Inaugural Address (John Adams)

Summary

John Adams delivered his inaugural address on 4 March 1797 in the House chamber of Congress Hall, Philadelphia, with George Washington, now a private citizen, looking on. It was the first time the presidency passed from one man to another, and Adams had won by only three electoral votes over Thomas Jefferson, who became his Vice President. Adams begins not with himself but with the founding. In the Revolution, men of reflection feared quarrels over forms of government more than British fleets; the colonists "launched into an ocean of uncertainty." Popular zeal supplied order for a time, but the Confederation, modeled on the Dutch and Swiss leagues, decayed into "universal languor," rivalries among the States, collapsing credit, and insurrection. In that crisis the people kept their good sense and framed the Constitution. Adams, then a diplomat abroad, first read it in a foreign country and approved it as "the result of good heads prompted by good hearts." He then praises republican government in its own terms. No spectacle is nobler than officers chosen at regular periods by their neighbors; nothing essential can be added "by robes and diamonds." The danger lies in corrupted elections: if a single deciding vote can be bought by party artifice or by foreign "flattery or menaces," then "it may be foreign nations who govern us." After a tribute to Washington's "prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude," Adams states his own program in one immense sentence of "if" clauses: attachment to the Constitution, impartial regard for every region, love of virtuous men of all parties, support for schools and colleges, equity toward the Indian nations, neutrality between the warring powers of Europe, esteem for France joined with redress for injuries to American commerce, and "a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service." He closes by asking the blessing of the Being he calls "the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice."

Plot or Argument

• An ocean of uncertainty

  Adams recalls that the Revolutionary leaders feared disputes over forms of government more than enemy arms, yet broke the chains being forged and "launched into an ocean of uncertainty" under Providence.

• The Confederation's melancholy consequences

  Wartime zeal kept order for a time, but the Articles, modeled on Dutch and Swiss leagues, produced neglect, rivalries, commercial decline, lost credit, and insurrection.

• A constitution first read abroad

  The people framed a more perfect union; Adams, serving overseas, read the Constitution free of party heat, approved it, and has grown in "habitual attachment to it and veneration for it."

• No need of robes and diamonds

  Government by citizens chosen at regular periods is called the noblest spectacle a nation can present, proof of "knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people."

• Foreign hands on a single vote

  Adams warns that elections won by party corruption or foreign intrigue would make the government the choice of a faction or of foreign nations rather than of the American people.

• Tribute to Washington

  The retiring President is praised for the four cardinal virtues and for a voluntary retirement whose example Congress has commended to his successors.

• The great conditional sentence

  In a single sentence of many "if" clauses, Adams lists the principles he hopes will fit him for office, from impartiality among States to neutrality in Europe's wars and respect for Christianity.

• Patron of Order

  He pledges to support the Constitution "to the utmost of my power" and asks the Supreme Being to bless the nation within "the ends of His providence."

Lessons

• Narrating the founding to justify loyalty

  Adams spends the first third of his address on history: the Revolution, the failed Confederation, and the Constitution as the people's remedy. His loyalty to the Constitution rests on that story; the narrative is the argument.

  • Why does Adams describe the Confederation's failures in such detail at an inauguration?
  • What does Adams gain by noting that he first read the Constitution abroad, "heated by no party animosity"?
  • Is a nation's founding story a sound basis for loyalty, or must loyalty rest on principles alone?

• Corrupted elections and foreign influence

  Adams imagines an election decided by "a majority of a single vote" bought by a party or a foreign power. In 1797, with France and Britain both courting American factions, the warning was concrete: a purchased choice would have "little advantage to boast of over lot or chance."

  • Why does Adams say a corrupted election is no better than "lot or chance"?
  • What means of foreign influence does he list, and which seem most dangerous?
  • Later in the address Adams calls foreign influence "the angel of destruction to elective governments." What makes elective governments especially vulnerable?

• The long sentence of "if" clauses

  Adams's self-description runs as one sentence of conditional clauses, each naming a qualification he hopes to possess. It ends with "a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians." The form lets him state principles while leaving judgment to his hearers.

  • Why might Adams frame his program as conditions ("if...") rather than promises?
  • Which clauses address the divisions of 1797, such as North and South or France and Britain?
  • What does Adams mean by treating "a decent respect for Christianity" as a recommendation for public service?

Context

Washington's decision not to seek a third term opened the first contested presidential election. Federalists and Republicans divided over the French Revolution, Jay's Treaty with Britain, and the reach of federal power, and France had begun seizing American merchant ships. Adams won 71 electoral votes to Jefferson's 68; under the original rules Jefferson, the runner-up, became Vice President.

