. so please wait for a mic. and also just identify yourself.

professor samuelson, first of all, thanks for bringing john adams to life in a way that i had not experienced in the past i do want to fall. my name is william edwards and i do want to follow up on a question that was asked by professor schmidt right about how adams take the modern administrative state. in the modern executive branch, you know, today the executive branch is, it doesn't legislate, but it can pass rules in the force of law. it does a but it most of the of the agencies within, the federal government get their money on basically a continuing resolution, kind of an auto autopilot. it doesn't adjudicate as an article three court might, but today there are plenty of administrative law judges and administrative judges have a quasi judicial function. so some have pointed to the kind of reunifying nation of power is like. well, that's that that's the deep state.

that's the administrative state. so my question is, do you think that president adams or the you know, as a writer, as a founder he anticipated this kind of centralization of power in the executive of and if you could get out your ouija board, tell us what you think he might given us an advice to counter the centralization of power. if you agree that's, you know, possibly the explanation for where we find ourselves today. if i took him a ouija board he might. no, that's a nonsense. from salem. but the i wonder if he if there are some anticipation of the turn towards to use the current term technocracy in some of the philosophies you have the one house but the people who really do things would be the well trained for french. not aristocrats but gentlemen. people want to go to titles in the french schools. i mean, you can you can see the roots of that in.

some of the writings of the era. and so you have the one house, but then you're going to have a large administrative branch here. the french are at bureaucracy. i think we americans actually our character is not good at. but that's separate issue. i wonder if adamson house is today, is we have a mixed up regime. that is, we have all this power without checks, balances. we transform the after the new deal. i mean, jefferson says of shays, a little revolution every now and then is healthy. no little matters as much as revolution. and you know, all things go. shays wasn't all that serious because the election you the revolution of 1800, that is through what we would call realignment, you have kind of punctuated equilibrium, redo the way you do the system. and we got the modern state state without thinking about where checks and balances here that's 18th century talk that's is backwards newtonian stuff that's what they said at the

time the first things the first line of the big book adams political thought by career. walsh and progressive era was the science in this book is out it adams is out of date. hey that's that's the idea right but i wonder if i don't know if his way to do it if there be way to put some kind of checks and balances our mystery of bureaucracy because from the outside you can say this looks like what governor bernhardt proposed. you know we don't really have gentlemen here. we need a civil list. that is a lot of people the king pays for who are well. well trained and have good breeding. and they can run things and away from this legislature that has entirely much power. it's the wrong sort of people. and there's there could be an echo of that. and what we're seeing today that we haven't recast to analyze the big state you're going to have a state, you're going to have some kind administrative work that is out of proportion to what you had in that era. the question is what is this constitution designed. and maybe that's an issue we haven't quite thought about,

maybe no way to do it, to put somebody checking in, balancing and no, it is both checking and balancing i recently had to retort again and that was before the calhoun's that we had a draft the south carolina exposition in protest the word check or checking or version of that comes up i think is 14 times. but the word balance never which is actually very interesting. right. you need both you need a check when you sign the balance to keep the forces line. so no back here please. hi mike lucchese. i'm with law and liberty. i am a very curious the the image that gave of adams sandra panzer to the the philosophic don quixote is is very interesting and it put me in mind a little bit machiavelli in the prince where he talks about how we have to throw out imagined republics. and we have sort of have a have

a new science politics that moves beyond the sort of antique conception of an imagined republic. so i was wondering to what extent you think a machiavelli's realism is an influence on adams's realism and? how would you situate that in the founding, considering somebody like leo strauss that the founding was an explicitly machiavellian moment? thank you well, i think strauss is machiavelli didn't say anything others had said, but he only said it within a certain range. and adams is very much i mean he speaks in some ways ruthlessly to say look guys, these aren't going to work. we've seen these patterns too many times in the past to expect you to these images, your publics to work right. but the problem was they thought the image publics aren't imagined. they just haven't tried yet. all right. adams says, no, no, no. these are kooky ideas. can't work right.

