The education of John Adams
Preface "Let us dare to read, think, speak and write" -- "Something should be said of my origin": From Braintree to Harvard (1735-1755) -- "It is my Destiny to dig Treasures with my own fingers": Law and Marriage (1755-1765) -- "Britain and America are staring at e...
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| Format: | UnknownFormat |
| Sprache: | eng |
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New York, NY
Oxford University Press
2020
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Tag hinzufügen | Zusammenfassung: | Preface "Let us dare to read, think, speak and write" -- "Something should be said of my origin": From Braintree to Harvard (1735-1755) -- "It is my Destiny to dig Treasures with my own fingers": Law and Marriage (1755-1765) -- "Britain and America are staring at each other": Revolutionary Advocate (1761-1774) -- "We must for the future stand upon our own Leggs or fall": Continental Congress and Independence (1774-1777) -- "May the Design of my Voyage be answered": Revolutionary Diplomat, Polemicist, and Constitution-Maker (1777-1783) -- "every phenomenon that occurs in the history of government": American Minister and Constitutional Commentator (1783-1788) -- "The most insignificant office": Vice President (1788-1797) -- "May none but wise and honest Men ever rule under this roof": President John Adams (1797-1801) -- "In dogmatizing, laughing, and scolding I find delight": Retirement (1801-1812) -- "What was the Revolution?" The Sage of Quincy (1812-1826) -- Epilogue: "Whether you or I were right Posterity must judge.": The Legacies of John Adams "'Let us dare to read, think, speak and write ...' In 1765, John Adams, a twenty-nine-year-old Massachusetts lawyer, pondered the crisis engulfing Great Britain and its North American colonies. In his view, the dispute's focus was how the British Empire was to be governed under the unwritten English constitution. To address that problem, Adams drafted a pamphlet, "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law." He likened Britain's abuse of its authority over the colonists to the enslavement of medieval Europe by kings and lords allied with the Roman Catholic Church. Juxtaposing dangers past and present, he warned that a new tyranny was on the horizon, but, he added, the colonists had means to resist it. Knowledge of American rights under the English constitution, he maintained, would bolster American resistance: "This spirit [of liberty], however, without knowledge, would be little better than a brutal rage. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write." 1 Adams's exhortation to his readers illuminated his life, his part in the American Revolution, and his role in the evolution of American constitutionalism. In the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers fought in different ways and using different means. Adams marshaled words and arguments in the American revolutionary cause. As lawyer, politician, legislator, constitution-maker, diplomat, and executive, he mobilized legal and historical knowledge for the greater good, drawing on the best of the past to save the future: Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell. Adams lived with books at his elbow and a pen in his hand. Insatiably curious about the world around him, he educated himself and sought to teach his contemporaries and posterity what he had learned. These lifelong processes of learning and teaching constitute the education of John Adams. 2 Previous studies of Adams use one of two competing approaches to Adams, neither capturing his life's complexity or significance. |
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| Beschreibung: | viii, 349 Seiten Illustrationen Erratum |
| ISBN: | 9780199740239 978-0-19-974023-9 |