Well done Professor Allen!! Oh how I long for a return to this mindset: “May none but honest and wise [People] ever rule under this roof.” Our current politics are driven by ego-centric, power-hungry, dishonest fools. Where are my friends who claim to love the Founders and our Constitution? It’s being trampled on, reduced to rubbish and ignored — All in the name of pure, unbridled, partisan power. Shame on all of us.
Speaking of Adams, I sometimes wonder how much he directly or indirectly influenced The Renovator's logo--which I like a lot!
The logo always reminds me of something I first learned in your enlightening book "Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality." The beginning of "Our Declaration" opened my eyes to the revolutionary insight that the best and brightest of the American Revolution did not see "revolution" as meaning war or violence. The essence of revolution is something much more ephemeral and enlightened.
They saw revolution, in part, like Newton saw revolution, i.e., planets revolving around the sun. John Dickinson (the “Penman of the Revolution,” who started the ball rolling with his writing and who participated in preparing both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution (but signed neither)) even said so expressly. Dickinson invoked the solar system to illustrate the concept of federalism (the division of power between the federal government and the state governments): "Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general [federal] government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits."
Revolution also meant something much like reformation, as in enlightenment in religion. John Adams even said so explicitly. “The Revolution was effected before the war [even] commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People. A Change in their Religious Sentiments of their Duties and Obligations.” The Divine Right of Kings was dead. Our Declaration of 1776 declared the self-evident (and even God-given) right of the People to rule ourselves. Our Constitution of 1788 secured what the Declaration declared and what the people had fought for in the Revolutionary War.
Maybe John Dickinson was the first American to invoke the solar system to illustrate our system of government, but John Adams and James Wilson greatly improved on Dickinson's vision. Our Declaration's first and second sentences essentially declared that the People were at the center of the system. Then, our Constitution created a system in which the Constitution is at the center and everyone with any power (state or federal, legislative, executive or judicial and even factions of people) revolve around our Constitution and the People as one society.
Very nice! Adams certainly earned the title the “Colossus of Independence,” but (for multiple important reasons, I think) he should be known as a "Titan of the Constitution" or perhaps the "Grandfather of the Constitution." So I hope we'll see a sequel that follows up on your writing about Adams's relevance to the creation of constitutions in your book "Our Declaration." Until I read what you wrote, I never realized that Adams was crucial to our Constitution, and independence was only the beginning.
James Madison (who learned much from John Adams and James Wilson) rightly became famous as the "Father of the Constitution" and the "Father of the Bill of Rights." Washington (chosen by Adams) became known as the "Father of his Country." But our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and our country wouldn't even exist (and Madison and Washington and even Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall would have been who they were) without John Adams.
As you addressed in "Our Declaration," it was Adams who in 1775-1776 started and guided the process that culminated in the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights. First, Adams told 13 sovereign nation-states to take a step that was crucial to the Constitution of the United States. Thanks to Adams, the states did something never done before (and which still has not been done in Britain)--they put constitutions into writing. Jefferson's own effort to write the Declaration of Independence even followed (very closely) his own prior effort to write a proposed constitution for Virginia.
Second, Adams did far more than suggest the foregoing crucial step. Adams even showed the nascent nations how to walk as real republics. He courageously published for all to consider and criticize his "Thoughts on Government." Adams's Thoughts included the following powerful message to those writing state constitutions (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0026-0004):
"[T]here is no good government but what is Republican" and "the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; because the very definition of a Republic, is “an Empire of Laws, and not of men.” "[A]s a Republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words that form of government, which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best of Republics."
"As good government, is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made? In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble, to make laws: The first necessary step then, is, to depute power from the many, to a few of the most wise and good. But by what rules shall you chuse your Representatives? Agree upon the number and qualifications of persons, who shall have the benefit of choosing, or annex this priviledge to the inhabitants of a certain extent of ground."
Third, Adams was the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, in which he again expressly emphasized that ours is "a government of laws, and not of men."
Fourth, Adams led the states in taking an additional crucial step in the process that culminated in the U.S. Constitution. He had the written constitution of the nation-state of Massachusetts of 1780 be ratified by the people. Seven years later, that mode of making law was copied into the U.S. Constitution (Article VII). That vital step established the U.S. Constitution as the paramount law of the supreme law of the land.
In the crucial SCOTUS opinion about our Constitution in Marbury v. Madison in 1803 (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137), Chief Justice Marshall and SCOTUS copied Adams's statement and elaborated on its tremendous power. “The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men.” Marshall and SCOTUS also showed how to prove this self-evident truth.
"The constitution is" necessarily the "paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means." "[T]he particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle [that is] essential to all written constitutions, that" any conduct of any purported public servant "repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as [all] other departments [and judges and all other public servants], are bound by that instrument," i.e., our Constitution.
"Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law. [Such a] doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void; is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare, that if [any mere public servant] shall do what is expressly forbidden [by our Constitution], such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to [such purported public servant] a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed as pleasure."
"Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions" (especially constitutions that were ratified by the People) "contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that" any "act" of any purported public servant "repugnant to the constitution, is void."
Much of Marbury and copious other SCOTUS precedent construing and applying our Constitution flowed from the work and words of John Adams.
