Papers of John Adams, volume 20
ca. 22 April 1790
Dialogues of the dead.
Charlemain Frederick, Rousseau Otis.
Rousseau. have you Seen Franklin, Since he passed the River? or has the Boat been too full of Passengers to bring him over?
Otis. I know not.— I have very little Curiosity to know.— I care nothing have no solicitude for Steel Rods nor
Iron Points— I am very glad his Points were not over my head: They might have detained
me in the Regions of Mire, for twenty or thirty Years longer. The fluctuating flashes
and flourishes of chimical and electrical Experiments have no Charms for me. They are as transitory as Sparks meteors, as 325 fireflies Catterpillars and Sea shells. all this is the frivolity and Foppery of sciene.—
It is Morality! eternal Morality, it is permanent Intelligence, it is the Policy and Divinity of the Universe! that has my Devotion The Intellectual and Moral
World. These have ever [commanded] my Attention and Devotion.
Rousseau. They were mine too
And mine— But these are very apt to have the Same Effect upon all Men as they had upon
Us.— They produce a little Extravagance, often
produce a Melancholly then an Extravagance and at last a Delirium
Frederick But had not Franklin a Genius for Morals?
Otis. He told some very pretty moral Tales from the head—and Some
very immoral ones from the heart. but his heart I
never liked him: so if you please We will change the subject. Populus Vult Decipi,
decipiatur was his Maxim2
Frederick. With all my heart—I never thought any Thing of him, as a Politician.— Congress forced me to make a Treaty with him against my Inclination.— indeed his Philosophy never made any Impression on me.— it was chiefly hypothetical and conjectural— I did not think it worth my Notice in my History of my own time. My Attention was drawn to others.
Otis. indeed my Pride was not a little flattered at the Notice,
taken by so great a Prince of a Character whom
Nation which I had so great a hand in forming.
Fredrick.— Compliments are not the Ton here—if they were I should
be at no loss to return yours with Interest.— You have put all our crowned heads to
the blush. We have done nothing in Comparison with you. Our successors upon Earth must
all go to school to your Pupils, who went to school to you.— as to myself, I feel
Small and humble in your Presence— at infinite hazard, Pains and Anxiety I scattered
Blood Horror and Desolation round about me: and indeed was thought myself obliged to do so in self Defence. I was the greatest
Warrior and statesman in Europe: but if Effects are to be the Measure of Grandeur you
should be admitted the Greatest statesman that ever lived. Your Town of Boston has
done more than Imperial or Republican Rome: and your Harvard Colledge, than the school
of Cujacius and all the Doctors of the Sarbonne. Even my Brother Charlemain must
acknowledge his Inferiority to You.
Charlemain. Very true.— I cannot recollect my own Grandeur my
Vast Views, my unbounded designs, and my wonderful success, without blushing. The
detestible Maxim, Mr Otis which you imputed to 326 one of your Contemporaries, Populus Vult decipi,
decipiatur, was my Maxim and I owed to it most of my Greatness.— Leo gave me the Title
of Cæsar and Augustus, and Magnus: and instituted that Superstitious Farce of
Consecration, which cheated all Europe for Nine
many hundred Years. I, in my turn, tranferred to the Pope, the Authority which the
Roman senate and People had anciently exercised of electing and confirming the
Emperors. This infamous Bargain, as contemptible as the Artifices of two Horse Jockeys, establishd the temporal and spiritual
Monarchies of Europe for near—1000 many hundreds
of Years— But Providence reserved for You the honour of beginning a system of Policy,
which has already almost and will infallibly e’er long totally overturn the whole
Conspiracy of Charlemain and Leo.
Otis. Your Majesties do me too much Honour. I lived and Acted it
is true in a most important Moment. I was fashioned by Providence as a very proper
Wedge to split a very hard Knot.— But I was only one of many. Rousseau was our Friend Rousseau had no small share
in this Revolution.
Rousseau. I did nothing more than propagate the Principles of Lock. and Voltaire himself, whom I never loved nor esteemed very much did as much as I did.
Frederick. The bewetching Charms of Voltaies Wit, and the enchanting Graces of your Eloquence, made his and your Writings universally read; and as you both filled every Volume and almost every Page with some Recommendation of Liberty and Toleration; your Writings contributed very much to propagate such sentiments among all Mankind. But Reason Wit, Eloquence can do no great Things. Otis began a vast system of Policy which has sett the Reason and the Passions of all Men at Work to promote your Principles.
Rousseau. My Principles were those of Lock.— But I Swallowed Lock with too little Rumination.— Otis’s Pupils the Americans have convinced Me, that Lock and I, though our Principles of Liberty were good, were totally mistaken in our Ideas of Government, and the Frame necessary to produce and preserve equal Laws.
Otis. This always surprized me. I was enraptured with the sagacity of Lock and the Eloquence of Rousseau— Yet you seemed to me, never to have considered the human heart or the History of the World. how could an Observation so obvious, escape You.— The Passions of the human heart are insatiable. an Interest unballanced; a Passion uncontrouled, in society, must produce disorder and Tyranny. 327 You have nothing to do therefore to preserve equal Laws but to provide a Check for evey Passion, a Reaction to every Action a Controul to every Interest, which counteracts the Laws.
Rousseau.— it is now very plain to me—but like my Master Lock I did not see it, when on Earth.
Otis. Your Error, As well as your Masters, have been may be corrected: but there are others
more dangerous still, which have not which may be
more difficult to eradicate.— and here I cannot acquit your Majesty of Prussia.— I
fear that some other Errors may do more harm than the Intrigue of Charlemain, which he
just now So candidly confessed and so ingenuously repented. I mean the Renunciation of
a future state, and the Tendency to deny or doubt the moral Government of the World,
and the Existence of an all perfect Intelligence. This august Company must allow me,
to do more honour to Palestine and Jerusalem, than You have done to Boston and
Cambridge. These Places in my Opinion would have no merit at all, if they had not
respected those.— Thou shalt love the supream with all thy heart and thy Neighbour as
thyself, is a Maxim of eternal Phylosophy. it is the sublime Principle of Right order
and Happiness in the Universe. Affection and Confidence in the Æternal, Resignation to
his Will and Affection and Beneficence to his Works as far as We are intelligent
active and free, must be Truth Duty and Felicity.— How then could such Characters as
these in this Company give any Countenance to Encyclopædists, Atheists and Theists, in
destroying or weakening the Faith of Mankind, in this divine Phylosophy?
Charlemain. A confused and uninlightened sense of these important Truths really was one of my Temptations to my unworthy Ma-neuvre with Leo. So much I must Say in Palliation of my enormous Error.
Frederick, Rousseau. We both stand convicted.
Frederick— I deserved to be
damned the extream of Punishment at least to
suffer long in Purgatory a very lasting Purgation: But am filled with
Gratitude equal to my Remorse. Gratitude that Goodness could forgive when Justice
might have punished.
Rousseau. I was less guilty than you—Yet I have infinite cause of Gratitude also.
Frederick and Rousseau.— If it were permitted We would chear-fully return to Earth and undergo the Pains and Anxieties of Life once more, if We might have an Opportunity of expiating our Faults by Warning Mankind against our Errors.
This little thing, was written at Richmond Hill, or Church Hill,
where I lived in New York in 1789, in an Evening after the News arrived of Dr Franklins Death, and after I had retired to my Family,
after presiding in the Senate of U. S. The moment when it was written is the most
curious Circumstance attending it.
MS (Adams Papers); docketed by JA: “Dialogue.”; notation by CFA: “Written in 1789. / See the memorandum of J A. at the end.”
News of Benjamin Franklin’s death from pleurisy on 17 April
reached JA and Congress five days later. Imitating a literary genre
popularized by the Syrian satirist Lucian of Samosata (b. ca. 120 A.D.) and, more recently, by the French writer
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757), JA imagined a conversation
among four historical figures who awaited Franklin’s arrival in the afterlife:
Charlemagne, Frederick II, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and James Otis. Another writer to
experiment with this particular literary format was George Lyttelton, Baron Lyttelton,
who published an example in 1760 that JA enjoyed (Jefferson, Papers
,
19:78;
Oxford Classical
Dicy.
;
Catalogue of JA’s Library
; Hoefer, Nouv. biog.
générale
;
AFC
, 10:293).
