June 28 1813: Adams to Jefferson

On June 28 1813, John Adams catches up on his correspondence and writes two letters to Thomas Jefferson. His letters are a prodigious display of learning, jumbled in a torrent of words, most of which are fascinating, but barely intelligible. There are some interesting things written about First Nations. Adams writes with genuine warmth recalling that as a child he would visit an  “Indian” family, whose wigwam was within a mile of his father’s house, and there he would be given “whortleberries, blackberries, strawberries or apples, plums, peaches, etc.”  He also writes  harshly of  “Indians” being responsible for ” murder, scalpings, depredations and conflagrations” and, casually, how in Massachusetts, he scarcely sees “an Indian in a year.”

He writes:

I have also felt an interest in the Indians, and a commiseration for them from my childhood.  Aaron Pomham, the priest, and Moses Pomham, the king of the Punkapang and Neponset tribes, were frequent visitors at my father’s house, at least seventy years ago.  I have a distinct remembrance of their forms and figures.  They were very aged, and the tallest and stoutest Indians I have ever seen.  The titles of king and priest, and the names of Moses and Aaron, were given them no doubt by our Massachusetts divines and statesmen.  There was a numerous family in this town, whose wigwam was within a mile of this house.  This family were frequently at my father’s house, and I, in my boyish rambles, used to call at their wigwam, where I never failed to be treated with whortleberries, blackberries, strawberries or apples, plums, peaches, etc., for they had planted a variety of fruit trees about them.  But the girls went out to service, and the boys to sea, till not a soul is left.  We scarcely see an Indian in a year.  I remember the time when Indian murder, scalpings, depredations and conflagrations, were as frequent on the Eastern and Northern frontier of Massachusetts, as they are now in Indiana, and spread as much terror.  But since the conquest of Canada, all has ceased;  and I believe with you that another conquest of Canada will quiet the Indians forever, and be as great a blessing to them as to us.

Adams’ two letters are reproduced below.

Quincy, June 28, 1813.

Dear Sir – I know not what, unless it were the prophet of Tippecanoe, had turned my curiosity to inquiries after the metaphysical science of the Indians, their ecclesiastical establishments, and theological theories;  but your letter, written with all the accuracy, perspicuity, and elegance of your youth and middle age, as it has given me great satisfaction, deserves my best thanks.

It has given me satisfaction, because, while it has furnished me with information where all the knowledge is to be obtained that books afford, it has convinced me that I shall never know much more of the subject than I do now.  As I have never aimed at making my collection of books upon this subject, I have none of those you abridged in so concise a manner.  Lafitan, Adair, and De Bry, were known to me only by name.

The various ingenuity which has been displayed in inventions of hypothesis, to account for the original population of America, and the immensity of learning profusely expended to support them, have appeared to me for a longer time than I can precisely recollect, what the physicians call the Literæ nihil Sanantes.  Whether serpents’ teeth were sown here and sprang up men ;  whether men and women dropped from the clouds upon.  this Atlantic Island;  whether the Almighty created them here, or whether they emigrated from Europe, are questions of no moment to the present or future happiness of man.  Neither agriculture, commerce, manufactures, fisheries, science, literature, taste, religion, morals, nor any other good will be promoted, or any evil, averted, by any discoveries that can be made in answer to these questions.

The opinions of the Indians and their usages, as they are represented in your obliging letter of the 11th of June, appear to me to resemble the Platonizing Philo, or the Philonizing Plato, more than the genuine system of Indianism.

The philosophy both of Philo and Plato are at least as absurd.  It is indeed less intelligible.

Plato borrowed his doctrines from Oriental and Egyptian philosophers, for he had travelled both in India and Egypt.

The Oriental philosophy, imitated and adopted, in part, if not the whole, by Plato and Philo, was

1.  One God the good.

2.  The ideas, the thoughts, the reason, the intellect, the logos, the ratio of God.

3.  Matter, the universe, the production of the logos, or contemplations of God.  This matter was the source of evil.

Perhaps the three powers of Plato, Philo, the Egyptians, and Indians, cannot be distinctly made out, from your account of the Indians, but —

1.  The great spirit, the good, who is worshipped by the kings, sachems, and all the great men, in their solemn festivals, as the Author, the Parent of good.

