Papers of John Adams, volume 21
I have received from our old Acquaintance D’Ivernois the inclosed Volume for you in the Course of the last Week.1
I consider all Reasoning upon French affairs of little moment. The Fates must determine hereafter as they have done heretofore. 442 Reasoning has been all lost—Passion, Prejudice, Interest, Necessity has governed and will govern; and a Century must roll away before any permanent and quiet system will be established. An Amelioration of human affairs I hope and believe will be the Result, but you and I must look down from the Battlements of Heaven if We ever have the Pleasure of seeing it
The Treaty is not arrived and Congress seems averse to engage in Business with spirit till that is considered.
I envy you the society of your Family but another Year and one Month may make me the object of Envy.2 Mean time / I am, with Esteem & Affection / your
RC (DLC:Jefferson Papers); internal address:
“Mr Jefferson.”; endorsed: “Adams John.
Phila. Jan. 31. 96. / recd. Feb. 20.”
JA sent a copy of Francois d’Ivernois’
La Révolution Française à Genève . . .
depuis le mois d’Octobre 1792, jusqu’au mois de Juillet 1795,
3d edn., London, 1795.
By the first week of January, JA and the
Adams family circle knew of George Washington’s secret intention to
retire at the end of his second term, but JA’s comments
here regarding his own political prospects—addressed to his future
presidential rival—are notably benign. While JA hinted that
rural retirement was on his mind, privately he perceived of his
candidacy as a way to keep Federalist ideology afloat. “Either We must
enter upon Ardours more trying than any ever yet experienced; or retire
to Quincy Farmers for Life. I am at least as determined not to serve
under Jefferson. . . . I will not be frightened out of the public
service nor will I be disgraced in it,” JA wrote to
AA three weeks earlier, as rumors of Washington’s exit
hardened into fact. Modern campaigning was not yet the political mode,
but by late spring, four men led in the race to succeed Washington:
JA, Jefferson, Thomas Pinckney, and Aaron Burr (
AFC
, 11:122–123).