• About
  • Photography

The Bully Pulpit

~ (n): An office or position that provides its occupant with an outstanding opportunity to speak out on any issue.

The Bully Pulpit

Tag Archives: James Bowdoin

What to be Wary of in Your Government

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in History, Politics

≈ Comments Off on What to be Wary of in Your Government

Tags

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American History, American Philosophical Society, American Revolution, Christopher Hitchens, founding, founding fathers, Government, James Bowdoin, James Warren, John Adams, John Hancock, letter, politics, Thomas Jefferson

John Adams

“The management of so complicated and mighty a machine, as the United Colonies, requires the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon, added to the valour of Daniel…

We may feel sanguine confidence of our strength: yet in a few years it may be put to the tryal.

We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular governments. But there is great danger, that those governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear, that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence, by noise not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance not learning. By contracted hearts not large souls. I fear too, that it will be impossible to convince and perswade People to establish wise regulations.

There is one thing, my dear sir, that must be attempted and most sacredly observed or we are all undone. There must be a decency, and respect… introduced for persons in authority, of every rank, or we are undone. In a popular Government, this is the only way of supporting order—and in our circumstances, as our People have been so long without any Government at all, it is more necessary than, in any other.”

__________

John Adams, writing to his friend and Paymaster General of the Continental Army, James Warren, on April 22nd, 1776.

It’s critical to keep in mind exactly what Adams and the founders meant by “happy” in the context of writing about government and law. As Robert P. George recently clarified:

The term “happiness” in the 18th century—and, in fact, until quite recently—did not refer simply to a pleasing or desirable psychological state—one that might be induced by virtue, vice, or, for that matter, some pharmacological product. It included the idea of flourishing or all round well-being, which necessarily was understood to involve virtue. (As in “happy the man who walks the path of justice.”) In other words, it was a morally inflected locution.

Exactly two decades following the delivery of this letter, Adams himself would be elected to the Presidency. Commenting on that event, Christopher Hitchens noted, “It is perhaps both heartening and sobering to reflect that, in the contest between Jefferson and Adams in 1796, the electors were offered a choice between the President of the American Philosophical Society and the founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and chose both of them.” Jefferson was President of the APS in 1780 (Benjamin Franklin had founded the society in 1743), and John Adams founded the AAAS with John Hancock and James Bowdoin during the American Revolution. In the election of 1796, Adams carried 71 electoral votes to become President, barely edging Jefferson’s 68.

More Adams:

  • Meet John Adams
  • My favorite Adams letter: to his wife, on his self-esteem
  • Adams’s spot on prediction of how we’d celebrate the Fourth of July

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Meet Thomas Jefferson

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Biography, History, Politics

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American History, American Philosophical Society, Biography, election of 1796, Government, history, James Bowdoin, John Adams, John Hancock, Jon Meacham, politics, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, U.S. history

Thomas Jefferson

“He loved his wife, his books, his farms, good wine, architecture, Homer, horseback riding, history, France, the Commonwealth of Virginia, spending money, and the very latest in ideas and insights. He believed in America, and in Americans. The nation, he said in his first inaugural address in 1801, was ‘the world’s best hope.’ He thought Americans themselves capable of virtually anything they put their minds to. ‘Whatever they can, they will,’ Jefferson said of his countrymen in 1814.

A formidable man, ‘Mr. Jefferson was as tall, straight-bodied man as ever you see, right square-shouldered,’ said Isaac Granger Jefferson, a Monticello slave. ‘Neat a built man as ever was seen … a straight-up man, long face, high nose.’ Edmund Bacon, a Monticello overseer, said that Jefferson ‘was like a fine horse; he had no surplus flesh.… His countenance was always mild and pleasant.’…

A philosopher and a scientist, a naturalist and a historian, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment, always looking forward, consumed by the quest for knowledge. He adored detail, noting the temperature each day and carrying a tiny, ivory-leaved notebook in his pocket to track his daily expenditures. He drove his horses hard and fast and considered the sun his ‘almighty physician.’ Jefferson was fit and virile, a terrific horseman and inveterate walker. He drank no hard liquor but loved wine, taking perhaps three glasses a day. He did not smoke. When he received gifts of Havana cigars from well-wishers, he passed them along to friends.