2.  The Devil, or the source of evil.  They are not metaphysicians enough as yet to suppose it, or at least to call it matter, like the wiscains of Antiquity, and like Frederick the Great, who has written a very silly essay on the origin of evil, in which he ascribes it all to matter, as if this was an original discovery of his own.

The watchmaker has in his head an idea of the system of a watch before he makes it.  The mechanician of the universe had a complete idea of the universe before he made it;  and this idea, this logos, was almighty, or at least powerful enough to produce the world, but it must be made of matter which was eternal;  for creation out of nothing was impossible.  And matter was unmanageable. It would not, and could not be fashioned into any system, without a large mixture of evil in it;  for matter was essentially evil.

The Indians are not metaphysicians enough to have discovered this idea, this logos, this intermediate power between good and evil, God and matter.But of the two powers, the good and the evil, they seem to have a full conviction; and what son or daughter of Adam and Eve has not?

This logos of Plato seems to resemble, if it was not the prototype of, the Ratio and its Progress of Manilious, the astrologer;  of the Progress of the Mind of Condorcet, and the Age of Reason of Tom Payne.

I could make a system too.  The seven hundred thousand soldiers of Zingis, when the whole, or any part of them went to battle, they sent up a howl, which resembled nothing that human imagination has conceived, unless it be the supposition that all the devils in hell were let loose at once to set up an infernal scream, which terrified their enemies; and never failed to obtain them victory.  The Indian yell resembles this;  and, therefore, America was peopled from Asia.

Another system. The armies of Zingis, sometimes two or three or four hundred thousand of them, surrounded a province in a circle, and marched towards the centre, driving all the wild beasts before them, lions, tigers, wolves, bears, and every living thing, terrifying them with their howls and yells, their drums, trumpets, etc., till they terrified and tamed enough of them to victual the whole army.  Therefore, the Scotch Highlanders, who practice the same thing in miniature, are emigrants from Asia.  Therefore, the American Indians, who, for anything I know, practice the same custom, are emigrants from Asia or Scotland.

I am weary of contemplating nations from the lowest and most beastly degradations of human life, to the highest refinement of civilization.  I am weary of Philosophers, Theologians, Politicians, and Historians.  They are an immense mass of absurdities, vices, and lies.  Montesquieu had sense enough to say in jest, that all our knowledge might be comprehended in twelve pages in duodecimo, and I believe him in earnest.  I could express my faith in shorter terms.  He who loves the workman and his work, and does what he can to preserve and improve it, shall be accepted of him.

I have also felt an interest in the Indians, and a commiseration for them from my childhood.  Aaron Pomham, the priest, and Moses Pomham, the king of the Punkapang and Neponset tribes, were frequent visitors at my father’s house, at least seventy years ago.  I have a distinct remembrance of their forms and figures.  They were very aged, and the tallest and stoutest Indians I have ever seen.  The titles of king and priest, and the names of Moses and Aaron, were given them no doubt by our Massachusetts divines and statesmen.  There was a numerous family in this town, whose wigwam was within a mile of this house.  This family were frequently at my father’s house, and I, in my boyish rambles, used to call at their wigwam, where I never failed to be treated with whortleberries, blackberries, strawberries or apples, plums, peaches, etc., for they had planted a variety of fruit trees about them.  But the girls went out to service, and the boys to sea, till not a soul is left.  We scarcely see an Indian in a year.  I remember the time when Indian murder, scalpings, depredations and conflagrations, were as frequent on the Eastern and Northern frontier of Massachusetts, as they are now in Indiana, and spread as much terror.  But since the conquest of Canada, all has ceased;  and I believe with you that another conquest of Canada will quiet the Indians forever, and be as great a blessing to them as to us.

The instance of Aaron Pomham made me suspect that there was an order of priesthood among them.  But, according to your account, the worship of the good spirit was performed by the kings, sachems, and warriors, as among the ancient Germans, whose highest rank of nobility were priests.  The worship of the evil spirit, ——[Greek text]——

We have war now in earnest.  I lament the contumacious spirit that appears about me.  But I lament the cause that has given too much apology for it;  the total neglect and absolute refusal of all maritime protection and defence.  Money, mariners, and soldiers, would be at the public service, if only a few frigates had been ordered to be built.  Without this, our Union will be a brittle china vase, a house of ice, or a palace of glass.

I am, Sir, with an affectionate respect, yours.

**********

John Adams to Thomas Jefferson.
quincy, June 28, 1813.