Well done Professor Allen!! Oh how I long for a return to this mindset: “May none but honest and wise [People] ever rule under this roof.” Our current politics are driven by ego-centric, power-hungry, dishonest fools. Where are my friends who claim to love the Founders and our Constitution? It’s being trampled on, reduced to rubbish and ignored — All in the name of pure, unbridled, partisan power. Shame on all of us.
If you'd like to see that actual mantel (https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/adamss-blessing-was-carved-into-the-state-dining-room-mantel-in-1945) it is now located in President Truman's Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri (on the outskirts of Kansas City, MO). See https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-records/2006-66
Thankfully its relocation in Missouri will spare it from getting stained by ketchup at the hands of an extremely unwise fraudster.....
Speaking of Adams, I sometimes wonder how much he directly or indirectly influenced The Renovator's logo--which I like a lot!
The logo always reminds me of something I first learned in your enlightening book "Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality." The beginning of "Our Declaration" opened my eyes to the revolutionary insight that the best and brightest of the American Revolution did not see "revolution" as meaning war or violence. The essence of revolution is something much more ephemeral and enlightened.
They saw revolution, in part, like Newton saw revolution, i.e., planets revolving around the sun. John Dickinson (the “Penman of the Revolution,” who started the ball rolling with his writing and who participated in preparing both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution (but signed neither)) even said so expressly. Dickinson invoked the solar system to illustrate the concept of federalism (the division of power between the federal government and the state governments): "Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general [federal] government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits."
Revolution also meant something much like reformation, as in enlightenment in religion. John Adams even said so explicitly. “The Revolution was effected before the war [even] commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People. A Change in their Religious Sentiments of their Duties and Obligations.” The Divine Right of Kings was dead. Our Declaration of 1776 declared the self-evident (and even God-given) right of the People to rule ourselves. Our Constitution of 1788 secured what the Declaration declared and what the people had fought for in the Revolutionary War.
Maybe John Dickinson was the first American to invoke the solar system to illustrate our system of government, but John Adams and James Wilson greatly improved on Dickinson's vision. Our Declaration's first and second sentences essentially declared that the People were at the center of the system. Then, our Constitution created a system in which the Constitution is at the center and everyone with any power (state or federal, legislative, executive or judicial and even factions of people) revolve around our Constitution and the People as one society.
Very nice! Adams certainly earned the title the “Colossus of Independence,” but (for multiple important reasons, I think) he should be known as a "Titan of the Constitution" or perhaps the "Grandfather of the Constitution." So I hope we'll see a sequel that follows up on your writing about Adams's relevance to the creation of constitutions in your book "Our Declaration." Until I read what you wrote, I never realized that Adams was crucial to our Constitution, and independence was only the beginning.
James Madison (who learned much from John Adams and James Wilson) rightly became famous as the "Father of the Constitution" and the "Father of the Bill of Rights." Washington (chosen by Adams) became known as the "Father of his Country." But our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and our country wouldn't even exist (and Madison and Washington and even Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall would have been who they were) without John Adams.
As you addressed in "Our Declaration," it was Adams who in 1775-1776 started and guided the process that culminated in the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights. First, Adams told 13 sovereign nation-states to take a step that was crucial to the Constitution of the United States. Thanks to Adams, the states did something never done before (and which still has not been done in Britain)--they put constitutions into writing. Jefferson's own effort to write the Declaration of Independence even followed (very closely) his own prior effort to write a proposed constitution for Virginia.
Second, Adams did far more than suggest the foregoing crucial step. Adams even showed the nascent nations how to walk as real republics. He courageously published for all to consider and criticize his "Thoughts on Government." Adams's Thoughts included the following powerful message to those writing state constitutions (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0026-0004):
"[T]here is no good government but what is Republican" and "the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; because the very definition of a Republic, is “an Empire of Laws, and not of men.” "[A]s a Republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or in other words that form of government, which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best of Republics."
"As good government, is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made? In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble, to make laws: The first necessary step then, is, to depute power from the many, to a few of the most wise and good. But by what rules shall you chuse your Representatives? Agree upon the number and qualifications of persons, who shall have the benefit of choosing, or annex this priviledge to the inhabitants of a certain extent of ground."
Third, Adams was the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, in which he again expressly emphasized that ours is "a government of laws, and not of men."
Fourth, Adams led the states in taking an additional crucial step in the process that culminated in the U.S. Constitution. He had the written constitution of the nation-state of Massachusetts of 1780 be ratified by the people. Seven years later, that mode of making law was copied into the U.S. Constitution (Article VII). That vital step established the U.S. Constitution as the paramount law of the supreme law of the land.
In the crucial SCOTUS opinion about our Constitution in Marbury v. Madison in 1803 (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137), Chief Justice Marshall and SCOTUS copied Adams's statement and elaborated on its tremendous power. “The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men.” Marshall and SCOTUS also showed how to prove this self-evident truth.
"The constitution is" necessarily the "paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means." "[T]he particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle [that is] essential to all written constitutions, that" any conduct of any purported public servant "repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as [all] other departments [and judges and all other public servants], are bound by that instrument," i.e., our Constitution.
"Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law. [Such a] doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void; is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare, that if [any mere public servant] shall do what is expressly forbidden [by our Constitution], such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to [such purported public servant] a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed as pleasure."
"Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions" (especially constitutions that were ratified by the People) "contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that" any "act" of any purported public servant "repugnant to the constitution, is void."
Much of Marbury and copious other SCOTUS precedent construing and applying our Constitution flowed from the work and words of John Adams.