John Adams’ America: A Government Too Perfect to Rebel Against

John Adams published a book of three volumes in 1787, some five years after the end of the American revolution called A Defense of the Conditions of Government of the United States of America, which argued for the benefits of the American state’s constitutions (not the federal constitution, which had not come to pass yet) for a primarily European audience. As an ambassador to European countries, particularly France, he had encountered much criticism of the American system of government and wrote this book to counter that criticism. One of the preconceptions that he had to combat among Europeans is their distaste for revolutions. To counter this, he displays an openly anti-rebellion lean in the Preface to his book. In the Preface to this work, John Adams displays that he is anti-revolutionary against America because of his fear of the “pendulum” model of revolution, his belief that nearly any government is better than the semi-anarchy of Greece, and his belief in the near perfection of the American system.

The primary reason that Adams was against revolution in the Preface was that America’s revolution had been won, and history had shown Adams the dangers of perpetual revolution. Adams had read Thucydides’ account of the bloody fighting of factions throughout Greece and the perpetual revolution they had brought, which pitted father against son, lender against borrower, and family against family. Moreover, the picture that Thucydides paints is one of absolute terror, with blood mattering not and the social structure of Greece basically turned upside down. This exaggerated account of the revolution in Greece horrified Adams. Adams explains that perpetual revolution will happen in a system where the political parties are unbalanced. Only in a balanced system, Adams argues can the death and destruction that characterized Thucydides’ account be prevented. Adams alters Thucydides’ point that all revolutions must end in another revolution so long as human nature stays constant by stating that only “cities” with unbalanced parties will be condemned to eternal revolution. He believes that a system of government based on a separation of powers would provide the leverage needed to stop the pendulum of revolution.

Adams’ firm belief that the separation of powers between three branches will end the perpetual and bloody revolution contributed to his anti-revolutionary Preface. John Adams was one of the first in the colonies to advocate for a separation of powers, and thus it is not a surprise that he believes in his own system’s ability to prevent revolution. The belief in his own system is based on the idea that all revolutions have been caused by human greed that he explains in the Preface. The greed of the three branches was organized so that they would cancel and create a “balance” in which all branches would serve the people. This balance, as stated above, was seen as the only way to end the perpetual revolution. Interestingly, to Adams, it was not necessary that the wheel of revolution ends on perfect republicanism so much as that it simply ended that mattered most. This is shown by his use of the examples of several authoritarian countries in Europe, such as Holland, Venice, and Bern. Adams writes that “we shall learn to prize the checks and balance of a free government, and even those of modern aristocracies if we recollect the miseries of Greece”. It is fascinating that the stability of the aristocracies of Europe, regardless of the fact that they were authoritarian, was valued more than the violence of the revolution and the possibility of perpetual revolution. Thus, so long as the system of government in America did not perpetuate the pendulum of revolution, it was viewed as positive and made Adams seem antirevolutionary.

Lastly, Adams believed that since the goal of revolution is to change government, the only change from American constitutionalism would be negative, and thus revolution was a negative. While any stable government is preferable to the carnage of the Greek revolution, Adams says that there is a way for a government to be more perfect, that is by the clarity through which the people’s will are enacted in government. To show the virtue of this system of government, Adams asserts that the American system of constitutionalism is superior to even the most perfect simple monarchy. Since the best monarchs would be defined as those who best represented the people, even the best and most well-intentioned monarchs would only represent the people as well as the republic and separated powers system of America. And since the vast majority of monarchs, as Adams knows, are not perfect, then the republic system is simply a more perfect system of government. Thus, the American system was already perfect, as Adams stated that the main effect if the American people rebelled would be a return to a monarchy.

John Adams is interesting, because while he was one of the most fervent early advocates for independence from England, he also wrote later in his life about the dangers of revolution, particularly in his Preface to A Defense of the Conditions of Government of the United States of America. However, it is best to look at this document as a defense of America and a belief that America should not be rebelled against, rather than as a work that condemns revolution in general. This is seen because of Adams’ intense fear of perpetual revolution. He believed that any unbalanced political system would have revolution, and almost any system that was stable would be better than the unbalanced system that Adams read about in Thucydides. Lastly, Adams argues that since a government can be judged solely on how clearly it interprets the will of the people, there is no reason to rebel against America. Even the best king, Adams reasons, would be only as good as the republic constitutionalism that America wishes to establish because both can only represent the people. Thus, while Adams did advocate for the American Revolutionary war, he did not wish to have a perpetual revolution and began cautioning against it soon after the Revolutionary war was over.