Dear Sir – It is very true that the denunciations of the priesthood are fulminated against every advocate for a complete freedom of religion.  Comminations, I believe, would be plenteously pronounced by even the most liberal of them, against Atheism, Deism, against every man who disbelieved or doubted the resurrection of Jesus, or the miracles of the New Testament.  Priestley himself would denounce the man who should deny the Apocalypse, or the Prophecies of Daniel.  Priestley and Lindsay both have denounced as idolaters and blasphemers all the Trinitarians, and even the Arians.

Poor weak man, when will thy perfection arrive?  Thy perfectability I shall not deny;  for a greater character than Priestley or Godwin has said, “Be ye perfect,” &c.  For my part I can not deal damnation round the land on all I judge the foes of God and man.  But I did not intend to say a word on this subject in this letter.  As much of it as you please hereafter, but let me return to politics.

With some difficulty I have hunted up, or down, the “address of the young men of the city of Philadelphia, the district of Southwark, and the Northern Liberties,” and the answer.

The addresses say, “Actuated by the SAME PRINCIPLES on which our forefathers achieved their independence, the recent attempts of a foreign power to derogate from the dignity and rights of our country, awaken our liveliest sensibility, and our strongest indignation.”  Huzza my brave boys !  Could Thomas Jefferson or John Adams hear those words with insensibility, and without emotion ?  These boys afterwards add, “We regard our liberty and independence as the richest portion given us by our ancestors.”  And who were those ancestors ?  Among them were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.  And I very coolly believe that no two men among those ancestors did more towards it than those two.  Could either hear this like statues ?  If, one hundred years hence, your letters and mine should see the light, I hope the reader will hunt up this address, and read it all ;  and remember that we were then engaged, or on the point of engaging, in a war with France.  I shall not repeat the answer till we come to the paragraph upon which you criticised to Dr. Priestley, though every word of it is true, and I now rejoice to see it recorded, and though I had wholly forgotten it.

The paragraph is, “Science and morals are the great pillars on which this country has been raised to its present population, opulence and prosperity, and these alone can advance, support, and preserve it.  Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity, or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researches, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions, or systems of education more fit, IN GENERAL, to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors.”

Now, compare the paragraph in the answer with the paragraph in the address, as both are quoted above, and see if we can find the extent and the limits of the meaning of both.

Who composed that army of fine young fellows that was then before my eyes ?  There were among them Roman Catholics, English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists, Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists ; and “Protestans qui ne croyent rien.”  Very few however of several of these species.  Nevertheless, all educated in the GENERAL PRINCIPLES of Christianity;  and the general principles of English and American liberty.

Could my answer be understood by any candid reader or hearer, to recommend to all the others the general principles, institutions, or systems of education of the Roman Catholics ?  Or those of the Quakers ?  Or those of the Presbyterians ?  Or those of the Menonists ?  Or those of the Methodists ?  Or those of the Moravians ?  Or those of the Universalists ?  Or those of the Philosophers ?  No.

The GENERAL PRINCIPLES on which the fathers achieved independence, were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentlemen could unite, and these principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer.

And what were these GENERAL PRINCIPLES ?  I answer, the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united;  and the GENERAL PRINCIPLES of English and American liberty, in which all these young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence.

Now I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God ;  and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature, and our terrestrial mundane system.  I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present information, that I believed they would never make discoveries in contradiction to these GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

In favor of these GENERAL PRINCIPLES philosophy, religion and government, I would fill sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Rousseau and Voltaire, as well as Newton and Locke ;  not to mention thousands of divines and philosophers of inferior fame.

I might have flattered myself that my sentiments were sufficiently known to have protected me against suspicions of narrow thoughts, contracted sentiments, bigoted, enthusiastic, or superstitious principles, civil, political, philosophical, or ecclesiastical.  The first sentence of the preface to my defence of the constitution, volume 1st, printed in 1787, is in these words :  “The arts and sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement.  The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural philosophy, navigation, and commerce, and the advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world and the human character, which would have astonished the most refined nations of antiquity,” &c.  I will quote no farther;  but request you to read again that whole page, and then say whether the writer of it could be suspected of recommending to youth “to look backward instead of forward” for instruction and improvement.

This letter is already too long.  In my next I shall consider the Terrorism of the day.  Meantime I am, as ever, your friend.