and you can say in some ways, they they cross the fine line that separates and misanthropy. i if you will, only be content in this world, if we can do things that are actually incompatible with human nature. you don't like human nature. you don't like human beings. and that might be why there's a line to the terror and other such terrors by people who want to transform the world. they're expecting something that human nature cannot give but interesting. one of the big portions of the defense adams quotes at length the florentine histories and every now and then he says, you know, machiavelli knows better. that's not really what really happened. and he periodically pauses and him. so i think adams much goes back to rule of law. he quotes a lost text of of cicero. this preserved by august quickly right at the side of the fence. he quotes araceli later on on what the of law means. and it's mere will. it is definitely being living in

accord with the deeper trends in order in which we find ourselves. i think that would definitely put a line between him and machiavelli, and i think he's he knows that. but who is he talking to? he's talking a lot of people who wouldn't have worked all that through and think he find tactically that the empirical approach is very useful because. you see, are you really going to say all of these examples are not reflecting a pattern seems to be inescapable of human. and what's interesting to my fellow historians, joyce appleby calls his three volumes of tendentious extracts. this is not the way we do history anymore. and so it's interesting i don't i think he's actually actually taking not taking the back of it. oh the other way he responds to machiavelli, he's emphatic that with about the ancient definition of republic. remember correctly, as paul ray,

my colleague on the main campus points out, the distinction between despotism and republics. despotism rule by. and for the desperate republic, there is a public there's a republic. and machiavelli makes it a form question. there's monarchies and republics and adams keeps saying, well, that actually isn't helpful because you're to want someone who looks kind of like a king at the center of the order. you're going to want something that looks like someone aristocratic senate, etc. and a civil republic. that's the way the word has been used through most of history. and that's that's very explicitly back against machiavelli. he doesn't cite him, but he's very emphatic that is a mistake to have this modern simplification between republics and monarchies. and he quotes cooke, england, a commonwealth, among other things. the question over here i thought no, please. i'm david epstein.

the u.s. senate doesn't have a property qualification either the electors or for the senators so. is that sufficiently to a mixed regime to satisfy adams? i mean, in general, he think the u.s. constitution was more or less the mixed regime thought was needed, or did he think? it did not actually do what was necessary to solve the basic and equality problem. i think he was worried it was insufficient, but i do wonder back when the senate selected by the states that it would have worked somewhat, that i mean, how do you get henry clay there? you have a direct connection between the person who runs politics in kentucky, which means directly in touch with every and county into the heart of the senate. and that would be the play of ambitions might actually when the senate really was world's greatest deliberative body or had a claim for it at least i when you cap the house and

expand the senate the difference isn't there i want you to if you tried a whimsical experiment don't know if you need property qualification. suppose you reorder things and you may 13 districts each with two senators and expanded the house 800 people. then when a senator walks into a room, you say, wow, right and it would really pop. and they would feel that in their own lives and maybe they would take the responsibility that came with that. i don't know. but i think he was a little worried. he worried long term that we would have we would we had not done a sufficient job to make the senate functional. it could be in the order in our circumstance, there's was no way and he was where he was wrong to think this could ever possibly work to the senate. this kind of internal ostracism. so it's an open question and someone sometimes writing, yeah, no, no, this is this is not what i'm looking for. other times he's more supportive of it. yeah, i mean, just thinking about the massachusetts constitution, i mean, the word property qualifications and

there's oath, you know, had to be christian. so i mean, there's i suppose looking back adams would probably said what i did in massachusetts is better than what did in the us constitution. yes relatively significant proper qualification not to vote that was like basically anyone who could own a car nowadays would vote but to be a senator or governor. but i'm not sure that the religious stuff is partly adam's catering to massachusetts he would not write the wrote the religious liberty clause that everyone worship god as their conscience tells them. but article three he said i can't write that. and that's where they said, well, each town can choose which church or churches to support. and actually, i wonder if he saw what was going to happen. you have people religious liberty and each town picks one or more church to support tax funds. what's going to happen? well, soon enough, these things are incommensurable when you get more and more denominations in massachusetts and they vote to say, yeah, we don't want that.

it's not functional. so i'm going to ask the last question and i only got a minute, so it's got to be a quick one. you ended your talk by talking about the fact adams had a view that government shape character, the citizens character and politicians character actually reminds me a little bit of. alexander hamilton also makes it kind similar argument about steady government to a certain kind of. character in the population. what is the virtue, though, that comes from that? i mean, what is it that adams that having the kind of a stable stable, you know, government is going to what kind of what of republican virtue does that produce in one minute? yeah. well, i mean, adams didn't think it can he thinks it always does inevitably for good or for ill and so you can't i sometimes call this the anti libertarian point? it's not a question of whether government you choose to have government shape morality or not. it always does. and the question is how and

adams you create a positive emulation. you draw people up to their selves because we are satisfying creatures and we use that to the benefit of everybody who can sense move their souls, be better people. if the regime forces them to serve the public in a sense to serve themselves enlightened pushes you towards something looking like virtue good. well that's a great note then don and please, if everybody would join and thanking richard for a wonderful talk and a great discussion.

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