Jefferson never tired of invention and inquiry, designing dumbwaiters and hidden mechanisms to open doors at Monticello. He delighted in archaeology, paleontology, astronomy, botany, and meteorology, and once created his own version of the Gospels by excising the New Testament passages he found supernatural or implausible and arranging the remaining verses in the order he believed they should be read. He drew sustenance from music and found joy in gardening. He bought and built beautiful things, creating Palladian plans for Monticello and the Roman-inspired capitol of Virginia, which he designed after seeing an ancient temple in Nîmes, in the south of France. He was an enthusiastic patron of pasta, took the trouble to copy down a French recipe for ice cream, and enjoyed the search for the perfect dressing for his salads. He kept shepherd dogs (two favorites were named Bergere and Grizzle). He knew Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish.

He was also a student of human nature, a keen observer of what drove other men, and he loved knowing the details of other lives…

A guest at a country inn was said to have once struck up a conversation with a ‘plainly-dressed and unassuming traveler’ whom the stranger did not recognize. The two covered subject after subject, and the unremarkable traveler was ‘perfectly acquainted with each.’ Afterward, ‘filled with wonder,’ the guest asked the landlord who this extraordinary man was. When the topic was the law, the traveler said, ‘he thought he was a lawyer’; when it was medicine, he ‘felt sure he was a physician’; when it was theology, ‘he became convinced that he was a clergyman.’

The landlord’s reply was brief. ‘Oh, why I thought you knew the Squire.'”

__________

From the prologue to Jon Meacham’s biography Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.

If you enjoyed the above excerpt, check out a similarly readable and expansive biographical sketch of one of Jefferson’s chief political rivals and late-life companions, John Adams, in an excerpt pulled from David McCullough’s eponymous biography:

John Adams

Meet John Adams

Click here for the rest of the Bully Pulpit’s posts relating to Jefferson or the American founders.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Today’s Top Pages

  • "Coming" by Philip Larkin
    "Coming" by Philip Larkin
  • Einstein's Daily Routine
    Einstein's Daily Routine
  • "Provide, Provide" by Robert Frost
    "Provide, Provide" by Robert Frost
  • Two Things Fill the Mind with Awe
    Two Things Fill the Mind with Awe
  • "Immortality Ode" by William Wordsworth
    "Immortality Ode" by William Wordsworth

Enter your email address to follow The Bully Pulpit - you'll receive notifications of new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Recent Posts

  • The Other Side of Feynman
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald on Succeeding Early in Life
  • The Man Who Most Believed in Himself
  • What ’60s Colleges Did Right
  • Dostoyevsky’s Example of a Good Kid

Archives

  • April 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (3)
  • January 2018 (3)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (3)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (2)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (2)
  • June 2017 (2)
  • May 2017 (2)
  • April 2017 (2)
  • March 2017 (1)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (4)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (2)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (4)
  • November 2015 (8)
  • October 2015 (7)
  • September 2015 (11)
  • August 2015 (10)
  • July 2015 (7)
  • June 2015 (12)
  • May 2015 (7)
  • April 2015 (17)
  • March 2015 (23)
  • February 2015 (17)
  • January 2015 (22)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (17)
  • October 2014 (13)
  • September 2014 (9)
  • August 2014 (2)
  • July 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (20)
  • May 2014 (17)
  • April 2014 (24)
  • March 2014 (19)
  • February 2014 (12)
  • January 2014 (21)
  • December 2013 (13)
  • November 2013 (15)
  • October 2013 (9)
  • September 2013 (10)
  • August 2013 (17)
  • July 2013 (28)
  • June 2013 (28)
  • May 2013 (23)
  • April 2013 (22)
  • March 2013 (12)
  • February 2013 (21)
  • January 2013 (21)
  • December 2012 (9)
  • November 2012 (18)
  • October 2012 (22)
  • September 2012 (28)

Categories

  • Biography (51)
  • Current Events (47)
  • Debate (7)
  • Essay (10)
  • Film (10)
  • Freedom (40)
  • History (122)
  • Humor (15)
  • Interview (71)
  • Journalism (16)
  • Literature (82)
  • Music (1)
  • Original (1)
  • Personal (3)
  • Philosophy (87)
  • Photography (4)
  • Poetry (114)
  • Political Philosophy (41)
  • Politics (108)
  • Psychology (35)
  • Religion (74)
  • Science (27)
  • Speeches (52)
  • Sports (12)
  • War (57)
  • Writing (11)

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
    %d bloggers like this: