This weekend, we celebrate the 235th Anniversary of our nation.
As some of you are aware, one of our founders, John Adams, thought that the day our representatives to the Continental Congress actually signed the Declaration would be the day we recognize and celebrate:
Writing to his wife, Abigail, Adams penned that
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever.”
Certainly we have taken Adams words to heart on this day.
But in addition to being a president, Founder, ambassador, and statesman, Adams can arguably be called the Father of American conservatism, and we’d be wise to take his words on other matters to heart too.
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power. The passions are all unlimited; nature has left them so,” he said.
He also writes of the revolutionary changes in the late 18th Century that “Emulation next to self-preservation will forever be the great spring of human actions, and the balance of a well-ordered government will alone be able to prevent that emulation from denigrating into dangerous ambition, irregular rivalries, destructive factions, wasting seditions, and bloody civil wars.”
Russell Kirk, in his landmark book, “The Conservative Mind”, first published in 1953, said “Federalism has had a great share in keeping the United States the most conservative power remaining in the world, and thus in the middle of the 20th Century the conservatism of Adams exerts an influence quite as strong as the radical social principles disseminated by his French adversaries. So much John Adams with his outward vanity and his inward humility, never would have expected.”
And, as we debate ObamaCare, federal agencies imposing unlegislated regulations, and unauthorized military actions, remembering John Adams and his principles on government would serve us well.
And if you haven’t read, “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot” yet, what are you waiting for? Additionally, the Liberty Fund has published Adams’ collected works – it’s a goldmine of conservative thought and ideas on government. While reading the Federalist Papers is important, reading Adams, to learn the thoughts of a conservative Founder and what he thought is the proper role for government, is equally important.
