From John Adams to Thomas Welsh, 2 February 1796

To Thomas Welsh

Philadelphia Feb. 2. 1796

My Dear sir

I thank you for your favour of the 25th Ult. and its Contents.

A Governor of a State in a Solemn Speech to both Houses, at the opening of a session, expressing a private Opinion only of a Treaty and that in the most rude insulting and unmeasured Language is such a Complication of Imbecility Hypocricy and Superannuation, As I never heard of.

I pray that my Country may take from me all temptation to remain in office ~~after the app~~ before the Approach of Dotage shall take from me the Capacity of doing any thing but Mischief to the Public and dishonour to my Character.

Whatever Tenderness of Friendship I may feel for a Gadsden a Rutledge a Dickinson, a Warren or an Adams, with all of whom I have acted on the Public stage in earlier Life, I am Stunned and astonished at their Vanity Presumption and Ignorance— I cannot but ascribe it to the Imbecility and decrepitude of Age.

In their Solitudes, unable to read, to converse or to think, destitute of all the Information which Government possesses. do they think to dictate and to domineer, like Pædagogues over school boys?

I wish you would write me oftener and more in detail.—

I am very happy to find that my Friend Dr Eustis has acquitted himself like a good Citizen and a wise and Upright Man upon this occasion. His first Thoughts and feelings on the Treaty I can easily account for, without the Smallest Imputation on his Motives Conduct or Character. His Ultimate Determination to leave the Thing where the Constitution has placed it does honour to his Head and Heart.1

I wrote you about your and Mr Codmans Clover seed and wait your answer.2 My Regards where due

John Adams

RC (MHi:Adams-Welsh Coll.); internal address: “Dr Welsh.”; endorsed: “Vice-President of US / Feby 2: 1796.”

1. Boston physician William Eustis (1753–1825), Harvard 1772, was a member of the Massachusetts house of representatives from 1788 to 1794 and later served in the U.S. House as a Democratic-Republican. Eustis and others spoke out against the proposed Virginia resolutions, which suggested four constitutional amendments intended to reshape federal power. Specifically, they called for the House to approve all treaties; for the Senate to be stripped of the right to hold impeachment trials; for senators’ terms to be shortened to three years; and for judicial appointees to be banned from dual office-holding (Biog. Dir. Cong. description begins Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, Washington, D.C., 2005; rev. edn., bioguide.congress.gov. description ends ; AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 11:105, 169).

2. JA’s 23 Jan. 1796 letter to Welsh has not been found. John Codman Jr. (1755–1803), a Boston merchant, was a longtime friend of JA’s (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, Hobson Woodward, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 7:111).

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Source Project: Adams Papers
Title: From John Adams to Thomas Welsh, 2 February 1796
Author: Adams, John
Recipient: Welsh, Thomas
Date: 2 February 1796

Reference

Cite as: “From John Adams to Thomas Welsh, 2 February 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-21-02-0318. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 21, March 1791–January 1797, ed. Sara Georgini, Sara Martin, R. M. Barlow, Gwen Fries, Amanda M. Norton, and Hobson Woodward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022, pp. 443–444.]

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