IT'S A PURITAN NATION::

LOA: On July 3, 1776, the day after twelve of the thirteen colonies voted for independence, Adams wrote to Abigail: "Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was decided in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men." But Adams's grand vision, enthusiasm, and expectations for the country sour somewhat over the years. Can we trace the path and cause of that change in his writings?

Wood: Certainly. Adams never had an optimistic view of human nature, and his experience in the Congress and abroad only deepened his suspicion that his fellow Americans might not have the character to sustain a republican government. As early as 1776, he expressed his doubts about America's capacity for virtue. "I have seen all along my Life, Such Selfishness, and Littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, altho We are engaged in the best Cause that ever employed the Human Heart, yet the Prospect of success is doubtfull not for Want of Power or of Wisdom, but of Virtue." By the time he came to write his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States in 1787 he had as dark a view of the American character as that of any critic in our history.

LOA: Adams spent the great bulk of those intervening years abroad. Except for a short three-month visit home in 1779, he was occupied with diplomatic missions in Europe for most of the war years and all of the Confederation period. What effect did this long absence from the American scene have on the evolution of his political thought?

Wood: I think he developed a much deeper suspicion of France and the other European powers than he had earlier. He lost much if not all of the utopian thinking about international politics and diplomacy expressed in his Model Treaty of 1776 and became much more cynical about the world. "America," he said in 1781, "is treated unfairly and ungenerously by Europe." But what could one expect? "When Nations are corrupted, and grown generally vicious when they are intoxicated with Wealth or Power, and by this means delivered over to the Government of the baser Passion of their Nature, it is very natural that they should act an irrational part."

Adams's perception of Europe, and especially France, was clearly different than Jefferson's. For Jefferson, the luxury and sophistication of Europe only made American simplicity and virtue appear dearer. For Adams, by contrast, Europe represented what America was fast becoming--a society consumed by luxury and vice and fundamentally riven by a struggle between rich and poor, gentlemen and commoners. His experience with the French philosophes only convinced him further of the need for a bicameral legislature representing the two principal social orders and, equally important, an independent executive.

Perhaps more significant than his experience in Europe, though, was Adams's experience in his own country, and his extensive reading on the history of the English constitution. In 1779, he had an opportunity to try out his ideas by framing the Massachusetts constitution.

LOA: Speaking of which, Adams's 1779 "Report of a Constitution or Form of Government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts" is the oldest working government charter in the world. What about this document explains its enduring effectiveness?

Wood: The Massachusetts constitution was written much later than the other revolutionary state constitutions, and thus it avoids some of the earlier mistakes. The executive is stronger, with a limited veto; the senate is more formidable; and the judiciary is independent. It resembles the federal Constitution of 1787 more closely than any of the other revolutionary state constitutions. It was also drawn up by a special convention, and it provided for popular ratification--practices that were followed by the drafters of the federal Constitution of 1787 and subsequent state constitution-makers.

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