Composition

Delivered 4 March 1797 in the House chamber of Congress Hall, Philadelphia, then the seat of government. The text stored here follows the Project Gutenberg transcription (#4938); spelling and punctuation follow that source, including "tranquillity" and "manufacturers" where "manufactures" is meant.

Reception

The peaceful handover from Washington to Adams set a precedent for orderly succession. The neutrality and redress Adams promised were tested within a year by the XYZ Affair and the undeclared naval war with France, and the warnings about foreign influence and party spirit framed the debates over the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

Comparisons

• First Inaugural Address

  Washington in 1789 spoke as the founder of an untried office; Adams in 1797 speaks as the first successor, praising Washington's example and promising to imitate it.

• First Inaugural Address (Jefferson)

  Four years later Jefferson, having defeated Adams, declared "We are all republicans, we are all federalists"; compare that appeal with Adams's "love of virtuous men of all parties and denominations."

• The Federalist Papers

  Adams's list of the Confederation's failures, from lost credit to insurrection, condenses the case Hamilton, Madison, and Jay made at length in the Federalist essays on the defects of the Articles.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The history of the Revolution and the Confederation that opens the address.
• Adams's account of reading the Constitution while serving abroad.
• The "robes and diamonds" contrast between elected and hereditary rule.
• The warning about a single vote bought by party or foreign power.
• The long sentence of "if" clauses near the end.

Key terms and names

Articles of Confederation

The first national frame of government (ratified 1781), whose weaknesses Adams describes before praising the Constitution.

Batavian and Helvetic confederacies

The Dutch and Swiss leagues that Adams says served as models for the Confederation.

Congress Hall

The Philadelphia building where Congress met while the city was the capital, and where Adams took the oath.

Neutrality

The policy, proclaimed by Washington in 1793, of taking no side in the wars of revolutionary France and its enemies; Adams pledges to maintain it.

Venality

Readiness to be bribed; Adams lists it among the ways a foreign power might buy an election.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What failures of the Confederation does Adams list?
2. Comprehension Where was Adams when he first read the Constitution, and how did he judge it?
3. Interpretation Why does Adams say an assembly of elected officers is a nobler sight than any court of "robes and diamonds"?
4. Interpretation What does Adams mean when he says the existence of such a government proves "a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue" among the people?
5. Interpretation How does Adams's praise of Washington's retirement set a standard for his own conduct?
6. Big Question Can a republic survive if its citizens lose the knowledge and virtue Adams thinks its existence proves?
7. Big Question Should a public official's religious character count among his qualifications, as Adams suggests?

Faith Connections

• Proverbs 29:4 (Scripture)

  "The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it" anticipates Adams's warning that bribery, "venality," and foreign gifts would overturn elective government.

• Psalm 72:1 (Scripture)

  "Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son": a prayer at a change of rulers, fitting the first succession from Washington to Adams, who asks God as "the Fountain of Justice" to bless the government.

• Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book III (Great Conversation)

  Montesquieu names virtue as the principle of republics; Adams likewise treats the survival of elected government as proof of virtue "throughout the whole body of the people."

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Because the Constitution was the people's deliberate remedy for the Confederation's failures and has worked as its friends hoped, Adams argues, it deserves veneration, and the chief threat to it is the corruption of free elections by party intrigue or foreign influence.

Rhetorical device: periodic sentence. Adams piles up more than a dozen "if" clauses before reaching the main clause, "it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect."

Debate: Resolved: that Adams was right in 1797 that foreign influence is "the angel of destruction to elective governments."

Memory Work

In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity

The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society

Writing Prompts

Essay: Adams warns that if a single vote can be bought by a party or a foreign nation, election has "little advantage to boast of over lot or chance." Explain his reasoning and what it asks of citizens.

Comparison with First Inaugural Address: Compare Washington's 1789 address with Adams's 1797 address: how does the first President speak of beginning, and how does the second speak of succeeding?

Medical Lens

Presidential inaugurals concern constitutional politics and national crisis; they have no medical content for this library's lens.

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Break Adams's great "if" sentence into a numbered list of qualifications, then mark which ones answer the political quarrels of 1797.

• Fiction

  Write a scene in Congress Hall on 4 March 1797 from the viewpoint of a spectator watching Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in the same room.

• Essay

  Adams says national pride is justifiable only when it springs from "national innocence, information, and benevolence." Explain and evaluate that standard.

Further Reading

• Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, Avalon Project / GPO

  Parallel official texts for classroom comparison.

• The Rhetorical Presidency, Jeffrey K. Tulis

  A study of how inaugural and other presidential speech reshaped the office.