♦ nivek ♦ Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 "We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight ofthe danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." -- John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President Source: Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/J...dams.Quote.C177 "When I went home to my family in May, 1770, from the town meeting in Boston, which was the first I had ever attended, and where I had been chosen in my absence, without any solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my wife, 'I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate.' She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, 'Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined.' These were times, my friend, in Boston, which tried women's souls as well as men's." -- John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President Source: Letter to Benjamin Rush, 4 April 1809 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/J...dams.Quote.3652 "Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. " -- John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President Source: Letter to John Taylor 16 April 1814 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/J...dams.Quote.351C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 John Adams is my favorite of the founders, Kev. His immutable principles, irascible nature and indefatigueable pursuit of what he deemed to be right simply wore his detractors down to a nubbin. My husband reminds me so much of Adams! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathGeek Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Not to rain on Adam's parade, I have always wondered how such an articulate, intelligent individual like Adams could be such a staunch Christian. The God of the Bible, from what I've seen, isn't one that takes kindly to the unwilling human being. To advocate libertarianism in my mind, I would think that a person would hold the Bible in limited regard. Many of country's first patriots were staunch Christians (like Sam Adams and Patrick Henry). Maybe it's because it was the glue that held the fragile system together at that moment in time. Either way, our Founders were geniuses in terms of their politics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodsmoke Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 There is what seems the very real possibility "staunch Christian" meant something very different back then. Jefferson, Adams, et al lived during the twilight of the Enlightenment, after all, which had a rather profound intellectual effect on the west. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kcdad Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 "That all men are born to equal rights is clear. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has. This is as indubitable as a moral government in the universe. But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as ever was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmans, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French revolution." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 Adams the deist... "The question before the human race is whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles." -Letter to Thomas Jefferson " [in regard to the Trinity] Tom, had you and I been forty days with Moses, and beheld the great God, and even if God himself had tried to sell us that three was one...and one equals three, you and I would never have believed it. We never fall victim to such lies." -Letter to Thomas Jefferson "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" -Letter to Thomas Jefferson "The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most gentlemanly insolance, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes." -Letter to John Taylor "As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, and legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation, that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?" -Letter to F.A. Van Der Kamp, December 27, 1816 "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing betwen the two countries." -John Adams, 1797-05-27, Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the US and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kcdad Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing betwen the two countries."-John Adams, 1797-05-27, Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the US and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary [/font] And that is that! HEY! I'm a little thinker... I can't wait til my thister finds out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vixentrox Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 There was recently a mini-series made on John Adams. Deffinitely worth a watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 There was recently a mini-series made on John Adams. Deffinitely worth a watch. I recommend that mini-series as well. It was well done. The viewer will receive an appreciation of what sacrifices Adams made for this country (and his family's sacrifices as well, due to his absence in their lives). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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