JA filed away this composition, which is published
here for the first time. Over two decades later, while searching “among a heap of
forgotten rubbish for another paper, it Struck my Eye,” JA wrote. He sent
a copy to Mercy Otis Warren in Sept. 1813, remembering the piece as simply “the
Effusion of a musing Moment.” She replied on 12 Sept., revealing that she had been
“deeply affected” by JA’s essay: “The sketch in my hand in connection
with some of the greatest actors who have exhibited their parts on this narrow stage
of human action, is a proof of your correct knowledge of history and your capacity for
comparing the ages of Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Rousseau, and Otis, though in
times so remote from each other, and drawing the results of their sentiments and
transactions and the operation thereof on the moral conduct of mankind in our own age
and in that of Posterity” (JA to Warren, 1 Sept., NHi:Gilder Lehrman Coll., on deposit;
Warren-Adams
Letters
, 73:386–387).
The people want to be deceived, so let them be deceived.
th.April. 1790.
It is sometime since I had the pleasure of addressing you1 but as I know it will not be displeasing to know
the sentiments of your countrymen, on the determination of Congress not to assume the
State Debts, I wou’d mention them.— the State Creditors think they are equally entitl’d
to the benefits of the Genl. Government with the Continental
Creditors. their property or services were advanc’d for the benefit of their Country at
the earliest period, perhaps had they not exerted themselves the Country wou’d have been
subdued. they presum’d, when they so readily gave their consent to the adoption of the
New Government & agreed to relinquish the funds from which they were paid their Interest, that the Genl.
Govt., after receiving the resources wou’d have generously
provided for their Interest equally with other Creditors. much has been said on the
subject of 329 discrimination but in this State, (in the opinion
of the Treasurer) two thirds of the Debt is in the possession of the original Creditors
or become the property of their Heirs. most of them were persons in trade & it is
now openly said why shou’d We, pay duties to a government,
from which we are, not to
receive any benefit. must we increase the Revenue for the benefit of those, who never riskt their property till they cou’d purchase into the
Funds at an eight of their value— these sentiments are generally expressd. If Congress do not assume the State Debts & fund the
whole Debt there is great danger that the publick revenue will sink very considerably.—
the Publick Papers may puff off the increasing trade of America. but you may rely on it
in this State it is on the decline. Our Fishery is discourag’d & is lessen’d One
hundred sail this Spring. much was expected from the Carrying Trade. a number of fine
Ships were built the last year for that business, & had they met with success
numbers wou’d have been added this season. but wherever we go, we find the Harbours
crouded with British Shipping which have the preference.— whilst our own Ships sail the
Coast from Boston to Georgia beging a Freight.
The British have lately prohibited the importation of any goods
even in British Ships which are not the produce of America— Why cannot Congress say,
that no Goods, Ware or Merchandize shall be imported in British Ships but what are the
Growth or Manufacture of Great Britain surely we have a right to retaliate when it is so
much for our Interest. the intention of the British Act is to discourage our East India
Trade. as large quantitys of Cotton have been imported from India & reship’d to
Great Britain in British Ships— The scarcity of Specie is very great. all the
circulating Cash we can procure goes for Duties & is immediately sent of for
New-York. & from the slow movements of Congress it is uncertain whether it is to be
paid back in some Years. the Drafts on our Bank to exchange
Notes for Specie to send to New-York. has been so great lately that the Bank has stopt
discounting.—! cou’d not a National Bank be establish’d & their Bills have a
Currency thro’ the States!— this wou’d facilitate the collection of the Revenue &
essentially serve the trade of the whole Continent.— We are in hopes that Congress will
reconsider the subject of assumption & fund the whole.—
by this measure they will unite State & Continental Creditors in the support of one
firm energetick Government, & make it their Interest to unite in the regular
collection of the Revenue—& put an end to all partial
State Excise Laws— if this is not done, there will be a very powerful body of
State Creditors 330 constantly opposing the proceedings of the Fœderal
Government & preventing the collection of the Impost.—
Mrs. S. joins me in our best regards to
Mrs. Adams & yourself.
Yr Most. H Sert
m.Smith.
RC (Adams Papers).
Of 14 Dec. 1789, above.